i heart linen

The Sewing Hermit

sewing hermit /soʊ/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[sō'ĭng hûr'mĭt]
-noun 

1. a person who has withdrawn to a solitary place for a life of crafty seclusion.
2. any person living in crafty seclusion; fabric loving recluse.
3. I Heart Linen blogger, Rashida

Yup, that's me! That's what my life has been about in the past couple weeks. Sewing, kids, household, husband.  Not necessarily in that order.  I've been busy filling orders and preparing for a shop update(tba).
(To those of you  waiting on items, they're on their way! I promise! Some should be receiving items in the early part of the week and others near the end of the week.)
Busy, busy, busy!  Halloween is fast approaching.  I haven't had time to do costumes for the kids.  (They're kinda little anyway.  I think the costumes would just be for our amusement more than anything right now.)
I've got a swap to complete and ship by the 2nd.  My ad for Creature Comforts is due today. I've got some custom orders to fill in addition to the Etsy ones.  Dishes in the sink, laundry to be folded, 2 children under 2, and a partridge in a pear treeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! ^_^

Yeah, life has been a little crazy lately.  I didn't really realize  it until my husband voiced his concern on the way to work this morning.  He's worried that I'm burning the candle at both ends.  I suppose.  But I quite enjoy it.  I'd rather be busy than sitting around doing nothing.  *sigh* I dunno.  Anyway, just a quick post to say where I've been.  I'll be back later!

Gift and you shall receive

I'm a very lucky woman.  After my super speedy delivery to Elijah, I mentally prepared myself to spend the next couple evenings in complete discomfort, with a wailing newborn, dreading the thought of having to share a room with a complete stranger, who I probably would dislike, or shall I say downright can't stand!
The maternity ward was packed to capacity that week and there was no chance of getting a private room.  *gaasp!* What?! I have to have a .....dun dun duuuuunn....ROOMATE?! *faints* 

Well, turns out my roomie(Carissa) was actually really cool, probably one of the nicest people I've met in a while.  We spent the next couple days just chattering it up, sharing birthing stories and the like, learning about each other and our babies.  We've managed to stay in touch, but haven't gotten together as much as I would like. (I've been too busy hovering over my sewing machine and seem to have forgotten that humans are social creatures. ^_^)

Carissa was my first customer on Friday, so I thought it would be nice to hand deliver her items to her and also have the boys get together.  (Her son was born one day before mine and he's the cutest little chubby dumpling!)  So we scheduled to have a "playdate" today at noon.

I've been dying to make one of those cutie pie pencil rolls from "Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts". I just didn't know who I could give it to and Carissa's 4 year old daughter instantly popped in my head.  So, last night I set to work on making the pencil roll in time for our visit.

Stop what you're doing and go make one right now!  I almost kept it for my self and it was so easy to do.  Easy peasey lemon squeezey!  It falls under the 2-4 hours gift category in the book.  I'd say that's about right.  It took me about 3 hours and was loads of fun to make.  The directions were very easy to follow.

I wanted it to be a little more fun on the outside, so I added a little bit of kawaii Japanese fabric that I bought off of Etsy.  I also included a sketch pad.  No fun having new colored pencils without some paper! I hope little Carter likes it, she was in school when I gave it to her Mommy.  Turns out she's quite the little artist, so I think it was the perfect gift!  We had a nice visit and I hope we can do it again soon.

Still high off of my gifting, I arrived at home to find this little item waiting in my mailbox!

A package from Melissa D. the lucky lady who won my baggy bag! 

A sweet little box with these wonderful mini cards inside with a lovely note to say "Thank you".  So thoughtful of you, Melissa.  Thank you! I love them!

I guess it's true what they say..."Give and you shall receive."  But I guess it doesn't necessarily have to be an actual item that you receive.  Maybe they mean the really warm and satisfying feeling you get when giving a gift to a friend.  Maybe that's what you receive.  Yeah. ^_^

Moo!

Moo moo mooo!  Mooo mooo Moo moo moo moo mooo moomoomoo!  Moomoo!
(Translation: "Oh my gosh! Look what I got in the mail yesterday! Woohoo!" )

Haha!  Yeah I know I'm a big dork!  But I'm so excited!

I love these little Moo cards, they are so cool!  If you have a Flickr account you MUST get some.  Even if you don't have a Flickr account, you MUST get some. So cute. $20 gets you 100 mini cards and you can have whatever you like printed on the back of them.  How cool is that?  They ship really fast as well.  I got mine in a week!

Oh, and this cutey patootey sticker book sample, too.  *dances*  I looooove cool stuff. *dances*

In other news.......My shop did indeed open on Friday and it was very successful!   I'm actually really surprised at how well it did.  I just knew I would be staring at the "0 items sold" sign.  I'm really just so overwhelmed and overjoyed!

Huge "THANK YOU!"  to those of you who purchased something! You're the bee's knees! *hugs*  Your wares are being "built" with love and care and I will get them out to you as soon as possible! If you didn't purchase anything you're still the bee's knees! ^_^ *hugs to you too*  You all have been so very supportive and encouraging and I really, really appreciate it.

