Newest Colorburst Embroidery: September...

A few months ago, Weeks Dye Works sent some threads to me to experiment with*   After much admiring, I finally got to work with them this month for the latest Colorburst Sampler:  **Rows of Rainbows**.  

I first used their hand dyed quilting thread in my BERNINA to cover some of the thin lines (see above pictures) and then used their size 8 hand dyed perle cotton for the rest of the stitches (running stitch, couching, and a little back stitch).  The pink yarn couched down around the border is a rogue knitting wool from my editor, Melanie.   

I'm so curious to see if any of you will use your machines on this sampler or others. The straight stitch makes such a beautiful line! My machine also does a sort of double straight stitch which (surprise!) is twice as thick and twice as nice.   You may want to slow your machine's speed down a bit (easy peasy on the BERNINA) when sewing on something so specific.  It helped me quite a bit.  I also recommend a stiff embroidery stabilizer on the backside to keep your fabric from bunching up.  I get mine here.   Try a little sample fabric first to get your speed and stitch length adjusted to your liking.  

These shipped out yesterday (so did the Stitch of the Month *Cross Stitch* Samplers), complete with Circus and Harvey Milk stamps.  The USPS stamp designers are really making me happy these days.  Can't wait to see what else is in store!

*this is all in an effort to select threads to send to YOU, dear subscribers.  Soon, soon.  

Dyed Fiber Embroidery Thread (and Bubblegum Sampler) Giveaway!

One of my favorite things about the subscription programs, is that every so often, I am lucky enough to partner with other small companies to offer subscribers samples of beautiful threads.  Last year, when the first subscription program was just starting, I reached out to Kathy Leever, the maker behind the beautiful threads at Dyed Fiber, and asked if she would be interested in including a small sample of her hand dyed tencel threads at some point in the first year.  Not only did she, but she reached out again to me this year to include threads in March's envelopes.

I can tell you from first hand experience that these threads are a joy to work with.  I love variegated threads so much,  if for no other reason than the fact that their changing colors keep me motivated to stitch longer.  I've long been stitching with Perle Cotton, particularly DMC, but  until I found Kathy's shop, I had never heard of Tencel Perle.  In Kathy's words, it is as soft as silk, but as strong as polyester.  Her threads are hand dyed in her Texas studio, and no two skeins are alike.

I used a combination of Kathy's threads and solid colored DMC threads in my version of the Bubblegum Sampler (which is the first in the Colorburst Subscription), and I love the way the two combined.

Along with the samples that Kathy sent along for subscribers, Kathy sent me eight full sized skeins of Tencel Perle to give away!  I'm sweeting the deal with a copy of Bubblegum (pictured above).    There are a few ways to enter to win- feel free to enter one or all ways to up your chances!  

• Leave a comment.
• Visit the Dyedfiber Shop and tell me what color you'd pick.
• Post one of the photos in this post to pinterest and leave a link.
• Post a photo of one of your samplers in progress (esepcially if you used Kathy's threads- we want to see!) to the Flickr group.

I'll pick two winners at Random next Monday, April 28th.  Winners will receive four hand dyed skins of Dyedfiber Tencel Perle and one Bubblegum Sampler.  Please make sure to include your e-mail address so I can get in touch with you!   

 *This giveaway is now CLOSED*

Announcing the Original's Sequel!

At long last!  I've been sitting on this sampler for awhile now.  I designed it in the spring, and then my friends at Creativebug and I decided to film a workshop based on this pattern, so I've been waiting patiently for this day to arrive.  The sampler just got listed in my shop, and is now live on the Creativebug site.  I think it has been worth the wait- and I can't wait for you guys to try it.

They captured every last detail on film, getting each stitch from a few angles and making sure that your questions are answered.  The set for this workshop, made by the amazing Courtney Cerruti,  generated a lot of buzz even before the workshop launched, thanks to instagram.  Courtney posted a tutorial for those awesome yarn banners here.

This workshop took a whole day to shoot, but we were kept going by a hilarious crew.  What else kept us going? Vegan donuts!  I'm not a vegan, but these maple donuts are amazing.   Can you complete this sampler without donuts?  Of course! But I wouldn't recommend it.....  (Remember this?)

Coming tomorrow........

Some of you following along on Instagram guessed months ago that this was coming.  For those of you non-instagrammers, here is a sneak peek.   Due out tomorrow!  I'll be in the studio until then.  Cutting out samplers and readying my envelopes.

August Sampler of the Month: Satin Stitches.....

Some of you may have already opened your mailboxes to find the newest sampler.  I flew to California yesterday, so I had to get the monthly samplers out to you all a little early.  Surprise!  This month, we're diving into satin stitches.  Before you groan and reach for your thickest thread to finish this one quickly, look around your embroidery basket and grab a few different threads.  Even though it will take longer, the satin stitch really does look beautiful with a thinner thread.  I dare say it would look even more beautiful with a silk thread- for a really satin effect.  

