Kitchen Stitchen Opening This Friday!

Announcing the opening date of my new Etsy shop Kitchen Stitchen : Friday January 16, 2009. After much planning, sewing and excitement, I am finally ready to start listing items in my new shop! Here is a REAL preview of what you will see in the shop starting tomorrow...

For a look at ALL the fabric choices take a look at the shop's Flickr site.

To give you all an insight on how this whole concept came to be, I'll give you a little background on the process.

As I mentioned earlier, I was getting a little frustrated with my first shop. Making totes and handbags was fun, but very time consuming. My shop was kind of a hodge podge of whatever I felt like making and had very little consistency. I decided to make some smaller items for a couple of craft shows and noticed that the smaller items were snatched right up, but people hardly even looked at the larger items. Around the same time, I read an article about how to have a successful Etsy shop. One thing that stuck out to me was to find your niche. Lots of people sold bags. I came up with the idea of creating a shop which specialized in a type of item. Somehow I landed on making kitchen linens. I had seen plenty of people selling kitchen type items, but none (since then I have found one) that makes all kitchen items. Plus these items don't take near as long to sew as bags! Much easier to get motivated!

I wanted to do this right, I wanted to plan it all out. I already had ideas for towels and potholders. Of all my towels I LOVED the waffle weave variety. There was no question that a nice waffle weave would be what I'd start with. I had also thought of a "different" way to add the decorative fabric than what I'd seen. As for potholders, that was a no brainer. I have one absolute favorite that I use at home and I would try to make them of that design (which turned out to be quite a challenge)!

Next I found the wonderful graphic designer Kelly of YellowMagpie and hired her to help design my logo and shop, including business cards and labels. I gave her my idea of a teapot with swirling steam and the steam spelling out "Kitchen Stitchen". She helped me with color choices, design options, fonts and worked with me until it was just what I wanted which is what you see at the top of this post. If you need a banner, avatar, business card etc... design, I highly recomend Kelly, she was so easy to work with, very friendly and completed versions in a timely manner. She loves what she does and wants to make her clients happy.

At the same time I sought out a source for towels, went shopping on Etsy and Ebay for fabrics and tested out swatches of terry cloth until I found the perfect quality.

The fabric and materials rolled in, I pre-washed and dried everything. Ironed, cut and started sewing. I then bought a walking-foot for my sewing machine which was a life-saver. It is so nice for thick fabrics, not to mention several layers of thick fabrics! Once I had the towels done, I was off working on the potholders. These were not so easy. The binding took me a while to perfect, but now I have it down to a science. Shortly after the towels were done the labels from Jennifer of JennifersJewels came in, just in time for the potholders. Jennifer's labels are the best, she keeps improving her product and I'm not sure how they can get much better than this. She was quick and the job was seamless. I just gave her my measurements, sent her the file and poof, they were done.

Once all of my initial inventory was complete, it was time to photograph everything. Thanks to our lovely Canon Rebel SLR and mini-lessons from my even more lovely husband, I was able to get that done too.

I've written up descriptions, figured out postage and handling costs and am looking into advertising. And my dear internet friend Crystal will be helping me out with a little something soon too!

Stay Tuned!

Powder Room Makeover

While everyone else has probably watched the festivities today, TV-less me has not. I could have watched online, I could have gone to Mitch's Chicago Style Grill as they always have their TVs on. But I did not.


Instead I went to TJ Maxx and Target to help stimulate the economy. And this is why...


This is the only before photo I could find of our powder room. It is from the home inspection. Not much has (had) changed. Slightly different wall art, slightly different wreath. Walls a little dirtier from little hands.

And then I saw a bit of inspiration from a photo online from a bathroom in a magazine. One of those "Living" magazines. Maybe Coastal Living? Maybe not.

