New Stuff

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

This is a snapshot I took of one of my project examples in Embroidered Effects. Embroidery on patterned fabrics is something I swoon over! (Sorry- I can't remember where I got this fabric or who makes it... If I find out, I will post back.) This is really fun because you don't need a pattern. The fabric design *is* your pattern. You can just trace the lines with simple stitches, or take my approach (above) and get more creative with stitches that don't just trace, or colors that match, but enhance and embellish the motif with different types of stitches. You can do it.

Ooh ooh Mr. Kotter! There's also this oop ("out of print") book called Embroidery Magic on Patterned Fabrics from 1976 that is fun to look at. After all, for you non-stitching Sublime Stitching lurkers out there (and you know who you are) we all know that you don't have to actually do any embroidery to enjoy looking at it, right? Right. 

You still have time to make a Valentine! Here, I'll help. You can make my Cupid Card. I thought multiple hearts on an arrow would send a stronger message than just one. All you need is: cardstock, needle and floss! Oh, and how to do a backstitch. I'll er, let you decide what to write on the inside.

The file for this design is attached below for you to download and print out. Just lay it over cardstock and poke the holes where they're indicated (front-to-back pulling your unthreaded needle all the way through), and stitch up for your sweetheart! If you want to use this design on fabric, break out a transfer pen or enlist some handy transfer paper. I love you, too. You're welcome.

Oh! And: Check out my Stitchable Stationery xo

There's a new craft / maker market on the block! Makers Market is a collaboration between Make magazine and Boingboing. I'm proud to have a little store on there myself. For now, some of my old standbys are in stock, but look for unique items soon appearing only in ye olde Sublime Stitching Makers Market shoppe: www.sublimestitching.makersmarket.com

I added a new floss combo for you: Portrait (Skin Tones). I am always asked what colors I use for my embroidered portraits. So, here are what I consider the necessaries from fair-skinned to dark-skinned, grays for shadows and pink for mouths and cheeks...I have you covered.

♦ Might go nicely with my Cute L'il Heads. Just sayin' ♦

ETA: For those of you calling it "Fleshy Floss" you are silly.

If you are smart and get my newsletter, you know that last week I announced the Floral Fantasy tote bags were about to go out of stock. Forever. The way of the dodo. Never to return. I called them "Limited Edition" and I meant it! And there was much wringing of hands and wails of "but, I NEEDED one for Aunt Bobsy's birthday!" after the last one sold (and they went fast). Those pleas got me in the guts, they really did. Sometimes it's difficult to be me. I don't really like to take things away from you, so....now you can get the Floral Fantasy design as a PDF! You only need to be logged in or register with my site to have access to PDFs. Enjoy! 

Floral Fantasy PDF (available to registered users)

Oh- and, one little note: all PDF sheets are $3 (for now!) and larger-format designs like this one will be $5. Reasonable enough?

Righteous. Now you can get Sublime Stitching pattern sheets
as downloadable PDFs for only $3.50! The whole sheet! So, if you were
panicking about how to get the transfers in time to furiously stitch up
your gifts, relaaax. You can just download it. Here's how it works:

• You'll need to be registered with the website to purchase PDFs (no big whoop)
• After you buy the PDF, you'll get an email with a link to download it from your account (easy enough)
• You print it out and trace it! (Do you need transfer paper?)

Don't know what this "PDF" stuff is all about? All this means is
that you can now buy the pattern sheets as a digital file you download
to your computer and print out from your printer. Insta-satisfaction.

Where do I get the PDF? The PDF option is linked from every page where you can buy a transfer pack.
So, for example: here is the link for Spaced Out patterns.
Scroll down a wee bit, and ta daa! You'll see the link to "buy this
pattern as a digital download". That's it. (I'm working on a separate
section for just PDFs)

*There is one little catch* The only sheets NOT yet available as PDFs are the Artist Series.
Why? Because we pay those artists a cut of the sales and we're still
figuring out how to pay them their fair share. So, consider yourselves
the first beta-testers of the new PDF catalog, while we work out the
kinks. Look for ALL the sheets available as soon as we can get our act
together!

ETA: We will continue to offer the Sublime Stitching iron-on sheets as always! They will live in harmony with the PDFs.

Oh, and AND - someone asked "So, does this mean I have it FOREVER?" Answer: Well, yes it does! As long as you hang onto the file, that is. But maybe we need to first talk about this idea of "forever". But seriously folks...you can re-print it for yourself whenever you need to. Not, let's say, for all your friends too. Fair enough?

For all of you who have been wanting to see Faythe Levine's wonderful documentary about this thing we call the indie DIY movement (but have not been able to catch one of the international screenings) you can now get Handmade Nation on DVD at BuyOlympia! You can also watch the trailer, ya know.