Etsy in Austin for South by Southwest!

The folks from Etsy headquarters in Brooklyn have arrived here in Austin for the awesome SXSW event they've been planning! It starts tomorrow & continues through Sunday, at Venue 222 on Sixth Street. Two full days of craft demos, music & more! See the full schedule of events on the Etsy in Austin event page.

The EtsyAustin street team has partnered up with Etsy for this event & we'll have a fabulous display of our work ("The Wall of Wow") at the event. I'm on the committee for that & have seen the setup, so I can tell you first-hand that it will indeed wow you! More event info, plus our team members' guide to Austin, on the EtsyAustin blog.

We'll also have a Meet EtsyAustin booth and the coolest photo booth in town. Seriously, you do NOT want to miss getting your picture taken with Babsy the larger-than-life, mustache-sportin', tiny hat-wearin', cat. Saddle up!

I got to meet many of the Etsy folks last night at a meet n' greet they hosted for our team leaders at Polvo's Mexican restaurant. It was super fun to meet them & talk plans for this weekend. It's going to be craftacularly fun - hope you'll come out & see us!

Little Tweed Owls

So I've been working on something new & super-cute, if I may say so myself.

This little guy is waving hello - awww!

and I just love Mr. Green Wings on his mod background:

What do you think of my newest creations? I'm working on a couple of other animals, too, but the owls are all I have done so far. I'll have these little cuties for sale in our WonderCraft booth tonight at First Thursday on South Congress, tomorrow at The Bleet-Up & next week at Cherrywood Art Fair. Hope to see you at one of these craftabulous events!

Bits & Pieces

a box of colorful ears...

stuffed & waiting by my machine to be spiral-stitched for that adorable quilted effect! This is perhaps my favorite step of elephant-making.

and a stack of embroidered faces on what will become the elephants' bodies.

I love seeing the pieces at different stages & watching a batch of toys come together from a stack of parts. These polka-dotty elephants will soon be getting some national attention! Can't wait until I can tell you all about it!

Work in Progress: Turtle Mania!

Just a quick peek at what I'm working on right now. Hopefully I'll have a finished version to show you very soon! Like maybe tomorrow, if things go well. Stay tuned...

Someday Projects are now Sunday Projects

I've started a new thing in my work room that I'm calling my "Sunday basket." The idea is that I will keep an ongoing project in this basket: sewing, painting, a photo album - anything that I am working on purely for myself. Or it could be a gift for someone else, but it is most definitely just for fun & not for my business. The projects that are stowed in the basket will be my Sunday projects. I can spend all day on Sundays working on them if I want to - I'm giving myself permission to do that, and promising myself that I will refrain from doing anything work-related on Sundays. I can work on them whenever I feel like it of course, but knowing how busy my weeks are, I probably won't. But at least by saving Sundays for these personal projects I can realize some of those projects I keep telling myself I'll get around to "someday." Someday is today!!!!!!!

There are tons of things I've wanted to sew for myself (I envision a whole new wardrobe of skirts, tops & dresses) & I'll even go so far as to buy the patterns & fabric, but then I have a really hard time completing them. And then there all of those cute little one-day projects I always see in my Craft newsletter, like making bags from vintage pillowcases. I have a beautiful vintage pillowcase I thrifted about a year ago for just such a project waiting patiently on the shelf of my linen closet. Lots of other stuff I've been wanting to do just for fun, too, like collage a wall of my work room or go to more art galleries & museums, but I always seem to find myself swamped with work for my various small businesses. But I'm learning lately that in order to stay happy & inspired I really need to make an effort to carve out time for these things that I want to do, even though I always have a list a mile long of the things I "should" do. So here it is, typed out & posted to the interwebs for all the world to see: I'm taking back my Sundays!

More about what's currently in my basket in a future post...

