Happy Summer!

Hello and happy Summer Solstice!!

Do you have any fun, seasonal plans today? We are so happy to be enjoying the first sunny and decently warm day in weeks (73F expected this afternoon), so we'll be headed outside as soon as I hit "Publish" on this post. We've had so much going on this June that I haven't had a chance to be very thoughtful about a Solstice celebration. But, I guess being outdoors to enjoy Mother Nature is its own celebration!

I recently completed a few projects and have a bunch in the works. I'll be working on sharing all that with you soon. Meanwhile, I thought I would give you glimpses of what's keeping me busy these days...

June is apparently "gift-making month", who knew?! Between teacher appreciation, weddings and new babies, I have been cranking out gifts like a one-person factory lately!

Here are teacher gifts mid-prep (I'm hoping this design turns out well, if so I'll work on a tutorial!):



And here's an organic baby blanket in the works:



This is a marvelous bundle of fabric I got from Drygoods Design yesterday. I love Keli's brick-and-mortar Seattle shop! She gave me fabulous input and ideas too, can't beat that. These fabrics will be turned into several wedding and housewarming gifts -- more on that SOON! (I also got several yards of natural linen at Joann's, currently 50% off!)



I just received Maya's book in the mail yesterday, courtesy of Wiley Crafts. We'll be reviewing Reinvention as part of our Inspired by Nature series. And WOW. It is beautiful and so inspiring. What do you think, Angel?



Meanwhile the kids are keeping me busy as ever. Ben doesn't nap in the afternoon anymore. On a good day, he sits next to me at the dining room table and we both work on our own projects while we chit chat.



Henry is a different story. He no longer naps in the morning which has shifted my productivity schedule (I used to work while he slept and Ben was at preschool). Now our mornings are spent playing, running errands or hanging out at the park. If I'm lucky he naps for a good stretch in the afternoon. When that doesn't happen, he "helps" me with whatever I've got going on like, oh say, basting a quilt?



So that's about it! As you can see, I've been a busy bee. I'm so excited that summer is beginning! We are staying put for most of the summer but we have so many fun plans -- our first camping trip! my little brother visiting! soccer camp!

What are you working on these days? What are you doing to celebrate the arrival of Summer? I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

Goodbye Nashville (Already?!)

Dear Angel,

I can't believe we're headed back to Seattle already! This visit was such a whirlwind. We saw so many friends, got to have quality time with my in-laws and even hit a couple of touristy spots like the Nashville Farmers' Market (Cupcakes! Fresh produce!) and the Loveless Cafe (Biscuits!).






We had a great time with you and the family. I wish everyone could take a peek at your awesome house in all its remodeled glory. I know you have a lot of work left to do but it is looking fabulous. I was also glad to see your beautiful needle-felted projects and your garden in person, you are so talented!

It was such fun to see the boys playing together. They've all grown so much!






As I pack up our stuff for the flight back tomorrow, I see that I've barely touched the crafty projects I brought along to Nashville: 2 embroidery works-in-progress and my sketchbook where I'm supposed to have figured out several projects... They've been sitting in a corner on the floor nearly all week! But, I guess that is the point of vacation, right?






I expect some busy-ness upon our return home!

I did get around to uploading several project photos to the Flickr Pool for the Quilt Blocks Shop Challenge organized by Ellen of The Long Thread. I had shared a sneak peek here, and will post more about the finished projects next week. In the meantime, you can take a look-see on Flickr and let me know what you think!


Have a great weekend!! What crafty shenanigans are you up to?

Friday Fun and Lots of Piles

Hi Angel!

It's Friday and I can hardly believe it. Where did this week go? It flew by in a blink and I find myself overwhelmed with too much to do, not enough time, and no clue where to start. It's a familiar feeling, really. But life is good and things are going pretty well around here. I took my camera around the house over the last few days and thought I would share a few glimpses of what we're up to lately.

- I won my first giveaway EVER: this charm pack of Kona solids from the lovely blog Pile o' Fabric. It just arrived today with a super cute handmade card.



- Speaking of piles... This stack of book has been sitting near my desk, and growing with every new (and fabulous!) book shared by Lark Crafts for review. A bunch of these were purchased with a birthday gift card, but I have yet to really dive into them. I'm itching for some quiet reading time!



- With all the sunshine we've been enjoying, our potted garden is doing great. I trellised our peas, planted our tomato starts and harvested the first batch of kale! Can't wait to taste it, yum!





- Ben had his TV privilege taken away for bad behavior (4.5 years old has been quite the challenge...). Instead of watching morning cartoons, he's been drawing like crazy, writing books (thanks to these awesome blank books my mom sent him), and has been on an all-around super creative kick. Yay for no TV!






He added a carrot to this embroidery project yesterday.


Turning a cardboard box into an airplane



I LOVE how creative he is, and that he takes initiative in his crafty and artistic endeavors. I often find him deeply absorbed into some project when I get up with Henry in the morning, or when I return from starting a load of laundry in the basement. However, he doesn't know how to put things away and we need to tackle the monster that has become his craft area (a.k.a. the disaster corner of our dining room).



