It's CRUNCH Time!

Time to stop thinking about finishing all those fabulous hand made Christmas quilts and gifts and actually finish them! Here's what's on my plate this week.

1) Chicken Quilt
In good shape here... or what I consider to be good shape! I sewed the rows together and added the first of two borders. This is the part of quilting I hate most as it involves a lot of scrambling around the floor, pinning, and keel hauling tons of fabric under a needle. Fabric for the final border should be in the mail Tuesday and I'm hoping I can get that on.

This one's for my son-- he started raising chickens this year. I really can't wait to see the look on his face-- delight-- or a big question mark over his head as to why mom would make him a quilt when he sleeps with a dog? We'll see what happens! May I say, the Lori Holt books-- Farm Girl Vintage, Farm Girl Vintage 2, and the Christmas books all have settings for  6" and 12" blocks at the back and it has been tremendously helpful in assembling this piece. TBQ in January. (to be quilted, lol)

2. A Binding

So here's one that was only pieced when I gifted it on Fourth of July-- I did tell the person they would be seeing it again at Christmas as a joke-- Whoops! Christmas is a week away, and I'm struggling now to even make the "joke" goal!!

I really want to hand stitch it down on the back-- it adds extra love. That'll replace cross stitch as my morning job.

This one also gets a Thank You for your Service label on the back, and I'm hoping to do a monogram... details, details.

3. Lori Holt Snowglobe pillows
I have a couple of brand new people in my life this year-- wonderful people-- and I'd love to gift them a little quilty present. So in browsing through the Lori Holt Christmas book, I found some cute snowglobe pillows. I'm feeling over confident after getting the Chicken quilt done in a month-- let's see what happens today.

I was really having trouble cutting sizes when I started-- one is big and one is little. Let's hope that's not a trend that continues into 2022, and thank God these are just for pillows. I do need a couple of inserts from JoAnn-- here's hoping the supply chain cooperates. These are supposed to have buttons sewn on the trees, and I also have some little snowflake charms I could sew on. Let's see how far I get.

4. The Matchbox display rack
So this isn't a quilt obviously, but this needs some assembly. I've been exercised to start passing some of our "stuff" down to future generations, and it's my desire to make sure it doesn't end up in a garbage dump! 

I reasoned that you do this by turning your collectibles into something nice. We've had Mr. SFOs box of matchbook cars in the family for years-- they are very special to him. It occurred to me a nice display rack with all the cars would be perfect for our son's office in his car repair shop. SO.....

I found this incredible handmade case on Etsy-- now it's time to put it together. So I took the cars out for the first time in probably 40 years-- and what did I discover? Not the shiny, sexy muscle cars I had imagined, but a bunch of rusty construction vehicles!!! (You know that Mr. SFO is an architect-- I mean, I should have known!!) 

It's too late to send the case back, and it's somewhat appropriate as he does service trucks and hydraulics. I snagged a Matchbox red 1993 Jeep Wrangler off of eBay for the display... the red Jeep Wrangler is one we owned back in the day and is part of the family lore of the young man's birth story-- I'll leave the rest to your imagination. But he actually looked for and bought a real 1993 Wrangler now. So another gift I'm really curious what the reaction is.

5. Hoodie

All of my quilts do involve machine embroidery-- even if it's only the label. But there's one special shirt that needs to be made that only needs embroidery. Can't show it till after Christmas!

So, the artist in residence goes up to NH every weekend-- she doesn't know I use her office as a design floor on weekends. We had all promised no spending on Christmas gifts this year-- just handmade stuff. I noticed her door was closed more than usual this week, but just figured MOM was getting a little too overwhelming for her lately.

When I went it, what to my wondering eye should appear?

Not only that, but word has gotten around that others in my family are breaking the "rule." So Mr. SFO and I have to go out today to do some shopping! Hope it isn't swamped out there.

Let me know about your Christmas finishes-- I imagine quite a few of us are scrambling this week!

xoxo

Carol

Santa's Workshop in Full Swing!

    It's high time to stop thinking and starting doing something about all those Christmas present ideas I have rattling around in my brain! What better time of year to have an embroidery machine with dozens of beautiful personalized gifts under the tree?

    Here's one that took me a whole day! 

