I found this the other day when I was looking for something else, and I don’t think I’ve ever shown it before! An applique/embroidery illustration of a girl in a mint green dress.

I have been spending a lot of time lately searching through old photographs, digging through my family’s collections and diving even deeper into vast online archives. While I’m not sure exactly what has prompted this recent binge, it reminds me of the hours I spent as a child engrossed in the stories of how life used to be. Now, I’m enjoying taking these snapshots and giving them a new life.

For this piece I started with a pencil drawing of the boy carrying a wheelbarrow. After experimenting with a few colors digitally, I mixed a perfect shade of mint and painted a background directly onto some linen. Over the weekend I stitched some fabric clouds over the paint, and when everything was finished I combined all the separate elements digitally. I am so glad to live in a time when technology allows me to combine my favorite mediums this way!

I hope you like my newest experiment; I’d love to hear what you think! And if you have a spot on your wall just waiting for this fellow, you can find him in my store.

I wanted to share with you a couple glimpses of this gorgeous book that I am so proud to be a part of. Alabama Studio Style combines fashion, craft, and cooking in such a beautiful and organic way; just flipping through the book feels like a vacation! This is the first book I’ve been published in, and it was such a thrill to see my name in print:

Being a crafter myself was incredibly helpful in figuring out how to communicate some of the more confusing stitches and techniques. It can be really challenging to get so much information in just one or two illustrations!

A little illustration describing the construction of a pillow cover:

Here’s a cover page showing some snippets of projects using the illustrated techniques:

These full page “fabric maps” were the most time consuming, and in the end, most rewarding. Natalie has developed a beautiful technique of combining beading, applique, and embroidery to transform a single stenciled pattern into three distinct styles. For the illustration, Natalie asked for a detailed drawing that would correspond with a photo of each style, showing where each element is used.

This was such an amazing project and I am so honored and thankful to have had the opportunity to work with this talented team: Natalie Chanin, Robert Rausch, and Melanie Falick + co. at STC Craft!

I love this candy-colored palette right now! So happy and summery. I thought this would make the perfect little gift for someone you think is a winner, so it’s for sale here in my shop:

A quick shot out the window of the car this weekend, the fog was so thick you could hardly see the water. I pictured a ghostly ship, floating over the edge of the world. I tried at first to draw a ship from my head, but I realized I have no idea of how the structure of boats work! Hopefully it is convincing enough for an imaginary ship.