Embroidery Show & Tell + Questions for Ya

So I just finished my first embroidery piece using a Sublime Stitching pattern - yay! I am so happy with how it turned out. I really enjoyed working with this pattern and saw it as a fun design challenge. I taught myself a couple of new stitches from The Embroidery Stitch Bible (a must-have reference book if you like embroidery!) and geeked out at the craft store picking out tons of new embroidery floss in beautiful colors.

The pattern I used is from the lovely Roaring Twenties set if you'd like to get it for yourself. It's super-cute! These stitched examples here are from Sublime Stitching.

What I love about these brilliant patterns is how easy they are to customize. They're just a guideline for the picture, but the colors & variety of stitches used are totally up to you. You could give a group of people the same pattern to work with & each one would come up with a different, equally awesome, finished piece. Compare & contrast my flapper girl with the one at left - quite different! They've added a beauty mark; I've added eyebrows & fill-in stitches to the feather. We've used very different color palettes, and I used a paisley fabric scrap that I happened to have hanging around.

Being a beginner at the whole embroidery thing though, I have a few questions for other stitchers out there:

How do you get rid of the hoop marks? Is there a trick to removing those? Or is it just a hazard of using thin fabric?

I steam ironed the bejeezus out of this fabric before framing it up, but the creases from the hoop are still faintly visible in the corners.

What's your favorite method for displaying your work? Do you typically frame a piece like this? Or do you just leave it in the hoop (eliminating the need to remove the hoop marks)?

I have seen this great Purl Bee tutorial for finishing a hoop piece, but haven't tried it yet. I'd love to learn more from those of you who've been embroidering for a while - please share your tips & tricks!

A Look at My Messy Desk

Here's what's been accumulating on my desk lately: a giant jar of recycled wool stuffing, a refreshing glass of root beer, a plethora of needles & scissors...

a huge pile of fabric scraps (which I save for use in future toys and fabric collages)...

and this adorable parade of toy elephants in various stages of stuffed-ness!

Milk & Cookies appliqued art for Miss Salty Oat

Just made this for my pal, Caitlin, who is moving away to Washington, D.C. this week. She's an amazingly prolific stitcher, sewer & all-around crafty gal who makes the cutest things! Her blog, Salty Oat, offers tons of inspiring photos & crafty tips. The name was also the inspiration for my art piece; the salty oat at Quack's is her favorite cookie. I hope this sewn version (along with a chocolate chip, just for good measure) will bring her sweet memories of Austin!

For the past few months, we at The WonderCraft have been lucky enough to have Caitlin as our intern, and we sure will miss her! She's been a big help to us and it will be sad to not see her smiling face around the shop anymore. We'll still be carrying some of her adorable work at Stella's though, such as handmade napkins and cross-stitched buttons & wall hangings like little Clarence. That will be nice. Wishing you all the best in DC, Caitlin!

Snuggle Herd Mystery Revealed!

All of you who guessed "elephant ears" were correct, and Meredith, you are the winner! I will contact you later today about your prize, a set of my "Say What?!" coloring cards. I was very amused by all of the creative answers - thanks for playing, everyone!



I've been working on a slight re-design of Elsa the Elephant, so it was sort of a trick question! The ears I'm making now are quilted, so they look a bit different.



The material I'm using for the body is now quilter's cotton instead of upcycled t-shirts. Using cotton allows me to skip a couple of steps & make them more quickly & easily. However, I think I may still keep making the t-shirt ones as a "luxe" type of item because they are sooooo cuddly soft, and I like the re-use aspect. I'm going to be using many vintage & re-purposed fabrics for these new cotton ones, too, to keep them earth-friendly.



I hope to have these new elephants listed in my Etsy shop soon. Also working on a few other super-cute animals... stay tuned!

Snuggle Herd Sneak Peek & Contest!

Can you guess what I've been working on???



Ok, I'll give you a hint: it's a body part. But can you guess what part it is & who it belongs to? Leave your answer in the comments for a chance to win! I'll send a special gift to one lucky person, drawn randomly on Thurs, 7/8 at 10am from all of the correct answers.