If you're a blog fan, I'm sure you've heard me mention my daughter was a figure skater when she was growing up. No, she wasn't going to the Olympics-- we used to laugh because that was the first question out of any one's mouth when they learned she skated. What other sport would anyone put an impossible goal like that in front of a kid?

"I'm trying out for football!"

"Oh, are you going to the Superbowl?"

That just does not happen.

Anyway, I'm proud of her accomplishments, and it made me happy when she treated herself to a little lesson each week this year, after six years off the ice. So for her coach, we decided to make a nice bag for ice skates. Well, BUY a bag and embroider it! That is "making a bag" to machine embroiderers! 

L.L. Bean has the best bags-- a lot were sold out but we did manage to snag this red one. It was stiff as a board, and the embroidery area was a lot smaller than I imagined. I had to digitize the black outline to hold it to a hoop-- there was no way I was going to get that bag hooped-- and I had to open up the sides to even get it under my needle. Come to think of it, making a bag would have been a lot quicker.

It did come out really pretty and I just need to pick out that black outline and clean it up a bit. The design, if you wondered, I just picked up at Embroidery Library! It is super pretty, if a bit dense, and it would have taken another day for me to digitize my own.

While it stitched, I made good use of my time stitching chickens together!

This is almost at the point where I would gift it-- it still has two outer borders to go, and I have eleven days. This quilt proved to me how quickly you can whip up a decent size quilt with easy large blocks. These are 12" Lori Holt chicken blocks from the first Farm Girl Vintage book.

I picked red, white, and blue for a NO FAIL color scheme-- it's Minick and Simpson's latest Belle Isle collection. I lived in Michigan for three years growing up, so I have an affinity for their work, always named after something in that state. I tried to pick more manly prints-- this is for my son-- but who could resist making hens from the large florals-- that white one at the bottom is my favorite.

Anyway, I think it will be a nice down payment on the eggs I receive weekly from him!

The eggs are usually smaller than store ones-- but there's one hen who's an overachiever-- isn't there always ONE in life. Anyway, her egg in the dozen is huge, and you can't close the lid on the carton because of it. I'm not sure if he knows which hen it is, but I keep telling him-- 

FIND HER and BREED HER!

Then we have three weeks of our FREE St. Petersburg Christmas stitch-a-long in-- 

Now that is a street I would like to stroll along!

I am trying to get 1,000 viewers for my daughter's hiking YouTube channel-- that is what you need for monetization. She's hoping to hike the Appalachian Trail next year, and all proceeds from her channel will go towards that. It's appropriate because she's producing the San Francisco Stitch Co. channel!

We will offer the finishing kit for free this year if we can make it to 1,000-- unfortunately, less than 10% of people who downloaded Week Three for free were willing to take the time.

So THANK YOU to those who did-- I will figure out a way to individually get you a free kit whether or not we get to 1000-- we're currently at about 350, and I really don't want to keep harping on about this day after day. Everyone is just so beaten down right now, don't you find that?

Somewhere I read that Christ was born in a very turbulent time-- remember-- a paranoid King Herod was having all the infants in Bethlehem slaughtered when he heard the prophecy that a KING was born there. It lifted my spirits to think of that. So take heart everyone-- we have another new year coming-- and every day is a new one, isn't it?

So with that, Santa's gotta get more stuff to embroider today--
let's just do our best and make it count! 

Here's the link for the YouTube Channel, just in case you want a free finishing kit, LOL... it only takes a second to hit that red subscribe button, and you're making two people very happy! Thank you!

GYPSY TRAILS

xox

Carol

Through the years...

Today, we released the 15th annual installment of our year motif series! I thought it would be fun to take a look back-- yes, more nostalgia! Someone suggested I do a weekly post on an older set-- it's a great idea-- let me know in the comments if you would like to read about it.

I LOVE holidays-- can you guess? It's what I love to stitch and decorate for. In 2007, we had just completed the BIG move from San Francisco to Boston-- I was all settled in for winter, and it occurred to me New Year's Day was an occasion I'd really never designed for... and a new series was born!

It's amazing to me to go back and take a look at the first year-- so simple! Then, because designs always sell better with a great project idea, I tried all of these luscious accessories. Above we had a checkbook cover-- do any of you remember back in the day when you wrote paper checks-- heehee!