I definitely wanted to do a brown color on the walls. When I had a color specialist out, she helped to narrow it down. I (again definitely) wanted new lights. Notice the lovely builder's special light strip. You can barely see it in the photo, but I'm guessing there is enough there to know what I'm talking about. I also wanted a new mirror and a new towel holder. I don't have a photo showing it, but the previous owners put up robe hooks. It never worked for OUR towels as they'd slip off. Maybe they had towels with a loop on them? I wanted to keep the artwork I had in there but make it the main piece. And then later I was inspired by Thrifty Decor Chick to purchase this shelf at Hobby Lobby. I had kind of wanted a little shelf above the commode anyway. Not sure if all the items up there will stay. The candle thing in the middle will probably be replaced.

The color in the room is called Firewood by Benjamin Moore (1027). The mirror was on clearance on Marshall's Homegood for $20! I got that right around the time I was doing some Christmas shopping. Again the shelf is from Hobby Lobby on sale for about $15. The artwork is "Hello May" from Ashley G. I consider that my "modern" piece in this more traditional room.

So what I purchased today was the towel holder and a set of two hand towels. The holder came from TJ Max Homegoods for $9.99 and the Waverly towels were on Clearance at Target for $5.59. I ordered the light fixture from lamps plus on sale.

The only thing left is to find a waste can. We also hate our toilet paper holder. I guess you can't see it in the after pictures, but it is the same as in the before. Oh, and we are thinking about replacing the lovely faucet someday too. And when I get back to "normal" I plan to make a reversible tissue box cover too.

I hope you enjoyed this Makeover. I may not be the best designer in the world, but I like this a lot better now!

Just Some New Towels

So much going on here, very little sewing, but I did make 2 new towels. So I will show you the towels since I don't have time to talk about all that is happening! Sorry! I will be back later with an entry to the Nesters carnival!

Bits and Pieces

My Impatiens in August

Recently I saw a tutorial for quilt squares called Quartered Squares that I really loved. I immediately decided I was going to make a quilt using this design. Then a few hours later my brain said "Hold on there!" I knew I had so many other projects to be completed, and starting a quilt was not only silly right now, it would require the purchase of more fabric. And I really would like to work through the fabric I have plans for before buying more. But then, as I was pumping iron at the gym, the idea came to me... Make a few blocks and turn them into a table runner! For my kitchen shop. So while visiting my parents yesterday, I put some scraps and fat quarters together that coordinated (I should probably have enough to make 3 different color theme runners with what I have now) and dove into making a trial table runner. I did modify the sizes of each row to make the squares smaller.

Table Runner Quilt Squares - atop the fabric I will use for the back, binding will be a natural cream color

At this point all the squares are made and sewn together and I have purchased coordinating fabric to finish off the back and binding (less than $2 for a minimum amount of sale fabric from Hobby Lobby). I'm very excited, but a little nervous about the free motion quilting thing again. At least the size of this should be totally doable.

I HAVE been chugging away at some other shop items in anticipation for next week's Farmer's Market. Not sure I will make my goal, but I'm working on it. For a sneak peak, here are a couple of the HOLIDAY towels that are done. Yes, holiday already!

Love that reindeer fabric! Click to enlarge!

Today my totally sneaky and wonderful husband sent me a BEE-YOOtiful bouquet of flowers while he's off on a business trip! Aren't they totally gorgeous! He really tricked me into being home for our remodeler guy to bring by some paperwork to sign so that I'd be home for the delivery of these.

My Bouquet!! - perfect colors for the end of summer I think

Finally, (long post I know) I found another stitcher Marie through a recent feature on Heather Bailey's blog who is also creating these name pillows that Crystal of Little Bit Funky is making. I was so excited when I saw this grandma pillow. What a GREAT idea for a gift!! Pattern is available here if you wanted to try making one yourself. Make sure to check out Marie's blog, I love the personalized towels she makes too.

And I'm off to the Farmer's Market. I'm going to get my sewing scissors sharpened, buy some popcorn for the kids and see what else I can find.

Hope you are having a lovely summer day!

