Christmas Album Finishing Kit Peeks!

January was a super busy month! There are always so many thing to get wrapped up after Christmas, an office that needs a serious clean-up, and my friend Tere and I were invited to lecture and have a workshop at a local quilt guild-- Bayberry Quilter's of Cape Cod. It was a huge honor, as it is a group filled with very talented people. (Artist's always pick a great place to live!) Of course, in my excitement I forgot to take pictures. We had a wonderful time, and really enjoyed chatting with everyone after about their own quilting stories. 

So now it's February, and it's really overdue to finish our Christmas Albums! If you're not feeling Christmas at this point, why not finish in the fall... but we hope this sneak peek of our finishing kit will inspire you to stay the course. Just look at those beautiful blocks...

We trimmed our large ones to 6-1/2" x 6-1/2" and our charm size to 3-1/2" x 3-1/2."  There are three more designs to come, but they will be coming fast!
Now that the calendar is clear, we hope to close this out by Valentine's Day...  finishing kit and all.

We have a 6-1/2" square ruler, and we taped a little 4x4 window on it, which made for accurate and quick cutting. We'll be posting a full tutorial on this later.

Time to pick sashing fabric! This is always such a dilemma-- it is SO HARD to find the perfect one, and when we do, you want to buy it... and sometimes it isn't even available anymore.

SO...

We had this great idea... we are all embroiderers, so why not embroider our own fabric?

That ended up being much easier than driving from store to store, and searching online.

So here it is! The top one we thought was a little too heavy, the middle one was a little light, but the bottom one was just right. hee hee. 

 
 Trimming was so easy with the basting line, and sewing was just as easy-- we left our stabilizer in and all we had to do was stitch along the dotted line.

Isn't that just so pretty!

If you remember, our layout inspiration was the Caroline's Garden quilt, our first ever show quilt.

So before you rush to buy, you can see we still need a cornerstone design, and a beautiful swag for the borders. 

But we hope we've given you the vision to re-energize your efforts, and a promise that then end is in sight. 

We seriously cannot wait to hang this up the day after Thanksgiving... thanks for joining us!

xox 

Carol

February's here!

February is here... well, not quite... but we're ready for it!

We're having so much creating cross stitch designs, we're early... this month. Wouldn't it be nice to have your cross stitch design all set for the first of each month? We're going to try hard to make that happen this year. Get a head start on your month, here...

February Cross Stitch

We're still in total shock how much these 

machine embroidery designs look like hand stitching... 

in, seriously, a fraction of the time!

It's so much fun to watch our Babylock Spirit race right through.

January's design was a blockbuster! You split evenly between those who were hoping the quilting was part of the design (it isn't),  and those who were hoping it was NOT! 

WHAT?!@&%$*#

Quilt over gorgeous cross stitch?

The answer is-- YES! And we quilted over it again this month... because they stitch so quickly, you can just make another one!

As a test this month, we're also offering the individual parts of the piece for $1.49 each. Many of you have asked for this with some of our past collections as well-- the reason why we don't is that the single transaction fee for credit cards and PayPal eats up more of $1.49 than we'd care to think about. So we'll see what happens... 

We'd love to start a project gallery for just cross stitch-- so if you come up with something fantastic, show it and tell it on our Facebook Project Photo Group.

You have to request membership, but only because we're trying to prevent spammers. It's a great place to see what everyone is doing... we love it!

For those of you who are working on "My Christmas Album,"

we're steaming ahead with two more blocks and hope to release them this week... then there's only two more to go!

If you are missing blocks, now's the time to push forward...

My Christmas Album

We have a FANTASTIC finishing idea kit for that as well. Total embroidery gorgeousness. If you "FOLLOW" this blog by entering your email, above right, and you'll be the first to get a sneak peek of that, and trimming instructions will be up soon as well.

And last but not least, CLOUD CLUB!