I will be updating on the next couple weeks with some new items.  Moo mooo moo mooo moooo!
(Be sure to stay tuned!) ^_^

And the winner is ......

So I wrote up everyone's name on some notebook paper. 

Cut them into little strips.

Dumped them all into the prize bag. 

Shoved my hand in. 

Swirled them all around. 

Who's name did appear before me?

(Eeww I need a manicure..lol)

Yay! Congrats Melissa! 

Please email me with your information so I can send "Baggy" to it's new home!

Huge thanks to everyone who commented.  You all rock! ^_^

Open! ^_^

Hello!
So my site is not finished.  Bummer I know.  But the shop is open anyway. Yay!  Thank you all so much for your ever so supportive and encouraging comments on my last post.  You all really kept me going this past week.  *hugs all around*

I stayed up most of the night and set everything up on Etsy.  I promised a shop and a shop ye shall have!  Go check it out!  Enjoy!
I'll announce the winner of the cutey pie baggy bag later today!  ^_^

Because I like you! ^_^

So things are coming along slowly but surely.  I'm so nervous to open on Friday.  It's that darn Murphy's Law that always seems to rear it's ugly little head.  Ugh!  Anyway.....I'm going to ignore all that and keep pressing forward. 
Feeling pretty good lately.....sooooooooo......^_^
I'm giving this away! (*edited* Added better pics)

You've all been so supportive and have helped boost my confidence in starting this little venture.  So I thought I'd just say, "Thanks! You Rock!".  I made this bag just for you and it won't be in the shop.(At least not for a few weeks)  If you'd like a chance at having this cutie pie leave a comment on this post!  I will leave comments open until Friday, October 12th at 12PM ET.  I'll do a random draw and announce the winner that day!  Good Luck! 

Dummdy dummdy dum........

It's 11:52 on a Sunday. (Woot!) The kids are napping. (Yes!!)  Mel's out biking. (Woohoo!)  The house is quiet. (Yeah baby!)  And I'm totally and utterly bored!!  lol! I could be sewing, working on my site, cleaning something, but I just don't feel like it.  I'm actually perfectly content not doing a damn thing and just sitting here twiddling my thumbs and being completely, utterly, flat out bored.  Why?  I think I deserve it that's why and I don't think my brain can concentrate on another thing today.  I'm so fried from doing.....hmmm.....well.........everything! So, I'm just going into "Vegetable mode" today. 

.......

Okay that's enough.  Haha! ^_^

So, I got that out of my system.  Nothing special to post about today.  Just felt like blabbering aimlessly.  So here are some pics of my apartment.

This is where I craft:

Trust me it doesn't look like this right now.  Imagine someone picked up the table with everything on it, shook it violently and then put it back down.  That's how it looks right now. ^_^

This is where I blog, design, surf, email, etc.:

That green chair gets around.  My husband found it at Goodwill for $5!!   ^_^  The desk chair we have is this big ugly gray thing with wheels.  Not very photo worthy and we usual move the green chair back and forth anyway. ^_^ 

Hmmm......k......well.....I'm off to go watch tv or do some other lazy activity. *Yawns*  Hmm.....maybe I'll take a nap too.

Friday- October 12th, 2007 - 12:00PM ET

i heart linen - the shop will be open for business! ^_^

Getting down to business

Wow!  I feel like I haven't posted in eons!
I know it really hasn't been that long, but I've done so much in the past week or so, it seems like a lot more time has passed.  Things have been quite busy for me between the creating, parenting, "wife-ing", visiting, e-mailing, telephoning, housekeeping, business-ing, blogging, photographing, photoshopping.  Every "ING" that there is!  I'm exhausted, but I'm loving it and wouldn't have it any other way. 
I recently picked up the book Craft Inc. which I learned about at the print & pattern blog.

It's another great book I think should be in every crafter's library.  At least those of us trying to sell their happily handmade goods.  It's the perfect guide book and the best part about it is the little interviews with already well established and successful business owners.  Some include Jill Bliss, Denyse Schmidt, Lotta Jansdotter, port2port press, and Rena Tom. I've been reading it for a few weeks now, taking notes and getting myself organized and it's given me the extra motivation I needed to do this crafty business thingy.

Speaking of crafty business thingies, some other little goodies I've put together for my little shop.
These pouches took a lot more work than I thought they would! 

A lot of work trying to coordinate the fabrics and reworking and tweaking the pattern that I made.  I also lined each one with matching polka dot fabric. 

I really love these and I wish that I could keep them!  I'd just have each one sitting in a different part of our apartment like little statuettes.  But I will be parting with my little pouchy babies and put them into the shop. 

Hubby should be finished with the site sometime tonight.  I've finally set a date and time for my little opening, which I will announce in my next post(sometime tomorrow).  Hopefully someone's actually interested so that I'm not creating suspense for nothing! ^_^   
Anyhoo, I can honestly say that it's been fun trying to get myself to this point.  It's been hard being a one woman show and I tip my hat to all of the other crafter's before me who have managed to get their little dream up and running on their own.  Hopefully I'll be able to learn a lot more and share that knowledge with those who will try this after I do.