Stitch Clutch

Hi ya folks! Success! Well, haha, kind of. No embroidery still, but some stitchy goodness all the same. This clutch was originally inspired by a few different sources. I wanted to create a light weight, thin, lovely gift to feature in Kro Postal for starters. I had a need to use of scraps of fabric that I had laying around. I wanted to try my hand at machine appliqué as well as using the sewing machine to draw. It was so fun to make and even better to give as a gift to a friend who is far away and could use a package of goodies.

Stitch Clutch

Download the pattern here (pdf) , see more photos here.

So last night I swore I would take the night off and just chill. I ended up trying another embroidery thing, it was another “meh” and so I switched to knitting and watching tv, which was still craft leftovers related. I was going through the cherry chirp pattern. It seems to be okay to a certain point and then even I’m not sure what I meant for people to do. I think it’s more of a rephrasing issue than a math issue, but I’m crunching the numbers along the way to be sure. Have any of you tried out this pattern? Feedback would be great. Both readablity as well as technically. Any issues you encounter with any pattern I write, I really do want you to email me, leave a comment on the pattern post, or write me by letter (marked up print outs are a dream!).

And this brings up another issue, I stopped sending patterns off to my team of pattern testers because I fell behind and was having to write them up at the last minute (this past year of school was soooo demanding, I’m happy it’s finished and I have time to pay attention to details). I’m really trying to break this habit. I want to start sending off patterns for testing before they are published starting in September. I can’t pay, but you would get a kit for the pattern and you would see all the new patterns before they are released and I’m working on some ideas for thank you gifts for those who participate. Just send an email with the subject “pattern testing” to craftleftovers {at} gmail {dot} com if you are interested in learning more. Let me know what crafts you are interested in testing, all levels are welcome, seriously, beginners are the best, especially because most of my patterns tend to be on the easy to easy intermediate level. I really want everyone to be able to understand the patterns I write. If they aren’t, well, why write them in the first place :P

I’m sitting out on a cafe patio right now drinking chai tea and laptop bonding with Jason right now. What a pleasant evening. I wish you all the happiness and contentment I’m feeling right now.

Keep it Crafty folks!

++ Kristin Roach ++

ps – My contentment was totally boosted after I tore through my studio cleaning and then went nuts on the garage, nothing like good clean up to get the creative juices flowing. One of my professors once said that more so that just trying to hammering though a “writer’s block” (in this case creative block), you should clean your studio. Putting away and picking up puts you in contact with all your tools and it inspires new ways of looking at your problem (art/craft/creative). Not only that, when you are done, you have a clean work space, which always helps me feel inspired to mess it back up again :)