Catching up (and more burp cloths!)

Dear Angel,

Every time we connect for a speedy, interrupted chat on Skype, I end up missing you even more than before! It is so great to "see" you and hear your voice and all the exciting things brewing in your life. Can't wait to see how things develop!

Here in Seattle, Spring is here. Which means equal parts daffodils and tulips popping up everywhere and RAIN. Rain rain rain. You'll probably roll your eyes and say well, it's Seattle. But the well-kept secret of the Pacific Northwest is that it doesn't rain all that much. It is often cloudy and you do get quite a bit of sporadic drizzle. But real rain that soaks even your best rain jacket? That is reserved for Spring. The kids keep crying and whining because I repeatedly say "no" to the playground or riding bikes. And I want to whine too, especially since it's the time of year when every one of my friends on Facebook is bragging about enjoying sunshine and warm weather. Blah.

Anyway. On a positive note: I am reading a ton lately, and writing too. I have been doing yoga every weekday morning for THREE weeks now (with children and cat climbing all over me, but I see it as helping my zen). And I feel good and like I'm finally rediscovering my pre-baby body (aside from that damn belly pooch that ain't going nowhere... Where's my flat tummy, whah!!). I have been sewing a lot, mostly for custom orders and for my shop. And it feels good to be productive in a very tangible way. I have also been asked to put items on consignment in TWO local shops opening soon. I am going to be busy building that stock! And finally, Ben is on Spring Break next week and my Mom is coming to visit, whee!!! So, there is a lot of good stuff going on!!

Aside from sewing for work, I have made several baby gifts lately. Everyone is having babies around us. As you know, my favorite go-to gift is a set of embellished burp cloths tucked into a gift bag with favorite baby books, toys and/or accessories. Here are a couple of recent sets I made.

I LOVE the Bella fabric for this, it's possibly my favorite trio of burp cloths ever.









For this other set, I also included a little Swaddle Softie.







Well, I'm off to make some lunch. Henry has been asking for food for the past 30 minutes! I hope you have a lovely day.

Sponsor Focus: Felt on the Fly (and a giveaway!)

Oh y'all, I am so excited to tell you a tiny bit more about Felt On The Fly today. As Jenny mentioned a few weeks ago, we (quite regularly) frequent our sponsors' shops, and Felt on the Fly is no different. I plan to have her gather up a new custom order for me soon, and Jenny just got some in the mail........we may have a problem, both of us. HA! (Stick around until the end of the post for a giveaway, you know you want to!)

Felt on the Fly has become my go-to shop for felt, and I'll tell you why: Janet knows felt! It's her focus and passion, it only takes asking her a few questions to unearth a wealth of knowledge. There is a reason that after over 8000 (that's right, eight THOUSAND) sales on Etsy, she has a 100% satisfaction rating. Last time I asked for a custom listing, she wrote back "Of course, you can have anything your little heart desires." I LIKE IT!

I know that for some folks, the cost of wool felt can seem like too much of an investment, especially that first time purchase (before you can feel for yourself how awesome it is.) I asked Janet what she would say the main difference is between her felt and other types that might be slightly less costly. Here's what she had to say:

One of the biggest differences between Felt On The Fly wool felt and other felts is that my wool felt was specifically created for handwork, sewing and crafting.  Many other felts (including the most popular wool-blend felt) were originally created for commercial purposes like industrial linings, sound proofing and padding in shipping crates.  The craft market for that type of felt was secondary and the manufacturing processes stayed the same. 

And, doesn't this make sense? Janet shares on her Felt on the Fly about page:

My motivation was to share this valuable resource with other like-minded artists and crafters who appreciate the best materials and understand that when you commit your time and talent to a project, it makes sense to invest in quality.

I cannot agree with this more! I purchased a custom listing of 20 pieces of felt right before the holidays, Janet brilliantly chose the colors for me, and I was so pleased by what she chose. I think she mentioned something about realizing I probably would not want a bunch of neon colors in our Etsy convo. Ha! That pack of felt served me VERY well during that last minute gift rush. (That plus an Anna Maria Horner fat quarter pack I ordered at the same time from Alewives!)