Outside of my Comfort Zone

I have recently been inspired to try some "new" things by a new swap partner I'm getting to know. She loves shoes and has some beauties. I'm more the comfortable shoe type. Though I used to visit Nine West and the shoe department of Neiman Marcus when I was single to ogle all of their pretties. I would be excited when I actually had a wedding to go to and thus an excuse to buy a pair of the pretty heels! So, I'm starting to look at shoes the way I used to, just a bit. I didn't exactly do anything TOO wild today. I bought a pair of sandals with heels. I wouldn't normally get these, but they were on sale at Ann Taylor from $59 to $10, so you can't call me too crazy. Please pretend you don't see my unmanicured size 8 1/2 giant feet!! Now that I have them I guess it just means that hubby and I will have to go out on more dates.



Next, I was in a beautiful home store and saw a table cloth that I fell in love with. My first instinct was to go for another color that matches our earthy palette better. But then, with the help of the sales person, I decided to go for the one with the sea foam green that I originally liked because it did have other colors that match our home and the green just makes it pop. I'm so glad I did. I think it really brightens things up, while still looking like fall. Which is exactly what I needed. I also almost didn't buy it because it was square and our table is oval. The sales woman told me how pretty it would look putting the corners on each side. She was right. I'd have never thought about that myself! (The abundance of apples and pears are from our organic delivery today.) It has a very French feel, non?




Then these tea towels! I love them. They weren't outside of my comfort zone because they are so small, but it felt wonderful getting them. They are so pretty. Ugh, please ignore the water stains on the oven. For all the cleaning I do, it seems I always miss something!! I got the table cloth and tea towels at Motif.

One For Me

I must stop staying up until late to make things! I just had to have one of these wristlet pouches for myself, so I made one last night. I rarely make things for myself! I used my favorite fabric at this moment. It took less time that the last two. So that is progress. But tonight I should get more sleep!




Today I will be making a set of tea towels for someone I don't know. The daughter of a man who is helping Jason with the job hunt is getting married this weekend. Sure hope she likes red, black, turquoise and the style (see other posts on tea towels).

Getting Ready

Tonight was the night I did a trial run-through of my table setup for the Farmer's Market next Wednesday! My wonderful husband helped by giving me suggestions and doing some of the product prep, oh and taking this photo, which I made into many photos.

I will take you on a tour of my table to show you how I decided to display all of my items.

Well, first off, we have to have a business sign. Since I just found this out last week, I came up with something simple. My business logo in a frame. As I set up the table, the framed logo started to get swallowed up by all of my items. I started to look around the house for some sort of riser for the sign and came up with the idea to stack up a bunch of cookbooks. I will probably tie a bow around the books so there will be less question as to if they are for sale. I also felt the table needed more ambiance, so I added this utensil crock with utensils in it.

Next up, {please pardon the lack of merchandise I didn't feel like getting a bunch of magnet tins out just for a trial run} this was my idea for displaying the magnet sets. {I will replace that sign with a nicer one}. I just took a large cookie sheet that we had and stood it up in a plate display easel that we also already had.

Two towels are displayed on a countertop towel holder I purchased at Homegoods for a steal. The rest of the towels were rolled up and tied with a white ribbon. {Thanks Jason for all of your help with these}. I thought they'd be easier to display this way, not to mention neater. And as I saw those tied up little bundles sitting there, they looked like little gifts. So inviting! I purchase the wire basket at Homegoods as well. Mind you, I had this all worked out in my head before I found the wire basket. Good thing I found one!! And the chalkboard basket labels are from Pottery Barn Kids. I think they add to the ambiance of the table.

The potholders were easier to display than I originally thought they'd be. I thought I had to have them hanging up, but that was near to impossible to figure out in any simple manner. So I found this perfect shaped basket at Ikea. I will have at least one out on the table so people can see what they look like and hopefully make them want to go rummaging through the basket.