Many of  you can't wait to finish-- we stitched out this first test and it's great! We're still debating if we want to add subtle color behind some of those feathers. What do you think?

Happy Monday to all!

xox

Carol

A Year of Cross Stitch--New Series!

Once again, a Happy New Year to all!

Ours has started with a bang-- the January Cross Stitch mug rug has really sold well, and so we think there are many people with fond memories of this glorious pastime!

The idea to start digitizing cross stitch came last month. For a little relaxation, I have this OLD box of cross stitch patterns that I pull out every once in a LONG while. Back in the day, as I was just starting my career as an artist, I had a two-hour commute from the hinterlands of NJ to New York City for my job.

Not one to sit still, I picked up this hobby from my neighbor and filled those hours with sewing, glorious sewing. When I think about it, I wasn't happy at that job in the city; but I LOVED my commuting time-- the roots of starting my own embroidery business were really sewn in those hours that many would have considered a waste. So never think that the simple things you do in life are unimportant.

You can see why I pull this out at Christmas! This is my daughter's stocking I started 21 years ago when expecting her on those train rides, back and forth. I still believe I will finish it, although she now kids me that she will name a future daughter Caroline so a little girl might enjoy it growing up! LOL 

When you think of the hours it took to get this far, I still think I am more than halfway. Instead of watching towns roll by on a train, I now watch Hallmark Christmas movies.

I'm sure some of you will remember these kits, mostly from the 80s and 90s. This one is a Christmas house, and featured "hardanger" where you cut holes in linen. Looks like I gave up on the border, and there is a bottom underlay with the tree I never even started. Isn't it gorgeous, though!

Talk about the time required... in this kit, you were supposed to stitch eight tiny reindeer and then Santa on his sleigh for a 3D display. Even commuting 4 hours a day-- I only ever finished one reindeer and then decided to make a framed piece of that instead.

I googled it, and it is a Leisure Arts kit, that is still available on line-- if you have four empty hours a day and are interested!

LOL

These were snowmen, that were supposed to fit in a tray. I wisely decided NOT to buy the tray until it was finished!

Many of these kits are still available on eBay, unopened. And so I congratulate myself on getting this far.

As an artist, I very quickly ventured into drawing and stitching my own patterns. This is one I drew from a cameo passed down from my grandmother. I entered contest it in a cross stitch magazine, and won a prize. Think of that... my first published pattern! I tried to find the magazine online, and old copies are available, but I'm not really sure which issue it was in.

As you get down to the bottom of the box, the pieces become less and less finished. It would take a lot of ambition to start this "Fruits of the Spirit" again. 

When I am feeling nostalgic, I think of the time when that needle was last sunk into that cloth, and I think of the person that I was then, and what I am now.

Yes, I'm sappy like that.

Later on, as I'm sure cross stitch decreased in popularity, designers put out easier kits... these even came with a mat and frame. But you can see, though close, they are not even finished-- there is simply no time for us modern women anymore!

So during "Christmas at Pemberley" on the Hallmark Channel, as I am still not good at sitting still, I started once again sketching my own cross stitch.

There is a part of our digitizing software that does cross stitch--

 I tried it years ago, but it seemed difficult. 

I tried again last month, and it did NOT seem so difficult...

 It actual seemed, well, SIMPLE and FUN-- and best of all FAST to do and stitch out, and it looks incredibly like the real thing that takes years to do! Sew easy, in fact, that I was willing to risk spilling hot chocolate on it!

 We're now on a mission to resurrect this glorious craft-- join us!

It's an heirloom in an hour. We'll be going through the months, and even adding some special editions, like birthdays, Mother's Day, puppies and kitties, as we go along. The goal is to also issue each of the little parts, like the snowflake and skates, individually, for those who want to make something else of their own inspiration.

Thank you so much for your response-- it is really gratifying to know that YOU all have memories of doing cross stitch, and we'd love to hear your own stories below. Maybe you'll even pull out some of your own old kits!