I think I showed you this before, through a scanned image, but I'll show it again to illustrate my point. I made about a dozen of these embroidered, felt and fabric "catchalls" for gifts, they were filled with rice and dried lavender I'd saved from my garden. They mostly went to family members, a few went to very good friends. I filled their little indentations with Lindt truffles and/or Babybearshop lip balms, depending on the recipient. They were so quick to make, and the amazing quality of the felt combined with the beautiful prints of the Anna Maria Horner fabric were such a pleasure to work with and give.







Janet has generously offered one of her gorgeous 100% merino wool felt "color stories" to one lucky reader! It's the "water lily" palette, isn't it fabulous? Just head down to the Rafflecopter widget and earn up to three entries. Good luck!

The giveaway closes as midnight EST on Saturday 4/6. Sorry, US entries only. We will choose one random winner and announce the name in this post on Monday. The lucky winner will also be contacted via email. (Total giveaway value: $15. Void where prohibited.)



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Is it Spring yet?

Good morning! I was up with the birds this morning, as usual, and thought I'd write a post before everyone else wakes up and starts NEEDING THINGS. (Well shit, Ian just woke up! I'll crank it out......and I'll be glad it's not a video blog b/c he has terrible gas this morning. BOYS!!!!!)

Speaking of boys, here's a photo of that special moment Ian and Silas shared last week, when Silas had the Spring Break stomach virus:



That picture reminds me to tell you, the Make Do sets you sent us for Christmas have been a HUGE hit! We have made robots, hats, a hideout, and the "safe saw" is Silas's new favorite thing. He begs for cardboard to cut with that thing, and it's really great for his hand/eye coordination too. So, THANK YOU! It filled many hours of yucky weather, inside time.

So, the weather here in Nashville has been..........unusual. I know we're not alone in this, I'm starting to have a better idea what your summer was like last year, Jenny! It is usually 70 degrees during the day here by now, we've been lucky to hit 50 lately. And gray skies almost every afternoon. Hmmmm, it IS starting to sound like Seattle! This has seriously affected my mood, I need warmth! I just feel like I can't get warm lately, and I spend a lot of time in a hot bath. Soon enough it will be 100 degrees in the shade, so I should probably just get over it.....


It's 5:30 a.m., and I have already retrieved two bowls of cereal (the first was rejected) and am now listening to what has to be the loudest, most obnoxious cereal eating, ever. Someone suggested I teach Ian about table manners, if I had a nickel for every time I have asked that kid to close his mouth while he chews I'd have a pretty good monthly income coming in. I literally asked him to close his mouth twenty seconds ago, could this be a mouth breathing issue? He wakes up shortly after I do every morning, and loves to eat cereal first thing. To say his eating ruins my morning is exaggerating, but let's just say if he was my roommate in college instead of my kid, I'd have probably kicked him in the shins already this morning. The next food offered will be something soft and incapable of making noise. Anyway, I digress. Back to things!


Oh Jenny, your family's poor Christmas box! And now, your birthday has passed too. I think I might just throw it out the front door at the mail lady today, that would increase its chances of reaching you greatly. Here's a picture of the box! Yesterday Ian said, "Mom, do you REALIZE how long ago Christmas was? When are you going to send this?"



In other news, we are in remodeling limbo here. Our kitchen is in desperate need of an update, I've been using the broiler at varying temperatures instead of the "bake" function because the stove is on its last leg! But we are going to install a gas cook top, the kind that goes into a cabinet, and then I'll have the oven in the opposite wall. I think! We haven't figured it out yet. It's been such a cold, dreary Spring so far that I desperately need to change things around in the house for my own sanity, but with big changes on the horizon (probably in the Summer) I can't do anything permanent. I decided some new napkins would help, I could only find three of them that were clean but I made about eight? I need to make about eight more! I used some of the fat quarters you gave me from Drygoods, and looked at your napkin post for help.



I also printed off some recent favorite images from the internet, I'm just sticking them up on the wall with washi tape. It's kind of college dorm, but who are we kidding? I'M college dorm most of the time, and living with two small boys and one large boy, it IS like a college dorm around here.