While I'm here in Berkeley I'm excited to visit Lacis and check out their always incredile selection of embroidery threads.  I wonder, how did you all like using the flower thread that went out in June's envelopes?  Do you have another favorite thread?  Leave a comment with your favorite thread below- I'd love to hear from you!

July Sampler of the Month: Chain Stitches

Hello there.....  As you might know, each month I send out a different thematic sampler to subscribers.  This month, I decided to put an end to the paper newsletter that I had been including in each order.  It seemed like a lot of paper, and  I wanted to be able to include links, photos, and in general a lot more information than I could include in the small page that I had been printing. So, welcome to the new newsletter!

This month, we're working on chain stitches.   The sampler includes a few different varieties, including the two color, or checkered chain stitch.   That one takes a long time, but I think the color change is worth it.  You could even get fancy and make it a three color stitch!

I spent fifteen years doing the chain stitch one way, only to be inspired by this tutorial to try it out a little differently.  It changed me!  I think you'll like it.

If you've been a subscriber since (at least) last month, you will have had a chance to try out the Flower Thread that went out with everyone's samplers in June.  I love this thin cotton thread, and I'm excited that I've got a pack of four colors to send to one blog reader.  Subscribers have multiple ways to enter, but even non-subscribers are eligible.  To enter, leave a comment here, and/or post a photo of any one of your monthly samplers as a work in progress (or a finished product if you're speedy) on either flickr, pinterest, or instagram.  Be sure to leave each one as a separate comment with a link so we can see your work.   Use the hashtag #dropclothsamplers so we can find it easily elsewhere.   

I'll leave the contest open until July 25th to give everybody time to get organized with photos and instagrams.  

PS- If you're reading this and wanting to join in the fun, I've got a few extra samplers this month.  In general the cutoff date to get the current month's sampler is the fifteenth of the month, but I'll happily mail out chain stitch samplers this month (while they last) to new subscribers.  

****I am a little behind the times- Sherrie- you're the winner!  I'm e-mailing you now....

Out of Print Samplers, and a Summer Sale!

Once, many years ago, I went to Vermont with my then girlfriend and her family to stay at their cottage up in the mountains.  It was beautiful.  There were cupboards full of blue willow china, and kayaks, and late night swims, and a general store. But the thing that made the most lasting impression on me was the freezer, down a long dirt road, that was full of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  Nailed to the side of the freezer was a can, where you put your money to pay for your ice cream.

Where I grew up, there are similar situations set up for asparagus, or cherries, or zucchini, but ice cream? In the middle of a field in a deep freeze, and not only that but Ben and Jerry's?  It was pretty dreamy, and it convinced me that New England was an ok place to vacation.

Man o man have I been dreaming about a mountain (er, make that an ocean) cottage lately.  New York is sweltering hot right now.  The humidity the last time I checked was about 1000%.  It's the kind of summer weather that makes me want to take about fifteen showers a day.

Which is why I'm so excited to go to Michigan today, to spend a long week on the big lake, and to soak in every breath of fresh air that I can.

While our housesitter is amazing at keeping the plants alive, she will not be shipping out orders, so I'm stopping by here to tell you about my own tin can policy.  I'm leaving the store open, and all orders starting now will ship out on July 9th.  You can take 20% off everything with the code MICHIGANSUMMER until then.

I also wanted to tell you that I uncovered a small pile of discontinued Cake and Chain Stitch Special samplers from way back while I was moving into the new space last month, and I thought I'd add those to the shop today before I take off.  These are in limited supply, and will most likely not be reprinted*, so get them while they are hot and on sale!    Click over to the shop to see what's what.  There are a few colors of each.

*I'm thinking of maybe reprinting the Cake Sampler on pink again if there's interest.  What do you think?  

PS- To see one of my favorite versions of the Chain Stitch Special sampler, check out Suzanne Reynold's blog.....

PSS- As far as I know Susan Anderson's contest is still going....make sure you get your hat in the ring!

Thread + Sampler = Giveaway!

If you are a Sampler Subscriber, you probably know by now how beautiful Dyedfibers threads are.  In a season of color popping up everywhere, these threads are leading the parade.    Everybody got a sample of these beautiful, color saturated Tencel perle threads in the subscription mailings last month. My mom stitched her sample using them, and I love the shiny smooth quality of the stitches.   Maybe some of you have used them too?  Show them off in the Flickr group!

Kathy aka DyedFiber, has generously agreed to giveaway a collection of four skeins to one lucky commenter.  I'm throwing in one of the new Color Wheel samplers too, since they seem to be a perfect match.