Then we had a large wall calendar-- the inspiration for this was those dish towel calendars? I haven't seen that in a while, either. 

Looks great doesn't it? This series proudly hung in my front hall for three or four years, before it's demise....

And then, this is the desk calendar-- so cute! I used some test stitch outs, and filled in with novelty fabrics to make the picture for each month-- clever, huh! I've never enjoyed turning a calendar page as much.

These three items were made every year, for quite a few years...

Every year I saw some way it could be improved-- this year, apparently I decided it needed VINES! haha. Looks hairy to me now.

 

The wall calendar always needed a new 4x4 design-- that was all the creativity that went into it-- the rest was a total drudge of creating all of the months, and the piece was rehooped fifteen times! I tried a different color on this and learned white always photographs best.

The second year, I added the journal cover. I always like the idea of keeping a journal-- I'm sad to say, I still have all of these, and not a page has been filled. I was probably sewing with that time, though.

So 2010 was a big design change when I added the ribbon through the numbers. This is the first design that now looks good to me, through the lens of time. Thank God I finally got it right--or, third time's the charm.

2011... did you know, that the same arrangement of dates-- that is, the year starts on a Tuesday and is a leap year... occurs again in 2036? So yes, I am holding on to all of my stitched calendars... so recyclable!

2012...

So the years rolled by, and finally it came time to admit as much as I loved making these things, they really weren't selling. Was it just too much work for all of you? Had we fully moved into calendars on the phone? Automatic payments instead of paper checks? Change is hard for me-- but 2012 was the last year for my beloved wall and desk calendars. 

I produced a lot more journals these years-- so fun to try different fabric combinations-- and truthfully it wasn't a big money maker for San Francisco Stitch Co.-- but I used them as lovely gifts at Christmas time! 

Another big design change for 2014-- the checkered bar!

The checkbook idea lingered for a couple more years-- they were easy to make-- but I finally realized I was the only one carrying one. Back in the day, whenever I had to write a check-- I certainly got some lovely comments from people I owed money to. 

I kept going... for one thing, I almost had the full set of digits-- at that point, I would only have to cut and paste them in each year! 2015 was a lovely year...

So nothing had changed for a while and as easy as it was to set this up each year, I was bored-- and you were bored! It wasn't even worth continuing. So in 2019, I totally redid the flowers to a shocking orange on a blue grunge...

Worst year ever! haha.

In 2020, I made the ITH mug rug-- who doesn't love a mug rug-- and changed the colors back-- finally a hit!

 I still persevere with my journal covers-- I do have a rock solid minimum of you who make this-- and who knows, maybe next year will be the year I write on a page or 2...

So now, it's 2022! Never before, have so many digits been able to be cut and pasted into a design!

This won't happen again until 2122, or 2222--  I hope to be blissfully resting in heaven by then-- my days of trying to figure out what sells, over!

But until then, the question remains... will you all collectively love my jean version-- or absolutely need an updated mug rug for next year? FLIP OR FLOP this year? It's time to find out-- 

2022 MUG RUG

2022 JOURNAL

But one thing is for sure-- this design is certainly my FOLLY, and I hope to create it for many years to come... thank you sew much for being here with me!

2022 Update: We're happy to say "2022" made a comeback last year in terms of sales... thank you all sew much for loving this design-- otherwise I would just have to continue making it for myself!

xox

Carol

What Color is a Chicken's Beak?

     Between my cross stitch turkey and my son's Patriotic Chicken quilt, it is beginning to look like a poultry yard around here. Do I have a "thing" for chickens? It wasn't until my daughter painted a penguin at a ceramic place with a penguin sweater on that the shop owner pointed out she must like penguins-- and we realized it was a "thing."

I did finish the turkey by Thanksgiving and have since then completed the full backstitch on it.

And the chicken blocks are done! I secretly asked my son what color a chicken's beak was before doing that part-- he looked puzzled why I would ask-- but apparently, it depends on the breed.

I have to say, I really shocked myself at how quickly these went together, just by making all twelve simultaneously instead of one at a time. But, as a concession to those who make slow progress, important decisions of what wing would go with what bird really went out the window. The light blue chickens are also a bit of a fail-- they blend in with the background too much. I've dubbed this the "no overthinking quilt" or I guess I am overthinking just not "fixing" it!