Did I tell you about our Tennessee Aquarium trip? I love Chattanooga so much, it is a great little town and only a few hours away from us. Perfect day trip now that the boys are older, too. We bought a year long pass, with two visits it pays for itself and we'll go back at least once more in twelve months, I am sure. Most of the pictures Lee took are actually videos, I only have a few! This sea turtle one can suffice for now, until I can go through the rest.



My creative self has been struggling, the weather is not helping! I started a piece called "Emerging Spring", I like where it is going so far. It's more of an experiment than anything, I have pulled out many, many stitches and the felt is starting to look a little "holey". I've been watching this embroidery series at Creativebug, I have learned SO much. I really need to use that site more as a subscriber! There are so, so many great classes on there right now, some are even offered for free, to anyone. Here's a preview of what I'm working on, I'll post more pictures later today when I do a Spotlight on Felt on the Fly.



OK, I must go. I can't believe how clunky I am at HTML! This has taken me forever. Also, a "second breakfast" is being requested, and the other two are not even awake yet. Hope you have a great day!

Sponsor Focus: Fat Quarter Shop

We have wonderful sponsors here at Stumbles & Stitches. They are businesses that we support (on a regular basis, ahem) and that we are proud to recommend. Instead of the monthly sponsor round-ups we used to post, we decided to change things up a bit and do "focus" posts on each sponsor this year. This allows us to dive a bit deeper into what each of these businesses has to offer.

Today, I'd like to share some things you may not know about Fat Quarter Shop!




What you probably do know is that Fat Quarter Shop is an amazing online store for all your quilting fabric needs. They offer yardage of every collection imaginable, as well as all the precuts you can think of (fat quarters, fat eights, charm squares, layer cakes, jelly rolls, hexagons and more!). You can purchase patterns, thread, notions. And they even have a Christmas store specializing in holiday fabrics.

In a nutshell: if you want to make a quilt, this is the place to go.




A super clever and fun offering on the Fat Quarter Shop website is the Block of the Month club. You sign up and pay a one-time membership fee, then you receive the materials to make one quilt block per month for a year. At the end of the year, you're ready to assemble a gorgeous quilt. Currently, Fat Quarter Shop has only a few spots left for their 2013 Designer Mystery BOM which features several fabulous Moda fabric designers. If you're interested, make sure you sign up ASAP! You can read all about it here.




And here's something I bet you didn't know about Fat Quarter Shop: they have a YouTube channel! And it is awesome! I just spent about an hour clicking around on various videos and learning how to put together a curved quilt block, among other things! There are quilting tutorials, there are interviews with fabric designers, there are behind-the-scenes tidbits of QuiltCon, and more. So fun!

Here are a couple of videos you might like. Please go visit the Fat Quarter Shop YouTube channel for much more!



How to make half-square triangles


How to sew the Moda Honeycomb Pre-Cut

Huge thanks to the Fat Quarter Shop for their continued sponsorship of Stumbles & Stitches.

You can find Fat Quarter Shop online here: Shop -- Blog -- Facebook -- Twitter -- Pinterest

Kindergarten Auction Art Project: Fabric Tree

Hi Angel!

I finally finished the auction art project for Ben's class and wanted to share. I am really happy with how it turned out!

I wrote a whole behind-the-scenes post on my shop blog Jenny Bartoy ~ Handmade Designs where you can see a bunch of photos and read details on the process. Meanwhile here are a few pictures of the finished project!










What do you think? I sure hope it will bring in some money at the auction. Fingers crossed!

Guest Artist: Working with Fiber in the Classroom

(All photos courtesy of Camilla Spadafino, art teacher extraordinaire!)

For the last three years, I've been lucky enough to work with Ian's art teacher and students on a collaborative project. There is a theme each year for the school, and the art projects loosely revolve around that theme. Ideally, each classroom has an adult "guest artist" volunteer that comes in to facilitate an art experience for the students. The finished pieces are displayed around the school and an Art Show and fundraiser is held one night each year.