I asked Kathy how she got started dyeing these beautiful embroidery threads.....
"I began dyeing fabric to use in the Quilt Journal Project.  It was a natural progression to try and dye perle cotton along with the fabric so I would have embroidery thread that would coordinate with the fabric to use for embellishment.  Dyeing the little skeins of thread is more fun than dyeing fabric, it's a lot of color in a little bit of fiber and I just love it!" 

To enter to win four skeins of tencel perle thread and one Color Wheel Sampler, leave a comment here letting me know what your favorite color is.  Want to up your chances?  Leave another separate comment linking to your work in progress Dropcloth sampler on the Dropcloth Flickr Group. Still more?  Pin one of the pictures from this post and leave a link to your Pinterest board in a separate comment.   

Please note: Comments are open to everyone- each person can enter up to three times (see rules above).  Contest will end on Tuesday, April 9th at midnight, and I will choose a winner at random the next morning and announce it here on the blog.  Make sure your EMAIL is included in the comment so that if you win I can be in touch with you!

Color Wheel Debut......

To know me is to know that I like a lot of color.  In my kitchen cupboards are piles of Fiestaware.  When my friend asked what colors I had, I just looked at him blankly.  All the colors..... I have all of them!  I've never been one to shy away from bright, saturated things, which is why, as I've been re-evaluating my sampler buisness, it seemed strange that for the most part, the samplers themselves are black and white.  They get filled in with a lot of color (or not, check out this amazing grey version) but on their own, there hasn't been a lot of color.  It's a goal of mine for this year to begin phasing in more color, and this first one is a lot like my kitchen cupboard- it features all the colors....

Inspired by the color wheel, and by my love of all things full spectrum, this one features twelve stitches (all but one of them are included in this Creativebug workshop.)

Come back tomorrow for a chance to win your own copy as well as a handful of Dyedfiber threads to stitch with.......

Subscriptions are in the mail!

I took a bag of eighty subscriptions to the post office yesterday.  Stand by your mailboxes, and get your needles ready!  Here is a little preview....

Packing it up for Park Slope!

I'm packing up the Samplers (and kits and needle holders and subscription info) and taking it to the PS321 Holiday Sale in Park Slope tomorrow morning.  Here's a sneak peek of what's been going on behind the scenes to get ready.....

I'll be at table K-6, which is near the entrance.  My friend Christine will be there too-selling her beautiful jewelry.   For a full list of artists and makers, check out this website.  To get the inside scoop, you can check the facebook page too.   Thanks in advance to Katy for rocking the iphone credit card swiper all day!  See you in Brooklyn!

Announcing Subscriptions.....and a big giveaway!

When teaching workshops large and small, one question that I get asked a lot is "what's your favorite stitch?"  Although in a lot of the workshops I teach I often introduce an array of fancy stitches, I must admit that in my own artwork, my favorite stitches tend to be three simple ones- the back stitch, the french knot, and more recently, couching.  I am, like most people, susceptible to ruts.  The back stitch has always been my favorite.

Somewhere along the line of this year's workshops, I thought it would be fun to introduce a challenge- a routine-busting plan to help me and everybody else break out of their stitch ruts and try some new ones.  From that idea and from a particularly helpful phone call with my friend Jill*, the idea for an Embroidery Subscription was born.  I've spent the last month or so (including some very windy days in the midst of a Hurricane) drawing a series of samplers. Each one highlights a different family of stitches, starting with these first two- the Filling Stitches and Couching Stitches, stitched on our Thanksgiving road trip.  Special thanks to Katy for driving so that I could embroider, and special thanks to my mom for finishing the first one  when my hands couldn't stitch any longer!

Subscriptions are now available in 3, 6 or 12 month increments, and will begin mailing out on the fifteenth of each month, starting in January.   You can begin a subscription at any time. Each five inch sampler fits perfectly in a five inch hoop, and can easily be finished within a month's time, just in the nickle of time for the next one to arrive!  At the end of the year, you will have stitched the vast majority of your average embroidery how-to book.

These subscriptions are of course available as gifts, please make a note in checkout and I will send a handwritten card (with your note if you leave me one) letting the recipient know who it's from....

I've got lots of exciting ideas in store for these subscriptions, and I can't wait to see how you all complete them.  To a year of new stitches...........

Now for the fun part!  I have teamed up with Creativebug to offer one lucky reader a combination Sampler Subscription and Creativebug Subscription.  You'll win a month of instruction and three months of samplers, delivered right to your inbox and front door!    There are three ways to enter to win....

This Contest is now closed- but you can still use the discount Holiday2012 for 10% off everything, including Subscriptions, in the shop.  http://www.etsy.com/shop/dropcloth

I can't wait to see what you're working on, and I can't wait to spend a year exploring new ways of mark making with you.  If you're so inclined, please do enter all three ways!  