- Meanwhile, his little brother is usually found doing things like....


Rolling around on the couch and giving Mommy heart attacks by almost falling face first on the floor


Finding something to climb on to watch the trucks and backhoes working on the house remodel across the street

- I have so many works-in-progress, most of which I need to finish before the end of May: custom orders, Craft Hope aprons, Quilt Blocks shop challenge, wedding quilt, and more. Here's one of my piles -- see if you can spot a quilt top, a custom Kindle cover awaiting a button, and some Quilt Blocks quilt blocks.



LOTS of piles around here, it seems. Here's wishing for those to all get tackled and weeded down this weekend!

I hope you've had a great week. What are you working on this weekend? What kind of piles do you have around your house?

By the way: Happy Mother's Day almost a week late! I hope you had a wonderful day. Here's a little pic of me with my two distracted boys last Sunday at a nearby park. It was a beautiful day!

Feather Your Nest: Jenny's To-Do List

Hi Angel!

When you first brought up the idea for Feather Your Nest a few months ago, I remember thinking "That is a FAB idea, but I have no idea what I'll make." I didn't give it much more thought until recently when we got the wheels in motion for this little event and contest. And suddenly panic set in, what the heck would I make??

My practical project manager side took over and I went around my apartment, making note of every single thing I wanted to fix, make or redo around the house. And OOOOH BOY. Let's just say I'm not lacking in ideas now!

I thought I would share what's on my to-do list, split up by room, with some inspiration photos. Then I'll pick 3 priority projects to work on this month. A lot of this stuff involves no stitches, so it doesn't apply for Feather Your Nest, but it'll give you an idea of everything I want to work on! Feel free to whisper I'm insane behind my back.


Entry Way/Staircase
- paint and stencil our antique wicker trunk (more on this project when I actually do it, but here's an example of a stenciled trunk)


Photo from No Minimalist Here, found via Pinterest

Living Room
- sew a couple more pillows for the couch
- make another lap quilt (because everyone is always fighting over the Scrappy Squares Quilt). I LOVE this large hexagon quilt from Blueberry Park, found in my super inspiring Quilt board on Pinterest
- paint the frame of a cool mirror I found at the thrift store
- sand and paint book/TV shelves and 2 small tables
- sew cases for Kindle and laptop (not household items per se, but this room is where they live)


Photo by blueberry4park on Flickr

Ask Away!

Dear readers, here's a little post to let you know how much we love and appreciate every single one of you! That's right!

Since our blog is set up as a conversation between Angel and me, it is sometimes hard to convey how much you guys mean to us. But you mean a lot. YOU make this whole blogging thing worth it with your comments, pins and shares. It keeps us motivated to be creative and crafty, and to share our adventures in this space. So thank you!


In the last day or two, I've noticed bloggers opening the floor to readers, encouraging them to ask whatever question they'd like. I thought I would do the same!

Do you have a burning question for us? What have you always wanted to know about Stumbles & Stitches, about Angel, or about me? Ask away! We'll answer in the comments or via email if that seems more appropriate. We'd love to hear from you! (Here's hoping we don't get crickets...)

Also, do you like us on Facebook? We're sooooo close to 1,000 "Likes" and when we reach that milestone, we'll have a fabulous little giveaway to celebrate. Hint hint. So, go like us and share our page with your friends, pretty please.

All right, do you have your question(s) ready? Time to go click on that comment form below and ask away. We look forward to your questions. Thank you and have a great Thursday!!

Crafty Resolutions 2012

Greetings, friend! Things are going along swimmingly here, how about you? Finally feeling somewhat settled in the rental space, and excitedly thinking ahead to March (or April) when I will have my own (tiny) studio space upstairs at my house. I actually walked up REAL stairs and onto REAL floor decking last night, and stood right in the spot where my attic dormer "room" will eventually be. As crazy as packing up the entire family to move out for two or three months has been, it will all be worth it in the end!

I've been thinking and thinking about my goals for this year, very specific things (as opposed to broad goals) have come to mind.

1. Finish this quilt! I have the batting already, and the blocks are sewn. Now to figure out how to sew them together, what the backing will be, etc. I am going to hand quilt it (!) using AMH Needleworks. It's a lightweight, summer quilt (which seems to be three seasons out of the year down here, lately) so I hope to have it done by Spring.

Crafty Resolutions 2012

Happy New Year!!!!!!! I hope the holiday break brought you much joy and relaxation.

Angel, I know you've had to move your household right after Chistmas for the big remodel happening at your house. How is everything going? Have you got your craft stash organized in the new place?

It is the time to make resolutions and define goals for the year ahead. We're entering our 3rd year on this blog (can you believe it? We should have a birthday party!) and I love to revisit our previous "Crafty Resolutions" installments.

It seems I hit about half of my goals for 2011 and failed on the other half. But, that's okay! My big accomplishments for 2011 were: finding the time to sew and craft with 2 kids, including a baby; making a sizable dent in my stash, by using it up in projects and giving away a large portion of it twice; and finally opening an Etsy shop!


