The SXSW music festival officially kicks off today! This is when the world comes to Austin and you can see rock stars on every corner (usually in cowboy boots). A few years ago, just walking around South Congress, I saw in the span of an hour: Peter Buck, Thurston Moore and Neil Young. It's like that around here this time of year. Then there was that Iggy Pop secret show in the Austin City Limits studio that only about a hundred people who were extra-cool-and-in-the-know about it (I tried to call you, mom) got to see. It was 15 minutes of sweaty heaven shared by a group of people who couldn't believe their luck. Sweet SXSW memories. 

I was invited again this year to participate in Standard Recording Co's Day party and Craft Market! Did you come to this event last year? It was really fun. I will be there with patterns, copies of my new book, and a free gift for anyone who discreetly tells me the secret code word "GUMPTION". Yes, if you would like to bring copies of my books, or anything you've already bought I will sign it for you (for $1). Yes, I am kidding about the dollar.

WHAT:
Sublime Stitching @ the Standard Recording Co Day Party and Craft Market!
Complimentary beer, great music,
custom screened t-shirts from Provo Craft and
some hands-on crafty events from the Austin Etsy crew!

WHEN:  ★THURSDAY  3/18  12-6 pm★

WHERE: The Dirty Dog Bar - 505 E. 6th St.

They are asking people to kindly
RSVP due to space limitations, but this event is FREE & Open to the Public!

I am going all goofy ga-ga over Catherine Hirst's redwork version from my Dutch Russian design! Simple and stunning! You can do it too! Just stitch in red and nothing else! Why am I shouting? I don't really know.

Don't miss the Feeling Stitchy blog neither!

I spied this Dramatic Hamster (mom, this will explain), stitched up in visually inspired stitches by Carrie Dolashewich! I am truly impressed by all the stitches Carrie wielded here. I see chain stitches, stem stitches, French knots, cretan stitch, satin stitches, some nice combos of cross and straight stitch....are those sequins I see, too? I give this eight "yays!". She said it was inspired by listening to the Flaming Lips! Even more fantabulous.

✓ Wanna learn how to work these stitches? Check out some of my embroidery diagrams right here on the site, or feel free to get yourself a copy of my new book, Embroidered Effects. I go over all of these stitches and more innit! xo

Since my tiny sale was so successful, I thought I'd super-size it. So, whilst supplies last...
(sale may end before the weekend does, fair warning)

50% OFF SELECTED PATTERN TRANSFERS:

Bon Voyage - Dia de los Muertos - I Luv Veggies - Jewish Symbols - Kurt Halsey - Meaty Treats - Mitch O'Connell - Monkey Love - Tara McPherson - Vital Organs - Birds of Prey

(these aren't going out of print, just on sale for you)

20% OFF SELECTED TEXTILES ToOO!

Baby Bibs - Pillowcases - Stitchable Tote

And...if you are good and paying attention, you'll notice that the last-ever shipment of the now out-of-print Stitch-It Kit is available! Don't know how long it will last!

(It's just a little sale)

I've marked down I Luv Veggies and Bon Voyage transfers temporarily to only $2.50! For, oh...as long as I feel like it.

update: THE SALE IS OVAH!

I'll be at Madewell Jeans this evening embroidering from 7-9pm! It's their "Denim After Dark" event where all jeans are 20% off, drinks and snacks are served, a DJ spins, and I stitch for you at no extra charge. I may make you look at my new book, though. Yes, I will really embroider a) up to 3 initials or b) a coupla flowers. You can pick where! First come first serve! I'll only stitch for as long as the event is going! If you get there late, and I already have a huge pile going, no begging. I implore you.

(image via The Paris Blog)

My friend Taylor, who lives in Paris, sent me a link about an open-studio boutique of textile designers (going to Paris, BRB):

Atelier les Quatres is a studio/shop consisting of four young, talented textile designers creating fun and funky prints, designs and illustrations for pillows, napkins, dishtowels as well as T-shirts, baby clothes, canvas bags and one-off ideas like masks and found ceramics. The studio includes Eve-Marie Bousquet, Rachel Pelquin, elsako, and Hélène Georget,and on Saturdays they open their doors to the public to see what they are making and of course, to shop. They all work independently but a couple of them collaborate on other project. Most of the work is made in a limited edition and all of it by hand. It is ambitious yet fresh and fun. It seems they work hard but don’t take things too seriously. Bright colors, birds and other animals, sunglasses are silkscreened onto their respective objects giving them a new life and attitude.

