The girls are back in town!

One of my goals for the new year is do some more Charity sewing each month. I already do some but I wanted to spend this year doing even more. You see I lost my father Summer before last after a very long and courageous battle with 3 different cancers. He was a most spectacular man and each day without him at times seems impossible. One of his deep loves was St. Jude Children's Hospital and even as he lived out his last days he still felt it unfair that children should know such pain and he made me promise to maintain his giving to St. Jude and it's to him, my wonderful father, Richard Szot that I dedicate this collection.

I have turned to my Lovies as a way to honor and give back. $5 from each  Sweet Charity Lovie collection sold will be donated to St. Jude for the entire life of the collection. This five doll Lovie collection has been created expressly for making dolls for direct charity giving or for use as fundraising merchandise. These dolls differ from normal Lovies in that they are large size babies ( about 7 inches tall) and they are redesigned for even faster production in that they do not have the pocket and their faces are simple but sweet and fast sewing. 

The collection includes 5 dolls:

" Fight like a girl" Lovie for Breast cancer awareness

Awareness ribbon Lovie with an embroidered ribbon that you can stitch in any color you need for a variety of fundraising efforts

" Choose hope" Lovie in support of St. Jude - this one is close to my heart.

Simple heart Lovie, with a small heart on her chest,you can send your love where ever she goes ( not pictured)

Basic Lovie, Her sweet smile says it all. Use all sorts of wonderful but heavier fabrics to make this a special doll suited for sending to children who are in hard circumstances ( not pictured)

For More information about the Sweet Charity Lovie collection and how to purchase it  please click HERE

 

Hang Tag Hiccup

Thank you to everyone who has already ordered Valentine's Lovie. Over 50 orders went out last night when to my horror I noticed that I did not pack the hangtag file in the zipfile so I am sending the files out as quick as I can but if you have not gotten yours or if you just need a cute Valentine's Hangtag then please feel free to click HERE  to get a pdf full sheet copy of the tags.

And as long as I am here I thought I would answer a question I received the other day about how I get my tags to look so nice with just a regular home printer. I guess I do have a couple of tricks and am happy to share them :

1) A corner clipper. Perfect rounded corners in the blink of an eye

2) Printing on quality card stock

3) Using the photo setting on my printer

4) Finishing the tie hole with an eyelet

That's about it... anyone can get create wonderful cards with just these few tips.

She's here!

Pardon the pun but I ~love~ Valentine's Day and how fun is it to share my love of it with you!? I am already pulling out my vintage valentines, the gittler and the red and pink bunting getting ready to fuss and fluff the house for those dark winter days when we all could use something cheerful to look at. And what could be more cheerful than Lovie all dressed for the season?

 

Valentine's Lovie is ready to melt your heart and the hearts of those you make her for!

What a perfectly wonderful gift to hide in a back pack of your favorite gradeschooler!

 Create her as a door hanger and add a gift card to become a super valentine giver!

Or make a set of sisters and while you are at it stuff one with lavender and send it to your very own sister to tell her how much you love her!

Or maybe you need a quick gift for a Valentine's Secret Pal?.. Lovie is up to the job!

Lovie is just under 7 inches of easy in-the-hoop magic. She comes in PES and DST formats and includes her twin babies, full instructions and of course printable hangtags and to-from cards for easy gift giving.

Like all the other holiday Lovies she is a limited edition so get her before she is moved to the complete holiday collection which will not be out till late 2010.

Click here to go to the store

Tip of the week.. or so I hope!

One of my goals of the new year is to try to post up a tip of the week... of course this means at some point I might run out of tips since my little pea-brain can only hold so much tippy-goodness but I am going to give it a try!

This week's tip has to do with storing embroidery thread on basic thread racks.  Like many I have a ton of the typical June Tailor thread racks that are ment to hold regular spools of thread. These racks are great space savers when hung on a wall and not too expensive, especially if you can catch them on sale. What they are not, is made for the taller spools of embroidery thread. So while on the rack the spools are prone to tipping off and taking 20 other spools with them, causing me to saying unprintable things  sigh deeply and pick them up once again. 

This was a pretty constant source of frustration to me and I was close to drilling out all the little dowels and replacing them with longer ones when it occured to me that I could work a little smarter  and just add an extension to each  peg for some more stability. I will spare you all the items I tried that ended up either falling off, being hard to deal with or were hard to find and cut to the chase and tell you that run of the mill drinking straws were the perfect answer.  Some straws are a bit bigger and you can pu them all the way down the shaft and then trim to the length you need. Some are smaller ( usually the cheaper brands) and they fit on quite well but are tight and you can't really work them down the whole way. Both choices are great and hold the embroidery thread on the racks like a dream.   If you would like to store color specific bobbins with your thread, cut your straws even longer so you can place the bobbin on top of the thread!

New Year Dishes

For me the week after Christmas is all about taking some time to get my life back on track. To clean up the messy details from the previous year. Fluff the house, clean the deep cubbies of my desk and make plans for the coming year. One of my goals for this year is to really look at my stuff and decide what I really like and what is really clutter. I want to live and work with the things that make me happy, that make my heart sing. So room by room I am going through the house and getting rid of things that don't meet the mark. I am also finally going to get my studio finished and hope to take you along on that adventure in the coming year ( it's going to be a big project!)

But for today I am starting small. I am sorting dishes that I love and packing up those that no longer reflect who I am. These happen to be two of my favorites and I was struck by how pretty they looked resting there in the draining basket and how well they go together even though they were never meant to. It made me understand the "rightness" of living with what you love...and it's my mantra for the new year.

Looking Towards the Future

My sewing is done, the groceries have been bought ( including T.P.!) so ready or not the holiday will swing into full gear around here starting tomorrow night with the beginnings of the people we want to see and gifts we want to give to those in our extended family. That will ease us into Christmas it's self and then the warm afterglow that will be the weekend after.

But of course being of the A.D.D. sort my mind is already spinning into next year and all the plans I have and things I need to get accomplished.. of course I will need a list for that so keep your eyes peeled for another fun printable to show up very soon! And since I am forever the tease.. I leave you with this photo.. giving you a sneak peek into the new year of designs here at Fresh Thread!

Keep Warm - Be Safe - Sew Happy!

Blessed are the List Makers

Blessed are the list makers

 for they shall know that

there is T.P. in the house on

Christmas Day!

I am a list maker, and not just any list maker, I might be the freak queen of list makers and I am very particular about how I make my lists ( must write on every other line leaving space for related items that occur to me later... yeh, see told you!) .  After that the one holiday where we paid a kings ransom for one single roll of T.P. at the corner gas staion due to my poor planning for the holiday.. well let's just say that is NOT going to happen again! 

Like most I have woken this moring to make my list of things that must get done in these precious few days before Christmas.  And just for fun I have created this list sheet to share with you. It prints 2 to a sheets and I highly suggest printing it on card stock so it can take the wear and tear of the days ahead with ease.  Print 3 sheets and that will get you right up to the big day it's self.

You can download the file here   CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Just remember.. DON'T PANIC, with good planning you can get it all done.  And if while you are making out your list you come up short of gifts pop on by the FRESH THREAD store and take advantage of our DON'T PANIC SALE where you will find just about everything 1/2 price between now and Christmas. All Fresh Thread projects can be accomplished in under 30 minutes ( start to finsh..not just stitching time!) with most only taking 1/2 that time. So remember.. make that list, and DON'T PANIC!