great rocket ships!

These could quite possibly be one of the coolest things I've done.  Plush rocket ships!

I really am not a huge space fan or that in to astronomy.  Although, I did go through a brief time in 6th grade where I thought I wanted to study planets.  (This was back when Pluto was considered a planet.)  But after seeing (and buying) this fabric:

I knew I had to make a rocket ship. 

Sometimes, a new plush design takes me a while to make.  Days, weeks, or even in some cases months!  I usually start by sketching out what I want and then cutting templates out of paper.  Most times I have to make multiple trial runs of a design, but this one just clicked.  

Just listed in the shop.  Perfect for future astronauts or star gazers.

Spring...and bada-bing!

We recently just found out that we got accepted to Spring Bada-Bing this April!  We've done this show three of the past four years and love it.  Not only is it a great and well put together show, but it always gives us an excuse for a little spring trip!

Some of our favorite places to go are here and here and here and to stay is here.

We've been busy working on some new items for the show.  Can't wait to see the official list of vendors for this year's show.  If you're around Richmond, the show is Sun April 17th from 11am-5pm!  

new clutches!

I've been working on a lot of new clutches in the past couple days.  I'm really enjoying playing around with some new designs, especially with water and the sun.  Here's three of the newest ones in the shop. 

Setting Spring Sun by River Clutch

 The Creek in the Woods Spring Flowers Clutch

Snowy Spring Trees Clutch

You + Me + the Jellys (or Jellies)

Ever since seeing the jellyfish exhibit at the Baltimore Aquarium this past fall, I've been really fascinated with them. So much so that I've started to find myself sketching them in groups for no apparent reason. Then, I embroidered this orange one for my current exhibit.

My favorite jelly inspired design so far? Definitely this one. Two jellys (or is it jellies?) holding tentacles in love? Yes.

Offering them as pictured or customized with your choice of names.

Korn and me

Just the other day, the local paper put my "Sewn Stories" exhibit in the "Top 5 Things to Do" at number 3.  Right between a concert by the hard rock band Korn and a lecture about Martin Luther King Jr.  Yeah, that's right Korn.  

For another laugh (or two depending) you can read the interview posted on the Yellow Wall Gallery's blog here:  

In the interview are links to fun things like the Berenstain Bears website and Legos, which is worth the time it takes to read the interview alone!  

Sneak Peek at the Art Show....

So my solo art show is less than 2 weeks away (opening on January 18th) and I've been pretty busy finishing up my final pieces and getting everything framed and ready to be hung.  I've especially enjoyed being able to work on a slightly bigger scale than what I'm used to.  I'm often hindered by the size of the embroidery hoop I'm using, so being able to do things in standard frames and rectangular shapes has been a fun change.
Here's a planning stage shot of a new piece I finished (see the end of post for the final piece).  I initially planned to do a full bear who was turning over some rocks, but settled on using just the back side of the bear.  Here's also my beloved rotary cutter and my brand new cutting mat.  I've been using a really old mat that had all sorts of ink spills and gashes in that sometimes made cutting a straight and even line a little challenging.  

Here's a detail of an embroidered ship that I'm in the middle of.  

Here's a before and after of one of my favorite pieces I just finished. I've been playing around with the concept of having a bear sort of "walk off" the page leaving behind his footprints in the snow. I initially had planned to do this in a circular embroidery hoop, but thought the overall design would seem a little cramped in the space. I decided to go with a more traditional rectangular shape for the design. I love the fabric that the brown bear is made with. I actually have no idea what the official name of this fabric is, but it's sort of suede like on one side and a more flat cotton appearance on the other side. The best part is that it doesn't fray. So it's perfect for using when you want sharp/complex edges and don't want to do a proper applique. I've had pieces of this fabric for years. I acquired a stash in my crafts class my senior year in high school in both this brown color and a forest green. Unfortunately, my stash has been dwindling down pretty fast lately.


And here's the after. I love the contrast of the white snow and dark tree trunks. All the trees were made from leftover scrapes of the felt from my owls. I kept the jagged edges on the trees for a little extra detail and more realistic appearance. This work also marks the first time I've ever including a child in a piece. A little reminiscent of Little Red Riding Hood perhaps?

How to....make free (or practically free) sparkly ornaments

We've been trying to find ways to use our ever growing collection of milk caps from work, so it was only fitting to try our hand at making ornaments for our tree (Dougie Wonderfir).  Kinsey came up with this sparkling design.

For this project, you'll need: glitter (we used Martha Stewart's glitter which is superfine and was super on sale at the time), a hot glue gun, Mod Podge, milk caps, and string.

Here's the simple how-to.  Cut a small amount of string to hang the ornament with and hot glue to the inner edge of one of the milk caps.  Take another milk cap and hot glue the two together around the inner rim.  Next, brush on glue quite liberally.  Then, pour the glitter all over where you just spread glue.  (Note: only glue/glitter one side at a time or you'll end up smearing the glitter.  So try to be patient and wait for the back side to try before attempting.)  

And this is what you'll get!



Easy, sparkly, and inexpensive (free if you have glitter on hand!)  They sure beat those standard glass balls.

Thanksgiving and a Weekend Sale!