"Grow" wood sign by William Dohnam on Etsy
My inspiration word for the new year is "grow". My Crafty Resolutions for 2012 are both general and specific:

What a Year!

Hi Angel! Happy Solstice!! I've been hunkering down and not posting much this week. I know you're busy too, getting ready for your Winter Solstice and Christmas celebrations and starting to pack up the house for the big remodel. How exciting!

As I type this, everyone is asleep in the house, aside from our little Christmas tree still bright and shiny in the dark night. I've been a crazed little elf every night for the past week or two. Since we're both so busy and in need to focus on our families during this lovely holiday season, let's take a little blog vacation. We'll be back the first week of January with regular posts!


But before I go, I wanted to recap some of my personal favorite moments and projects on the blog in 2011. It was an exciting year, full of fun events and so much growth, both as a blog and as individual crafters. If you're new to Stumbles & Stitches, this should be a fun little intro to what we're up to around here.

Birds

Happy Tuesday! I hope this week is going well for you so far. I am running on way too little sleep between a baby who's working on his two front teeth and shipping my first few orders for the Etsy shop. Man, this Etsy business is not for wimps. I guess the good thing is I've made some sales, yay! But the amount of work required to make it all happen is a bit overwhelming. It's all good and exciting though, and I'm sure I'll get into a groove soon enough.

Moving on... Sew Mama Sew shared a Salon article on their Facebook page yesterday, called “Put a Bird on It”: The aftermath. The article discusses how the Portlandia sketch "Put a Bird on It", which poked fun at the ubiquitous bird in today's design and craft products, affected crafters and hipsters -- or not.

Here's the sketch if you've never seen it:


I love that skit, it's hilarious and silly and kind of right on. Disclaimer, I read the article quickly, but it made me think a lot. The essence of my reaction was: I don't care. I like birds and I'm going to keep putting them in my projects when I feel like it. If people like birds too, then they'll like my project. If not, well, that's okay.

Make Something Today (Free Download)

Good morning! It's Monday and I sure could use some motivation to get things rolling this morning. If you do too, here's a little free download to help kickstart your week.


If you remember, a few months ago, I made a motivational sign that said "Make". While I appreciated its simplicity, I never wholeheartedly liked it and finally decided to change it up. I played with the font sizes and colors, and updated it to say "Make Something Today" which I find a lot more to the point and motivating.

Fabric-covered File Holders

I played with Mod Podge again!

(Dear readers, this is going to be a bit of a drive-by post because we're working on some fun but time-consuming announcements for this week and next! Make sure to check back in!!)



During our last visit to IKEA, I purchased some plywood file holders with the idea of covering them in paper or fabric. I had scored some awesome Anna Maria Horner fabric during a sale a couple of months ago, and decided the bold prints would be perfect for this project.




I experimented with 2 ways of doing this:

1) cutting a piece of fabric for each side of the file holder



2) cutting one large piece of fabric for the whole thing



I think experiment 2) worked better. You don't get all the fabric edges fraying all over the place.

For both versions, I laid the file holder on the flattened fabric and drew the outline of the shape with a fabric marker. For 2), I flipped the file holder carefully so that I could draw each side next to the other, then just added a little extra flap of fabric to tuck and glue under the other end. You just have to be extra careful to draw your outline exactly to the size of your file holder with this version, otherwise you will have extra fabric bunching at the edges (which you can kind of see in the photo below).



Having learned from my previous Mod Podge + fabric experience, I didn't apply another coat on top of the fabric, so these file holders are nice and smooth. They are already full of papers and files on my desk! I love how the vertical storage gives my desk so much more usable space (for more clutter, ha!).



Please come back tomorrow for a fun fun fun announcement (and dust off your sewing machine!)

Jenny you are on a Mod Podge ROLL! Wow. These turned out great! You can't go wrong using AMH fabric on anything, what a great choice.

Hope you and the kiddo are feeling better ASAP, can't wait to share our announcement with everyone tomorrow!

Stick Flowers

Here's a little spring project I did with Ben last week. We called these "stick flowers".


Here they are on Ben's sorry excuse for a nature table. This is the shelf on which he displays some of his crafts and also his "collections" of shells, rocks, pinecones, acorns and other assorted nature finds. You can see our apple tree experiment in that vase on the window sill (Yes! That's an apple tree growing from an apple seed!)


This idea came from a discussion that Ben and I had after the last snow, about how winter was going away and spring was going to come. We had been saving some sticks to make a snowman. Unfortunately, the last round of snow didn't stay long enough for us to make a snowman, so we were left with this nice little bunch of sticks. We decided to bring spring into our home a little early with some felt flowers!

I simply cut out circles of bright colored felt with pinking shears, in two sizes (about 1.5 inches diameter and 2.5 inches diameter). I handled the glue gun (with many bad words that Ben was thrilled to hear every time I burnt my fingers) and he selected which circles of felt should go together and which little balls should adorn the center. We hot-glued these "flowers" to the sticks, and ta-da, our stick flowers were done!




This was a total spur of the moment project and was over and done with in about 30 minutes. Ben and I had a great time making them and they look pretty nice on the nature shelf!