Fabric nerd session

So over the past year and a half I took up sewing again...in a massive way.  I sew nearly every day that I get a few free minutes.  I've loved fabrics since I was...actually according to my mom since I was a baby but since that's not my own conscious memory I'll spare you that story.  Anyway, I've re-learned sewing from a few amazing sewing blogs; one of my favorites is by the talented Rachel at Stitched in Color. I took an online class about hand-stitching from Rachel this winter which was super helpful and I loved all the projects we did, I would highly recommend her classes if you're interested in sewing.   Rachel is hosting a contest about warm and cool fabric choices to be "bundled" by one of her fabric shop sponsors.  I had to enter, I am kind of obsessed with warm and cool contrasts and always have been.  As a water color painter using warm and cool was my favorite way of capturing light.  Plus, this fabric mosaic was supposed to feature turquoise which is my "signature color"...yes, most little girls like pink but I've always been in love with anything aqua/turquoise, I'm kind of like a raccoon with shiny objects if something is that color.  So, here's what I've got for my fabric mosaic...we were limited to 12 choices.

Please check out Rachel's blog if you're into fabric creating and if you feel like it, show a little love and vote for me :).  

Things I've been making...

Creating with fabric is a new thing for me: 1 1/2 years ago when we suddenly had a 4 year old foster daughter (adoption nearly finalized, can't wait till it's official!) I went on a bit of a nesting drive....I just needed something to get excited about since I was instantly a mother without the 9 month wait of expecting.  In Tunisian children's clothes and decor ridiculously expensive and so I had to get creative. I have two grandmothers who were sewing whizzes but they stopped before I was old enough to get real lessons. I knew how to stitch in a straight line since I was in 4-H as a youngin' but that's about as far as my skill set went.  Even in my 4-H days I think I didn't produce anything that was usable.  Enter pinterest and all the amazing online tutorials these days and I discovered a new love!  Seriously, sewing is so much fun and it's kind of an instant gratification thing because you can produce something useable in just a few hours.  This new finding also tapped into my life-long obsession with fabric and textiles so I was really hooked.

So now the idea I've been kicking around is doing some training for women in the neighborhood who are in need of some extra income to care for their children.  However, I don't really have the start-up cash flow to do this until I kind of see what products they can make that actually sell.  So, I'm in a bit of the research and development stage.  Here are a few examples of the things I'm thinking of offering.

I'm excited about the possibilities and nervous at the same time.  I get so excited about this and then filled with doubt...how will anyone find us or will they even want to purchase from us with the millions of products out there?  It seems overwhelming but I know two things I have to stay true to are my desire to make a difference in the community and my passion to be a create.  As a product test I just launched an etsy store:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/SimplyMeHandmade

Please pay us a visit and please let me know any comments you might have about products you would like to see, what's good and what's not!