I love thanksgiving.  I love the meal (minus the turkey) and just the nice relaxing feel of the day.  The past two years, Kinsey and I did the meal ourselves (read about our past meals here-including my first (and last since we don't eat meat anymore) roasting of a turkey), but this year we're having both of our parents over.  

We'll post pictures of our meal and details tomorrow, but I wanted to announce our Thanksgiving sale at the shop.  From midnight Friday,  November 26th though 11:59pm Monday,  November 29th, we'll be offering free shipping (within the US) on ALL orders and 10% of all orders over $20!

New

It's starting to get a little cooler around here. Granted, temperatures were around 60 today but the week ahead is only in the mid 40's! I actually love the cooler weather. I love sweaters, wearing layers, and scarves. (I also can't wait to break out my new winter coat!) I did a massive posting of new items today in our shop.

Some brand new items, some sale items, and some scarves:

(I did break out the new coat for these photos!)  I love the green floral print on this one.  Here's a close-up on the green one. 


And this one (I named it Flowers in the Snow) features some of all time favorite floral fabric and a wintry gray fabric.  This scarf also features small hand tying knots on every fabric square for something a little extra. 
Check out our new items and my new favorite clutch.

Here's a new one....or three

I've recently been creating more clutches.  I used to make a lot of these, but took an unintentional break.  Here's three of my latest.  (Of course, they all feature trees!  Nothing unusual there!)



I love this aqua canvas.  The color makes everything really pop out, especially browns, which I use a lot of.  

How I Spent Last Weekend...or How I Learned to Love Pinking Shears

This past weekend was the local Christmas craft show that a neighboring gallery puts on each year. So of course I spent my days off before the show sewing and embroidering like crazy. This was my first show where I've had my fabric owls for sale and overall they got a really great response and I sold more than I thought I would there.
I also came up with my new Christmas ornament of the year.  I recently re-discovered my fabric pinking shears and crafted this state badge ornament.  The design of course is based off my "My Heart's In Pennsylvania" series that includes magnets and pins.  I love being able to layer the felts and the texture that the pinking shears gave the final ornament.  I especially love this wood grain fabric one and called it "Penn's Woods".

Here was a scene I saw much of while making them. 

I hate to admit, but this massive pile is just round one of my PA ornaments.  I made at least double this the very next day.  I just like to make sure I have enough.

The show was very, very successful!  Thanks to everyone who came out.  With the last craft show of my year over with, now I can focus on making Christmas gifts and my two upcoming art shows.  One will be a collective with Kinsey and an employee at the bookstore and the other will be my first solo show.  Very excited about this!  I'll have more details about both soon!

1 Whale + 1 Owl= Lots of Little Owls

It all started with a whale.  A stuffed whale that is.  Kinsey made this for me early 2009.  I had seen a stuffed whale in one of my craft books and loved it.  Although the one I saw in the book was made of old jeans and didn't look quite as good as the one below.  
I love this whale and I won't lie, I sometimes use it as a pillow when I sleep.  So seeing how much I loved the first animal, Kinsey surprised me with this one last Christmas:

I was so impressed and couldn't believe he didn't use a pattern for these animals.  I told him he should really make more and sell them.  Who wouldn't love an owl like this?  But we never really got around to making more.  

The other week I got the sudden urge to see if I could make a similar owl.  I didn't want my new owl (or owls in this case) to be as large as the original, but not too small.  I also wanted to change the eyes and make them not as large.  I wanted to eliminate the zigzag stitching and give the a cleaner overall appearance.  Another area I wanted to improve was the shape.  I like the original and how the spiky tail is, but I thought a smooth, straight edge may be a little better for the overall shape.  So with all this in mind, I set out to create an owl of my own.  I started with this one....

I replaced the eyes and beak with felt, as well as the back of the owl is a solid piece of soft brown felt.  I liked the idea of a bolder stomach fabric and the simplicity of the shape.  

That owl eventually lead to a pair......
....which eventually lead to a small army of owls!

The final results: I ended up with an ideal length of about 10 inches and by replacing different features with felt, the overall feel is much softer. The owls don't contain any small parts and are filled with a non allegoric poly-fil. Just in time for Christmas...

forest and the sea...

Lately, I haven't been posting too much on my latest art and craft projects. If you read our blog occasionally, you probably have noticed we've been focusing on a lot of home projects.
Last week, I was able to set aside some time to create a few new embroidery pieces. These pieces contain my first attempt at cross stitch lettering.





Also, these are the first pieces that I've signed. I like the idea of signing my pieces, but like keeping the color I choose for it relatively similar to the background, so it doesn't distract.


This last one isn't a good photo, but it sold the day after I made it, so this was the only shot of it I got. I'm planning a small series based on the sea. Of course, the main inspiration is from the coast of Maine.

Trees....

I was going through some of the ever growing collection of photos I have on my computer, and came across some great close up pictures of trees. I actually forgot about almost all of these. We're pretty bad at actually going and getting them printed off, so they just kind of grow into massive folders on our computer. These made me want to find a few minutes this coming weekend to print them out.

The first one was taken in the fall in the town where we live. I love the ivy climbing up the bark.



This one was taken also taken at the same time and around the same area.


This one I believe was taken our on of our camping trips in Shenandoah Valley National Park.


And this one was taken by a creek close to where we live.