36, rue du Fer à Moulin, 75005

Link (via The Paris Blog)

Related: Pop Market Paris

This blog entry on Beauty in the Details pretty much made my day, as you might imagine. Now, I know not everyone is in the market for a baby bib kit, but there just so happen to be some patterns inside that don't come in anything else, like the snoozy owls. And then there's the "Open Up!" design, which I am rather proud of, ifIdosaysomyself. (None of these hafta go on a bib either, you know.)

Message to licensing applicants! Calling all Licensing Applicants! Hey there. Okay, I'll stop yelling. I know many of you have sent in your licensing applications (and they keep on a-coming in) and you have very patiently been waiting for next steps from me. I just wanted to let you know that I am still going through the first tsunami wave of them. Sit tight! Watch this space or my tweets for news as events warrant.

Jordan mans the shipping desk from the shiny new Sublime Stitching office
(That amazing quilt was a gift from the female work collective in India who makes some of my fair-trade textiles!)

For the first time in almost ten years, Sublime Stitching has moved out of my home into its first official office! What? You didn't know that Sublime Stitching has been run out of my house this whole time? Oh yes, dear stitchers, it most certainly has. How many employees? Currently: 2 (Jordan and an uber-helpful new gal named Courtney).

I always like to tell people that Sublime Stitching began at my kitchen table, moved to my desk, into a front bedroom, out into the hallway and then into my finished garage. "Garage" is kind of embarrassing though. I mean, it's not like I came to work by using a garage-door opener. In fact, it's rather cute in there. See? But a little cramped. There was no room for me!

Because my Sublime Stitching home office has been filled with a rotating cast of part-time helper-outers over the years (JessicaImanStephanieMary1Jessica2CarolElizabethJessica3Mary2 -to name a few), there wasn't much room for me in my own home. So, I continued to work from the other side of the house in the very same extra bedroom/tv room/embroidering corner for the last (count 'em) ten years. And it was a little bit cramped in there, too. Not very conducive to relaxing once "work" was "over". (When you work from home, work is never really "over".) Knock, knock....

My extra bedroom office / stitching / relaxing (ha) / tv room. Sublime Stitching HQ since 2001.

Any time someone would say to me at a market: "I love you guys!" or "I thought you were a big company!" I'd marvel inwardly, knowing it's been me, here at home, cranking out as much new embroidery anything and everything I could muster with any kind of help I could get. I'd equally marvel at the name and attention that my little business had earned along with the assumption that I was a "big company". Nope- ain't nobody here but us chickens, working our tailfeathers off.

Kits are assembled right here by us...

...and shipped directly from my front door (I have a really nice mailman).
But now they ship from....

Ta daa! It's (passibly) cute, right? You weren't expecting a suite in an industrial park with cubicles, were you? A skyscraper? A corporate office overlooking a courtyard with a fountain? Actually this is just a tiny rental tucked behind a bungalow house here in Austin. (I don't plan on opening it to the public, in case you were wondering. If it were bigger, maybe. It's pretty tiny and boxes are still beng unpacked.) Think of it as Sublime Stitching's distribution center. We are here filling orders and playing our favorite songs for each other on iTunes. Having an off-site office to go to is really a big change for me, and I like it! Mornings: office stuff, emails, inventory, bills, blogging. Afternoon: I go home (a short trip down the road) to do design work in my newly emptied "garage" studio and leave Jordan in charge. 

How's that for a home-based business? Thank you for being so supportive of my micro-company! Maybe one day I'll get from micro to macro. One day... 

✓ Challenged by managing your own home-based office?
You might enjoy my column "Crafting a Business: Dare to take time off"

♥ To celebrate my new office I am gonna have a weekend SALE for you! Enter OFFICEPARTY at checkout for 10% OFF ♥ until 2/29