Lettergirl

Trunk show sneak peek.

A sneak peek of projects in my fall trunk show:

Trunk show sneak peek.

Since I am busily designing and stitching for my fall trunk show, I wanted to share some of my work as I go along.  I hope to have projects with applique, reverse applique, screenprinting, dyeing, and other surface embellishment.     (On vacation one week, overflowing with ideas the next.)

Lettergirl Pillows at Spoonflower.

I finally have a few photos of the pillows I stitched up from my custom fabric at Spoonflower. 

The fabric is called Four Love Pillows and when you buy a yard (starting at $17.50) you'll get four different pillow fronts, with four of my favorite quotes.  You can also buy just a fat quarter and get only the green pillow shown here.

Before I stitched the pillows together, I added some embroidery:  this one has a simple running stitch inside the border.  And the one below has little seed beeds stitched into the scallops:

I'd love to see what you can do with the Four Love Pillows fabric!

Related articles

Now for sale at Spoonflower.

Love Scarf, continued.

The first thing I've made exclusively for my fall trunk show.  Imagine wrapping yourself in this quote by Longfellow:

Once I've stitched the lining on, I'll post a photo of the scarf in action.  But even without finishing it, I can tell you that this is one project it'll be hard to part with come October.  Love it!

Love Scarf: a sneak peek.

A stitiching project I started while my shop was closed:  a reverse applique scarf with one of my favorite winter quotes by Longfellow.  First I "sketched" the words lightly on the knit.

Then I went over the letters to make them more solid.

The fun part is stitching it up.  I couldn't possibly stay riveted to Downton if my hands weren't busy.  And now that the season's over, the scarf is nearly done.  Finished photos in a week or two!

Obi.

When I dressed Purnah for my open house last fall, she looked like she wanted a little something more.  So I started pinning scraps of red fabric on her, vaguely inspired by a Japanese obi (literally, sash). 

All the fabric pieces are leftovers from my mentor-protege experience in 2011-2012.  Many are hand-dyed, one is painted with dye, and another is screenprinted. 

This weekend I finally took the scraps and ironed them onto some reasonably stiff interfacing.  Then I machine-sewed the edges, adding scraps of knit for the ties. 

Now the sash is sitting in my sewing basket, which I keep near the couch for family movies (about the only time I sit still).  Two episodes of Downton = detail quilting on my obi.  Can't wait till it's washed and all roughed up.

Holiday wrap-up, part two: messenger bag.

We have a lovely habit in our family of making gifts for each other at Christmas.  With the move to high school, I'd been wanting to make a messenger bag for Juliet.  I handlettered some of her favorite quotes, added doodles, and had the fabric printed at Spoonflower.  I was a little nervous about sewing it up (it was pretty much a one-shot deal), but it flew together in one afternoon (and, yes, that one afternoon was December 23rd). 

I tucked some fabric markers in one of the inside pockets, and she got right to it on the heart.

On my list for February:  figure out how to get these kits in the shop!

Meanwhile, giveaway entries will close tonight.  I am loving your comments!

Sewing class x 2.

This fall I'm excited to be teaching two hand-stitched hat classes:

The first is at ArtiCulture and starts next Tuesday, October 9th.  ArtiCulture is a great resource in my old neighborhood in Minneapolis; my kids take classes there in the summer and love it every time.  I'm thrilled to finally get around to teaching there!  For details, see the class schedule here and scroll down near the bottom of the page.  For this class, you would need to provide a t-shirt or two from which to construct the hat.

My second class will be at Sewtropolis, in the wonderful neighborhood of 48th and Chicago.  This class will include the hat stitching and construction, as well as a bit more focus on the embellishments.  For this class, I am providing kits in a variety of colors and stenciled patterns.  Class starts later this month.  (I don't think it's on Nikol's online schedule yet, but if you're interested, just call or email the shop & they'll get you set up.)

Bucket hat.

Considering how jam packed I knew this summer would be, I didn't plan to get many stitching projects completed...but fitting in a little bit here and a little bit there has been surprisingly productive. (Granted, all the projects have been a bit little too.)

This bucket hat uses the same stencil as my keyhole tank, but the hat pattern comes from Alabama Studio Sewing & Design (the final book in the Alabama Chanin studio series).  I recommend making the pattern at least 10% smaller than the pattern provided in the book.  I made a sample first with no embellishment, directly from the pattern, and then made this one smaller -- and if I make another, I'll do it even smaller as the cotton jersey tends to stretch with wear. 

Sweet.

What a sweet surprise this morning when I gave myself a few minutes (okay, 15) to catch up on a little blog reading, and found this post on the Alabama Chanin journal.  With that in mind, here's a recap of some of my favorite hand-stitched projects, inspired by Alabama Chanin: