Day Two of the Stitch Savvy blog tour! I asked the lovely ladies who are taking part of the tour to follow one “path” through the book and share it with you, and today Kathy Mack of Pink Chalk Fabrics and Pink Chalk Studio is doing just that. Stitch Savvy is meant to be an intermediate sewing book–not the super beginning skills, but not a niche book focused on very advanced or esoteric or obscure sewing, either. I designed the book with five “tracks” based on the idea that most of us gravitate toward one type of sewing (in this case, the five are home decor, sewing for kids, handbags, garments, and quilting). On top of that, to encourage us to try sewing projects we might not otherwise be drawn to attempt, each project leads you to “next steps,” other projects in the book that share skills or techniques with the one you’ve just done. So you can follow a track (do all the quilting projects) or do all the Level 1 projects (one in each of the five tracks) or you can skip between tracks and follow a path through the projects based on recommendations at the end of each one.
Kathy is sharing her path today, and I’m super excited not just to see how the book led her through a series of projects, but also to see how excited she was as each new project was “revealed”! How totally fun for me to observe someone going through this book that I’ve been nesting with for so long.
I’m sharing with you another version of a book project that didn’t make it into the pages of the book: the Ribboned Envelope Pillow.
This is the Level 1 project from the Home Dec section, the very first project in the book. It’s another approach to sewing a pillow, something to add to your toolbox on top of the pillow in Stitch by Stitch. On top of that, I like that this project asks you to think about what you can do to a pillow front before you assemble the pillow itself–once you recognize that you can embellish or quilt or stencil or bedazzle the front of any pillow, your whole house opens up!
It’s also a chance to work with pleats, which show up in a number of projects throughout the book. I like gathers, but I LOVE pleats, and tend to use them where patterns call for gathers. Something about the crisp structure of them really speaks to me.
This one sits in the playroom at our house, which I very recently stripped down and re-organized, spurred on by my success with the closets. I emptied all the cases and shelves of every toy and re-arranged and displayed them, so now sitting in this chair looking out the sunroom windows is a joy! And I’ve got a lovely pillow to rest against.
Take the time to tour Kathy’s excellent blog while you’re peeking in on her Stitch Savvy post. I had the great pleasure of visiting with her at Quilt Market in Houston this past October, and she is smart and thoughtful and very witty–plus she has exceptionally good taste in fabric and patterns, and genuinely loves not just sewing, but interacting with others who love it, too, and building a community. Plus she’s got real vision about how the interwebs can work for those of us who sew, and offers downloadble patterns right from her site, along with a fantastic selection of tools and notions that you don’t often see from online vendors. If you’re not already subscribed to Pink Chalk Studio, Kathy’s blog, or getting the Pink Chalk newsletter, I can’t encourage you enough to do so, like, today. You’ll thank me later.
See the rest of the Stitch Savvy blog tour in the next ten days, and on the final day, check back here for a giveaway and a surprise!