Casserole carriers - one will be displayed with a dish in it as seen in this photo and the others fanned out underneath it.

My business cards are printed vertically, so finding a creative way to display them turned out to not be so hard when I saw this glass candle holder at Hobby Lobby. It's the perfect shape and size!

As I close this most exciting tour of my table, I will also point out the wonderful display idea for my apron{s}. My friend Gail came up with this idea and lent me the dress form! Notice the Kitchen Stitchen logo shirt I ordered from Zazzle. As for me, I purchased a polo shirt and my parents have been working hard to convert my logo to an embroidery file for my mom's embroidery machine. I plan to take my shirt there tomorrow to get it all logoed up to wear at the market! Perhaps along with another one of my aprons. Oh, and before I forget. We just bought this table at Aldi on sale. It is so sturdy and collapses so nicely into a portable size complete with handle. And the "table cloth" is a $10 bedspread from Ikea. Probably should iron that up a bit.

I'm getting so excited!!

Embarassing

We went to the bank today to deposit the garage sale money and as I was writing up the deposit slip the kids were looking (touching) stuff on the front table. Next thing you know I hear a CRASH-SHATTER. Miles had dropped a little candy jar onto the tiled floor. I rushed over and glass was EVERYWHERE. I started to pick up the little pieces. And no one NO ONE even came over to see what had happened. Finally an employee was coming in to work and told me not to worry about it, that he'd clean it up. Sheesh. He was very nice and kept telling Miles that it was ok, accidents happen.

I have two, count em TWO of the tea towels in the shop! Don't know how they'll do. I keep counting on things selling to pay for the materials. I wish I was better at marketing. I have no clue and I am certainly not a natural at sales and promotion. I am much more of a behind the scenes type of person. And then today I had to get some more good thread from the nice quilt store in town and was tempted into a few more fat quarters of a different color scheme. Now I need some more linen...




I know, looks the same as the other once. But look closely, the order and size of fabric is different.

And Nilsa, if you want some towels of your own, how about for your bridal shower? What colors do you like?

The house is an absolute wreck and all I feel like doing is sewing. I also bought some fabric to make a new tote. I don't have the interfacing and am waiting until I can use my 50% off coupon at Joann's on the 15th! Right now I want to piece my new fabric together to make another towel and cut out what I can to make the new tote. And my friend would like her wristlet in a different color/style fabric. And I am HAPPY about this because I get to make another one.

But I'd better clean. It will improve my mood immensely when I walk around the house. That and some sunshine!

A Dream in Progress: Revealed

I don't know why, but I am nervous to reveal my Big Project. On the other hand, I have come to a point in which I am totally confident that all my tasks will be done by the vague deadline (sometime before the end of January) that I have set for myself.

It all started with me noticing that the small easy things I made for a craft show in December sold much better than the big things (totes and handbags). In fact, the big things didn't even sell AT ALL. Which led me to believe that people are more willing to let go of a few dollars on an impluse than a larger amount which may take a little time to think over. Not even that, most people didn't even LOOK at my bags! And with the small number of people who came through that night (it was very very cold out), I was shocked at just how much I made on the small things. Now, please understand, this is not all about the money to me. It is more about making something that I put my heart and soul into for someone to enjoy. I also find some delight in having a successful business. It is no fun having a bunch of "unloved" bags in storage for a long time. Plus, it honestly doesn't hurt to bring in a little extra for the family.

Around that same time I was reading an Etsy article on how to plan a successful Etsy store. I took a few things away from it. One thing that my first store lacked was planning. It also lacks some consistency. I feel like I'm kind of all over the place with products and styles. I had not really found a niche either.

And so it came to me.