Each chicken now has a thin strip of border all around it, then a sashing (I picked a clever black chickenwire fabric), and the two more borders. So it's a bit early to marvel at how quickly it went. By Christmas? DO OR DIE!!!!

So to just bore you with cross stitch for another moment-- I know a lot of quilters resent the space now give on Fat Quarter Shop to this-- I'm going to wrap up work on this by the end of the year. I got totally behind on backstitching as I went along, and there's enough in Apple Lady alone to keep me busy for quite some time.

On December 31st, it's doing a disappearing act until May 1st. Then I would have enough time over the summer to finish it by Autumn. What have I learned from this incredible expenditure of time? Well-- it just goes to show you if you make a commitment to work on something, you can make it happen!

 But I watched Kimberly Jolly's Wednesday cross stitch livestream last week, and it came out that she spent 33 full 40-hour weeks cross stitching so far this year. This was all totally documented on an Excel Spreadsheet, which I'm sure took up part of that time! LOL

???

So it's obviously up to her how she spends her time, and I do think she's an amazing person, an incredible business woman, and a great mom. But I had to ask myself if I want to be the queen of completed cross stitch kits... I did the math, (not in Excel, just guessing!) and the time in this piece is going to be about 240 hours, or six weeks of my life!

So then you get to thinking, what if I had put that time into unfinished quilts, or better yet, the longarm, or even better still, finishing up some of my art quilts? 

So 2022 is going to be the year of original work for me-- that being said, you can't be "working" every minute of your life-- you do need some relaxation, and it's good to know I had six weeks off this year!

Balance is something that is really hard to find, isn't it?

Last week I got a new phone-- or, camera that is! I am taking pictures much more often than I am ever making phone calls! It's the iPhone Pro Max 13-- and it has three eyes-- as a Halloween lover-- well, I'm in love! The point was to be able to make the YouTube videos on it. We recorded another one recently, and I had to keep dumping older things to have space. The new one is again, cross stitch-- I'm showing all of my 1990's unstarted kits-- hee,hee. I think I'm more authentic than these ladies with dozens of finished projects each week, don't you? Anyway, I think you will enjoy it-- many of you in my age group will recognize these-- just like old friends. 

This is my ONE finish of 2021!

And by the way-- after the last post, I really dedicated myself to finding my Twelve Days of Christmas UFO, and I did! 

It was in a box that I assumed had photographs in, and had passed over while looking many times. Something unusual happened...

I discovered it is further along than I thought!!

How often can you say that!!

So now I've segued into original work, and this is where my heart lies in 2022.

Wait for it, wait for it...

I'm starting early, and guess who had the courage to press that START button on my Stitches of the Sea sashing! I did it, and it is exquisite! And here is the beautiful shell, on the back as well, just as I have imagined it all these months.

This is the project of the week, so I hope to get the side and corner designs wrapped up as well. It does take time for instructions, and I have two volunteer testers I will need to hear from before we release.

I also finished St. Petersburg Christmas Block Two, and Carefree Highways Set Seven is out.

St. Petersburg Christmas is FREE-- so please tell your embroidery friends. We need to expand our customer base to grow at this point, and we've hired an SEO company to help. Did you know if you Google, BIRD EMBROIDERY DESIGNS, the Cloud Club doesn't even come up? I've also had super fans who have asked their friends if they know about us-- and NO, they don't!

You can find both of these on the NEW tab on our home website page...

HERE

On the home front, we got our tree up earlier than I would have believed possible. We rushed out the day after Thanksgiving, due to supply chain fears. So there were plenty, but there were smaller than usual. It was a real struggle getting EVERY ornament of my three plastic tubs up, but with help, we did it!

All of that big mix of plastic, glass, salt dough, Hallmark, metal lives so happily together....

isn't it BEAUTIFUL!

And here we are goofing off while testing the new "portrait" feature on my phone! I do think the new feature made me look my best in my red bathrobe.

I admit I have had quite a few moments of pride this past week--

But don't worry, like a true artist, the feeling that everything I do sucks will always be the foundation of my endeavors--

and I'll always be there for you, in that way.

Have a wonderful week!

xox
Carol