Welcome to the Year of Cross Stitch!

Carol

xox

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve is a great time for reflection, and we thank you SEW much for stitching a long with us this year. It is a tremendous privilege to connect with the worldwide community of sewing, full  of people who live their lives trying to make something beautiful, frequently to gift it away!

And so, we reach across the world to hug each and every one of you with these few pictures to warm you and make you smile-- 

a little look at what happened between thread changes this holiday season at San Francisco Stitch Co.!

Our tree, pulled from the backyard, because we were so late in getting one, every one was sold out... isn't it glorious!

Stockings for all the elves at our son's auto shop... having a machine embroiderer in the family sure has it's privileges at this time of year, wouldn't you agree!!

A shortbread house, 

because we're Scottish and no one here likes gingerbread!

  

Snowflake cookies made by an extremely talented daughter. 

If you think sending one to art school won't pay off... think again!

A new rescue grandpuppy...

and a very tired grandpuppy at that!

A trip to see the tree in Boston, where my phone got SO COLD it could only take one picture...

Lots and lots of eating out-- 

because there is even less time to make dinner than usual...

  

Perler bead ornaments-- because at heart-- 

we're all about the crafts here.

Here's wishing you had the
most magical Christmas season ever,
and to a bright New Year-- 2019!

Carol and the San Fran Stitch gang

xox

Cloud Club Ready for Take-Off!

It is so hard to believe another year is ending, 

and we are so happy to have a set of thirteen birds to show for it!

It is with great pride that we look over the past year and see how we went from this, 

to this,

to this! 

That is quite a flock and we know from your emails that quite a few of you kept up and have this same stack as we do!

We briefly enjoy the sensation of being "finished"--

however, we are quick to remember that there is some fill in to do-- and some finishing instructions!! Yes-- the joy of the "on point" setting-- we have some triangle fillers to design!

We have put A LOT of thinking and sketching into it... and it was very difficult to find something perfectly stunning for these birds. 

We started with the idea of quilted "feathers" ... what else for a bird quilt, right? We quickly moved on from stuffy old feather sketches and started moving into REAL feathers. After months of thought and sketching, this is what we have finally decided on:

We are pretty excited and hope you love it as much as we do! We've already started to digitize it-- we're not sure if the feathers will be full color embroidery or maybe just a quilting design. 

Thanks to Photoshop, we've been able to do a little "imagining" of what a truly finished piece might look like.

This is an "artist's rendering" of the in-the-hoop birds as they would look stitched together and with setting triangles added.

For a more formal setting,  you could add a fabric border in a color like the one above. Isn't that the perfect finish?!

Some of us will get there, but the beauty of designing just two sizes of these setting triangles is that you can then make a project of as many birds as you wish. Whatever you have finished NOW, is perfectly fine! (More on that later!)

  One... 

Three... etc. etc.

Then there is the Quilt-As-You-Go version, which is more like a real quilt, and we have planned a full setting of both the triangles and sashing blocks.

Are you WOWed yet?! Remember, these aren't finished pieces,  and we're still in the early stages of planning... here are some fabric swatches we snipped from Fat Quarter Shop. More grunge so far, and we are leaning toward the purples, but no final decisions have been made. What do YOU think?

It's so exciting for us to finally have a chance to render up what a finished Cloud Club quilt might be... and we can't thank you enough for all of the LOVE you've shown for our bird series. There are so many more birds we'd like to draw in thread! So....

We're making a committment to do five more during the course of next year which would extend the layout as follows:

Or...with twelve more you could do this... but we have to admit, another bird every month next year seems a bit daunting! Let's see what happens...

So that's where we are... expect the setting triangles and sewing instructions for both methods early next year.. then it's up to you to finish or to keep on! We are so grateful for the large following we had this past year, and hope you'll be able to turn your bird blocks of any number from UFOs into a finished project that really takes wing!! We'd love to hear your comments on all of this below.

xox

Carol