• Make something simpler. Bags take a lot of time. I can motivate myself more easily to make simpler things.
• Find a niche. I decided on kitchen linens. People sell them on Etsy, but I did not see a store that specialized in them.
• Form a plan. That I did. From hiring a graphic designer to work with me to create a logo etc. To making a list of what I could make. To drawing up designs for those products. To buying materials and fabric. Luckily I had made enough money in my Sunnypond shop to use as "capital". And I will have consistency in this shop. I also was very careful in the designs and materials involved. I like a certain types of towels, potholders etc. and I wanted to use only good quality materials.

So as of now, I have business cards, the skeleton of my shop up, labels etc... I have the majority of things sewn to start off the shop and plenty of other fabrics to add more. I also have plans to design, make and bring in new and different types of items in the future. I hope to utilize blogs and sites on the web to advertise. I have told friends and now I'm telling all of my lovely blog readers.

And in the midst of it all, I've thought about quitting a few times. Mostly because I didn't know the techniques or tools I needed to get things to look exactly how I wanted them to on one of my products. But I figured it all out and I'm THRILLED with the result. I even have a pre-order from a friend. :-)

And when the shop is ready to go, I'll do a grand post here to let you know how to find my new store and what you can find in it! I will also give info on other details about the process and the products.

And I want to thank all of you who have offered your support and encouragement through all of this. Especially my husband!

For now, I'll leave you with the promised final result of the work in progress I showed you yesterday. I present to you one of my new Potholders!

Another Day, Another Apron

Here is my FIRST custom order apron!  This is cut from my very own tweaked pattern.  (I HEART this fabric BTW – it is also HTF unfortunately).

It was tweaked (from the red snowflake apron pattern) for a few reasons. 

In order of importance:

1. The skirt was not flouncy enough.  So I went from a half circle to a full circle to cut the ruffle.  Boy am I glad I am good at geometry and math, specifically spatial reasoning.
2. The neck and waist ties were shorter than I would have preferred.  I made the waist ties longer and the neck ties into one continuous neckband that can be slipped on over the head.  Much easier to manage.
3. The apron was entirely too long, especially for the petite woman this one was made for.
4. It was too much bulk to sew the edges of the neck ties/band right at the edge of the top of the bib, so I moved those in just after the side hem.

 

All and all I’d have to say, this pattern making thing is really fun and I recommend it to my fellow blog sewing friends.  There are definitely some challenges, but like with everything, it just takes practice and some trial and error.

P.S.  Here is the Jessie Steele apron I was trying to mimic (next to mine):

  

I am going to squeeze in one more apron project before Christmas… Meanwhile I have yet another custom order, for 11 hand towels.

And I’d like to finally mention the great buy I found at a “garage sale”/estate sale/guy has several houses and is getting rid of this one and everything in it sale.  I have always wanted a Kitchen Aid stand mixer.  I have never wanted to pay the $200 or so for one.  I jumped at the opportunity to pick this one up for a fraction of the price!  I don’t think it was every used, or if so, very little.  I am really looking forward to making something with this new find!

 

A week in the life of...

This morning I planned to share a recipe for a cake I made yesterday and then enjoy being alone to get some things done around here.

But last night after having a slightly sick sweet boy, the sweet boy's temperature spiked to 104, and I worried. And I woke up my husband. And he voluntarily ran out to get some children's acetominophen so we could do double duty with the ibuprophen we had on hand which didn't seem to be affecting the temp all that much. It did the trick, but he was hot this morning so I'm keeping him home from school. He was SO unhappy and cried. But this is good. He LIKES to go to school. He is no longer crying when he has to go or when he is dropped off.

And I can't find the camera on which I took pictures of the aforementioned cake and assume that Jason took it with him as he left the SLR. So today's post will not be a recipe. Maybe next post.

Yesterday my parents came up for a visit which turned out great for me as I had to bring both of our cats to the vet. The vet doesn't know what is going on with the kitten but we are going to systematically treat her for various potential causes of her blood in stool. So now I'm to feed both cats a deworming powder in meat baby food and a probiotic to the kitten. The problem is that the older cat will not eat the baby food nor the soft cat food I tried. Yet he is BEGGING for dry food. So I'll be calling the vet for advice on that.

