As it is Now or Upstairs/Downstairs

There is stuff everywhere despite how much we have moved out.  My upstairs attic studio had been shared with my assistant ever since Mary Anna arrived two years ago (yes two!), thereby pushing Pierrette up the stairs to work with me.  The downstairs was divided into a nursery and online shop fulfillment studio (read 300 bolts of fabric) from which my other assistant cut and shipped. I had just been getting used to a personal workspace again, when it was time to stop getting used to that.  And now I am getting used to that again.  (Do I need to start at the beginning?  There will be a review before the test.)

UPSTAIRS: So the upstairs suffered a tornado of a move out- rifling through with no time to spare to get Craft South open on schedule.  There was a luxury to throwing everything around in whatever ridiculous manner I cared to, knowing that I was going to be the only one putting it all back together again.  Thinking of it now, I was so very uncareful and thoughtless about tossing here and there.  And now the first reentry into that space since we opened the shop (dreadful as the air conditioning is on the fritz up there) has been to assemble all of my Summer Rummage Sale items.  There is loads that I have been anxious to send to a happy home (still some available after listing this morning!)  but I have only been able to work up there for 30 or 45 minutes at a time-bc of the heat- rummaging and photographing the goods.  Sweat.

It feels so large and cavernous despite the mess now.  I am rethinking completely how I want the room to be put back together.  I had always rather liked Pierrette's view of the neighborhood hills, and wonder if I might move a desk over there.  Or maybe my drafting table.  You can hear the neighbor's chickens better from there.  Or perhaps a second sewing machine set-up that is always ready for machine quilting and larger projects, while keeping small project sewing at the current sewing spot.  I haven't had a couch up there ever since I began sharing the room and wondering if I have room now for maybe just a wingback.  My priorities right now are to get the air conditioning fixed then send my sister a plane ticket so we can sit on the floor and talk about how it should be, get about half done then abandon it for cooking and movies.  Goals.

DOWNSTAIRS: This has been the biggest change.  It went from being a giant fabric cutting table and shipping supplies and bolt after bolt after bolt of fabric to being almost completely empty.  So empty that I had to mock up a "studio" last month when my Janome crew came to shoot new class videos.  Which was actually sorta fun. My hopes for this space are that it get reclaimed by everyone, not really me.  We, like I am sure many of you, do SO much of our everything at the dining room table.  Homework.  Art.  Food.  Visiting. Nonsense.  So that started me thinking maybe we can have a whole room for all that instead.  And I am working on it.  A 6 foot table has been procured.  One hide has been snatched up to keep feet on something soft and warm while homeworking.  A smallish waiting room style, midcentury sofa in electric blue vinyl has also been invited to help us out.  The family painting we did together last summer has been hung where it was always meant to be.  A favorite art print appropriately landed right next to it.

AS IT IS NOW:  The table needs chairs.  Some of which I have but they need to be covered.  Until my air conditioning is fixed upstairs, my computer, myself, and -today- loads of rummage sale items and other works in progress are in here too.  While I am looking forward to reawakening my dream studio upstairs, for now I am happy to be closer to everyone down here, saving them the walk up to me, and slightly going mad from the chaos that summer can be.  Though this week we have whittled all the way down to the 2 youngest with the 4 older at camp.  So I can hear Mary Anna's nap breathing through the wall and Roman's crayons across paper right now and that is all.  Well, and my keyboard.

more soon.  hope your holiday weekend was a good one. xxooAM

A Shift

I walked to the front porch tonight looking for a break from indoors once I noticed through the windows while eating a room temperature hot dog that the wind was picking up, promising a breeze.  And it is here.  The breeze.  I haven't once watered the garden this Spring and Summer.  Not one single time.  We have gotten such a lot of rain, and I am so glad for it.  Glad for it in spite of my perennials and the weeds engaging in a fight to the finish.  I have barely slowed down since we got Craft South opened here in Nashville at the end of May.  There is so much that I want to write about the process of doing that.  So much that I want to write about a lot of my processes over the past so many months.  I am being patient with that.  I am appreciating how full, and stressful and exciting life is right now.  Yes I am appreciating the stress.  It is a signal that I am trying something that I want to work.  And fortunately I am surrounded by people who love me and want it to work too.  Want it to work just as much as I do.  I will admit I am pretty stinking tired though.

