Roselawn Fall Festival

Wow! We had a wonderful weekend in Cartersville, Georgia. The 35th Annual Roselawn Fall Festival was tons of fun and we met lots of new friends. I’m hoping to share some pictures and detail information with you later, but right now I’ll be totally honest. I’m EATEN ALIVE by the Monday morning GRIND! :) Okay, granted, my “grind” is different from most. But I still have to deal with all the crazy unpacking, washing, cleaning, straightening and replacing from going to the show all weekend. And lets not even count the state my house was in after being totally ignored for the last four days and left to the devices of two toddlers. Yeesh. I’m only on laundry load 5 for the day so far! :)

I’m going to be posting a ton more stuff in the shop this week, so make sure you dart over to StressTheSeams on Etsy to see all my lovely stuff. Some of it is new inventory, and some of it is de-stashing sewing and crafting gear to make room! It’s getting tight in the studio and with all the shows going on, I can’t manage to sew fast enough to keep up with the influx of stock as well as the stream of custom orders! I guess that’s a good problem to have!

Speaking of custom orders, I have several of you waiting on customs. The good news is that EVERYONE who has placed an order (yes, that includes your bag Kim… and all your goodies Dolores!) FINALLY has all the necessary supplies in house to complete it. The last pieces were found this past week, so I can FINALLY get busy on them (since I don’t have a show this week). Incoming customs are currently looking at a month in creation time due to the CRAZY show schedule in September (what’s left of it), October, November, and early December. But everything in the Etsy shop is ready to ship right now! :)

Back to the machine! I’m so happy to have five minutes to share with you how happy I am to have time to sew! :)

Zoom!

September is CRAZY!

It is just nutty around here this month. I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around how an entire week has passed! Sunday was a crazy awesome show at Atlanta Station in Atlanta that just sort of came up on Friday as an option. Thankfully, we did it and now we know that it can be very successful, not to mention fun! If you've never heard of SimplyFun toys, you should check them out. Their regional rep, Susan, was next to us at the show. They have AMAZING games for ALL ages! We had SO much fun! Check it out at I'm not being paid a dime to say how impressed I was, seriously!

We sold completely out of magic wallets at the show, which makes Mr.STS VERY happy, though VERY busy restocking our inventory this week! :) My binders, journals, and small bags were a massive hit, as was custom work. That is always so nice, to know that someone likes your stuff so much that they want to patron you to make a piece JUST FOR THEM! So great!

We've applied to several more holiday shows, and had to turn down invitations to even more as you can only be in so many places at once!

Off to work more on stash busting. I've taken pictures of all the.... crap. Yeah, we'll call it that, as it's not yet valuable, but it's not worthless either. But it is definitely a mess. Yeash. I'll post the pictures as soon as my cheeks stop being so red from embarrassment. Yes, they are THAT bad.

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Stashbushing So Far

So I've managed to complete a tote bag. I'll post a picture as soon as possible, but I've been helping out a friend and keeping his two year old and five year old sons yesterday and today, so it's a miracle I'm getting anything done with 3 boys between 20-25 months old under foot! :)

So far I've used:
-1/3yd microsuede
-1/2yd Bird Talk cotton print
-3/8yd Blue Dot cotton print
-1/8yd Ocean Swirl cotton print
-1/4yd Blue Batik cotton print
-1/2yd WonderUnder
-1/2yd grey fleece
-7/8yd fusible interfacing
-8 extra large brass grommets
-1/2 spool of thread

I've also managed to cut out and prepare another DOZEN patterns!
And I've put together my IKEA Mala paper holder for the butcher paper that I use for pattern roughs and for the boys' art purposes.
Then there were the four acrylic signs that I got from a bank that was changing their signage. I managed to remove all of the lettering from them so that I have three clear ones and one dark grey one ready for new clear labels.

All that AND laundry day with 3 toddlers and a 2 hour commute each day to drop off the kindergartener. Not bad so far. No clue what I'm going to accomplish today, but I'm determined!

Off to Stashbust!

---but I do want to admit that the Labor Day sales are starting to look REALLY tempting.... how should I best resist?

September 1: Stash-bustin'!

Stash Busted:
Fabric Used: 0 yards
Notions Used: 0
Trims Used: 0
Thread Used: 0
Patterns Used: 0

What I've Made:
Items Created: 0
Patterns Created: 0

So I've joined a September Stash-busting Group. You can find out more about it by clicking the button in my sidebar. The basics are that you can't buy crafting gear for the month of September and you have to use what you've got. Only thread and glue can be purchased so that you can continue on with more projects, and that's only if you are out. There's also an exemption for business purchases and 1 get out of jail free for an AMAZING deal. But I'm trying to adhere to the spirit of the month and not purchase crafting stuff! And the other half of the goal is to see how much you can use in creative ways this month. So I'm going to try to produce in profuse numbers!!! :) So today is day one and I'm starting with a tally of zero....

But as I've already got the beds stripped and in the laundry, dishes done, and kitchen cleaned, I'm ready to face the studio and see what I can do! Wish me luck.... or better yet, JOIN ME!!! :)