*If you are excited about the idea of a subscription but are more of a knitter than an embroiderer, please do check out Jill's amazing hand dyed yarn subscriptions....I'm no knitter but her colors are dreamy....

Free Shipping Today through Sunday

New Dropcloth Stickers.....

I hope you all had a happy and restful Thanksgiving.  The season of shopping seems to be upon us, so I thought I'd give a little incentive over at the shop.  Please use code BLACKFRIDAY2012 (no spaces please) for Free Domestic Shipping in the shop from now through Sunday night.   Please stay tuned next week for an announcement (join the mailing HERE to be the first to know) and a few updates in the classes and events department......Happy Holidays!

Remembering Birdland....

I don't know if I ever told you this, but I grew up next door to a hardware store.  The apartment that my family lived in looked out onto the roof of said hardware store, and since the store used to be a rolling rink (a bowling alley?) it had a curved roof and was always leaking.  I have fond memories of snow days spent baking cookies and passing them out the windows to Mr.Emery and his assistant, who were out there with a steaming bucket of tar trying in vain to patch it up and keep the snow from dripping in.  The store, Birdland, holds a lot of special memories for me, not the least of all is the fact that at the end of a long row of greeting cards, there was a box full of unused envelopes, extras, that were free for the taking.  I remember sorting through those envelopes to find the prettiest colors, and looking for the biggest ones.  Valentines day brought lots of pink and red.   I had a little collection of my own at home, gleaned from many trips next door.

When I first started mailing people samplers, I didn't have a plan for how to "market" myself or "brand" my product.  The samplers caught me by surprise.  I was invited to teach at Squam, and upon hearing that I would have a table at the end of session sale, I punted and decided to sketch up that first design.  Lots of people bought those first prints and a few blogged about them, and suddenly, while on vacation with almost no internet, I started getting dive bombed with e-mail requests from people all over the country who wanted to buy them.  I remember the first woman who bought one lived in Madison- and I mailed it to her in a business envelope pinched from my Dad's desk and sealed with scotch tape.  It made it just fine.

Flash forward three years and I am still mailing samplers out in envelopes, and sealing them with scotch tape.  When I lived in Chicago I scoured the thrift stores for packs of colorful envelopes, often using their cards to add structure in the mail.  On my last trip to San Francisco I hit the motherlode of beautiful envelopes at Scrap- those will be shipping out samplers all winter long.   With a rubber stamp for a return address and another to direct buyers back to the blog, the envelopes have been all the branding I've invested in.

One of the things that I love most about owning this little company of mine is preparing and sending you mail.  I love addressing the envelopes and ironing the samplers into shape.  I love picking out which envelope I'll use and, these days, picking out which piece of vintage wrapping paper I'll use to wrap it in first.  As part of the studio clean out  this fall I came across a huge box of vintage wrap that I had been collecting and saving for years.  I made a spontaneous decision to cut it all into sampler sizes and begin using it at once.  I've yet to regret diving into that stash- and it really does make me happy to wrap each of the samplers individually in pretty papers.  

However- I recently found out that the business was accepted into an upcoming sale here in Brooklyn- the PS321 Stuff You Should Buy Sale (no wondering what's going on at this event!) and I've been re-thinking my "brand" and my "marketing."  To that end, I've been doodling away at a logo, and am for the first time thinking about how to package the samplers witha  little more context.  As for the samplers that get ordered from the etsy shop, those will still be going out in hand wrapped vintage paper and thrifted envelopes, because I like thinking of them as little gifts, and I like adding a little bit of handmade flourish to each one.....

Mistletoe is Back.....

A limited number of Mistletoe Samplers are now available in the shop.  If you start stitching now, I bet you can finish before Thanksgiving.  In other news, we got mail yesterday!  Hooray  for the little things in life, like postal service and electricity!

Best Mom Ever.....

I don't know if I ever told you before, dear reader, what an awesome mom I have. *  Behind every single one of my samplers, is an amazing sampler tester, someone who stitches every one of these designs until it's finished.  Spoiler Alert: It's not me.  I have started and gotten most of the way through all of the samplers, and photographed them partially finished for the shop (to show you the possibilities), but do you know who stitches them all to perfection?  It's my MOM!  I am forever grateful.  When I was visiting her in Michigan in July, she busted out the love sampler, fresh out of her hoop and finished in reds and purples.  It's a really different color scheme from the one I started, which is the other reason I am so grateful for my mom.  Often times when I teach sampler based workshops, it's great to have two different examples because you know what?  Not everybody loves my colors!  Some people really like my mom's.....

Thanks, Mom.  I'm so glad you're on my team.

*I just remember that, yes, I did tell you about my mom's awesomeness, and that several of you wrote in to ask if she hires out!  You can't have her, she's mine!