When Ian was in Kindergarten, a friend volunteered me for the "guest artist" position during another event Ian's class was having in the art room. Prior to that, I'd thought myself crafty, but not an "artist". But was I? I'm still trying to figure that one out, but the process of creating with these 5 and 6 year old kids transformed me creatively, no doubt about that!

So far, my favorite project has been felted wool landscapes. The students had already studied landscapes in class, and were familiar with the concept. I brought in a poster board with pictures of examples of fiber art landscapes for the first class meeting, you can see I have my faithful sidekick Silas with me!



Ian's teacher, Camilla, already had multiple examples of abstract landscapes printed out, and we put gorgeous piles of fluffy wool roving at each table as well.



It's a bit tricky to see, and I don't have another photo to show, but before the class meeting I lightly needle felted natural brown wool rectangles, one for each student. These were their "canvasses" for their abstract landscapes.



Here I'm showing a few students how to pull the fibers apart.



There are so many reasons to love this project, the wool is such a wonderful material. It is soft, colorful, can be easily manipulated, doesn't make a mess, and until felting, children can change their canvasses if they wish.



After the students were done placing the wool on their canvas, I took each piece home and lightly needle felted the top. This helped to keep the fibers in place for the next part of the process, the wet felting!



This part was really fun: we placed each wool piece into a large heavy duty zipper type freezer bag and then squirted a mixture of hot water and dish soap inside. Then it was time to pound, squish (gently) and otherwise felt our wool





Voila! After about five minutes of felting inside the plastic bags, I took the bags home and rinsed each landscape in as hot of water as I could stand to continue the felting process. Almost all the wool roving stayed in place! It was very important to me to preserve each artist's vision as much as possible during the felting.



Here they are, hung on the wall! For hangers, I just threaded a piece of plain jute twine into a loop at the top of each piece.



Jen, I can't wait to see pictures of the art show from Ben's school! Be sure to take lots of photos.

Readers, have you participated in an art project or auction similar to this? I'd love to hear about it!

What's Been Keeping Me Busy...

Hi Angel!

I can't believe how this year is flying so far. I owe you an update on the crafty front! I have been so busy with my little business, which is great. I feel like things have finally kicked into a smooth, steady gear. I have had a constant stream of projects to work on, mostly custom orders. (See below for a few examples!) But eek, it's hard to stay afloat on all fronts and I feel like my blog posting has fallen by the wayside, along with my socializing. I'll try to catch you up here!

First, I wanted to show you the little Valentines I made with the kids for Valentine's Day last week. I had noticed this adorable lollipop-holding photo idea on Design Mom a while back and pinned it. The weather was horribly rainy and gloomy in the days leading up to V-day, so I had to take indoor photos of the kids, which of course were slightly blurry. They turned out pretty cute though, and were a big success with their friends!



Ben has a little friend named Angel in his class!



In the spirit of Valentine's Day, I also made some heart-y table runners for my shop. I love how these turned out, fun!






A few weeks ago, I scored a whole bunch of new fabrics from both Drygoods Design Online and Hawthorne Threads. Here are some photos to make you drool. There is some Stamped, some Bella, some Notting Hill, and more loveliness. Pretty much all of this is going into projects for my shop, though I'm thinking of saving some of that Notting Hill sateen to make a pillow for our living room.






Here are some of the custom orders I completed recently: a book cover for our friend Carrie's bible study tome, some quilted table runners, and a custom set of coasters.








Also, I am in charge of the auction art project for Ben's kindergarten class. Their curriculum is project-based, and their winter project has been "Fabrics through the world". How fortunate! As you can imagine, I've been invited to do show and tell a couple of times.

For the auction project, we've been working on a large piece of fiber art, involving fabric. I had visions of branching out from my usual burlap art and doing something edgy and cool. But all the feedback I received from the adults involved has been to stick to the type of stuff I've made from my shop, so the project will involve a tree and some birdies. Here's a glimpse at my prep work. I'll share more soon!!




I think that about rounds up all that's been keeping me busy lately. How about you? What is occupying your hands lately? What fabrics are you drooling over? What projects are getting you excited? I'd love to know!