I also got to run a few short errands including going to Joanns for some elastic. And I also ended up leaving with this (and a coordinating fabric for trim):

So you know what my next towel and potholder set will look like.

Sales at Kitchen Stitchen have been REAL slow. I'm looking into doing a local Spring Farmer's Market to see if I can do better in person. Still not sure on the Art Show.

Speaking of the store, here is the new packaging for my magnets. I love it. So much more professional than just throwing some magnets in an envelope. Though the packaging adds a bit to the pricing. I think it's worth it. Especially for gift giving. I am thinking of using a punch I have to put a paper background in the bottom of the tin behind the magnets.

And because of the small amount of the Red Beater fabric I purchased, I had to make the tea towels in a different style... In case I haven't mentioned this enough, I LOVE this fabric.

We have started focusing more on chores with Ella. We really need to take advantage of the fact that she LOVES helping out and loves the positive reinforcement. I paid her a quarter after she folded all of our socks and put them away. She has been putting coins in a piggy bank for a long time, so I had her count all her change and see if she had enough to buy something I told her about - a leotard outfit for her American Girl doll which I found at a resale shop. She did and we went to buy it. It was so cute to see how excited she was about the whole thing.

Another major incident* in our household was that I thought our dishwasher was broken. I ran it one night and in the morning the dishes were still dirty and the green "Clean" light was blinking and I couldn't get any programs to run or get the light to stop blinking. I phoned Sears for a service call and was not to happy with the pressure the customer service rep was putting on me to purchase the more expensive service charge which included parts and a warranty and a voucher if the machine turned out to be unrepairable. The dish washer is only 2 1/2 year old. I finally got off the phone with her using the excuse that I had to talk to my husband about this. She said she'd wait for me to call him and I explained I had to get off the phone with her to call him. She didn't like this and demanded "Can't you just make a decision right now?" Well forget that. I went online and found a quick fix at http://www.fixya.com/. It worked the blinking light stopped. We were able to run the dishwasher and it works. Ha!

I have REALLY been enjoying the sunny weather. We had one warm day this week and the others were certainly not as cold as it has been. I'm VERY excited about the warmer months!!

Have a GREAT weekend all!

*I consider this a major incident because I HATE doing dishes.

Kitchen Inspiration

A Crate and Barrel catalog came in the mail today and I was really drawn to some napkins that I saw on the last pages.  So I went to their website to snatch a pic to show you all.  Too bad this pic doesn't do the pic in the catalog justice, but hopefully you get the idea.

 

Napkins, too easy.  But look how bright and cheery they are.  I am SO drawn to them.  So, I think I should make some and see how they do.  The Lord knows I have enough pot holders and tea towels made already.  Why not start a new line of items for the shop?

And then I saw this placemat and contrasting napkin.  The back of this placemat has the same fabric as the napkin.  I'm always thinking I need to make everything so fancy with crazy designs in all of my products.  But in each of these cases, the fabric stands on its own.  And the sewing is easy.  So why not give it a try?

Now I'm in the middle of making the two casserole carriers I promised myself I'd make before the next Farmer's Market.  But I think simple napkins and placemats should be next up.

And because I can't seem to give myself enough to think about, I'm on another kick to work on the kitchen, making it over that is.  I'm tired of the old wallpaper.  I want pulls and knobs on my drawers and cabinets.  I want bead board under my cabinets.  It can't be exactly what I want at this point, but a few changes to freshen it up would be a welcome change.

Oh sure Kristi, you still have that stinkin sewing cabinet to finish up!

Here are some other inspiring napkins that came up yesterday:

 

Source: Home Made Simple

Source: Anthropologie

I've already purchased a bit of fabric and started on some napkins.  Finding the trim (see above two photos) has been a huge challenge.  I finally decided that in order to get colored eyelet trim, I'm going to have to dye it myself.