So much has shifted.  The biggest shift seems to be the online store that I have been running out of my house since December of 2007 is no longer run in my house.  That is happening at Craft South.  That is a huge, wonderful change for me and my family.  I can't even begin.  The first day after completing the giant task of getting of all of the inventory, boxes and people out the house, everything changed.  I was driving home from the grocery store that day (but, really, when am I not driving home from the grocery store, I ask you?) and when I passed over the one hill where I always seem to begin thinking about what is waiting for me at home, I was not thinking about my employees or the orders or what they might need my help with.  I realized that I was only headed towards home.  Home. Only.  Just the place we live.  In that one moment I felt such gratitude for having been able to do all that I have from that place.  From this place.  So bring on the stress.  Will I make my rent each month?  Can I keep the inventory coming just the way I want?  Will enough people walk through our doors to justify all the beautiful, new and shiny expense of it all?  Bring it on.  We know how to be poor.  We know how to hope for more and work hard to get it.

It feels odd to say, because I have certainly been losing a little sleep, keeping this whole new thing on my mind....but there is an ease that has come with this new venture.  I believe it has everything to do with reclaiming home for us.  I might be too busy to do much about the weeds nearly winning the fight.  But the cardinals, yellow finches, doves and cicadas- each of whom I hear right this very minute- do not seem to mind.  My calendar might be so full that getting to write this here and now meant sneaking to the front porch after dinner to steal a moment.  The little powerhouse of a girl who followed me out and moved that big chair into position to be right across from me does not seem to mind.  Business as usual to that one.  Just glad to be near me.  And I her.

I hope you are well friends.  Enjoy your holiday weekend!  xxooAM

Sewing with Sunshine

And by Sunshine I of course mean the little Miss. The sun beaming through the windows on us and this project was no additional trouble however. I lurve the April stack. It is kind of as pale and neutral as this studio is capable of, which feels nice and fresh.   (And because there are 6 solids included, the stack has 14 total fabrics still keeping it in the 30-40$ range. Yay!)  It was high time I actually sat down at the sewing machine and enjoyed one of these Monthly Gatherings myself. Which is good timing for the new couch cover I have on one of the family room sofas. Everything in that room was in need of a good refreshing. Pillows and paint are my very favorite refreshers, probs yours too.  I am not sure if this pillow will stay on this sofa, or go on the cream one, but I do know that I will make another pillow from all the scraps left from this one.

For the flying geese I used the no-waste method of making four flying geese at once, which I describe in this Mother Goose free quilt pattern, but googling that italic phrase up there will take you to several spots where a formula is described for getting the specific size that you want for your geese.  This pillow is 24x24 and I wanted each goose to be 3x6, so I needed a total of 32 geese arranged 4x8.  Whoa, too many numbers.  My process of choosing the color arrangement was a little random and a little planned. By that I mean that I only started with one parameter of sorts, and that was- all of the paler, less bold toned fabrics in the April stack would be the geese (center larger triangle) and the rest would be the background (smaller side triangles).  Then once they were all made, I deliberately arranged them only for balance of color and interest, but no real pattern or reason to it.  The single parameter that I started with sorta helps to provide a unifying element that you aren't consciously aware of, but it's there.  So I am essentially playing mind games with you, snort.

Do you think maybe with all that lingo that I am getting ready for my patchwork class at Sew Down next week?!  Me too.  I also am undertaking the light and enjoyable privilege of hosting about 90 Sew Downers (Uppers?) here at the house.  No biggie.  I also have a surprise for them, I think.  I hope.  It rhymes with Sew Down.

Smooches. AM & Sunshine

The unknown of today

I got about 12 stitches into this before I needed to put about 6 ounces into her, and now I am stitching again for (hopefully) a few hours next to a snoozing baby. But one never knows. Oh my life is full of grand and adventurous surprises. What would I do without the suspense of it all?

xoxox

Heirloom Stockings

Between dashing and dancing I've eeeked out family stockings.  Oh has this been a long time coming! And settling on machine embroidery meant that they all happened pretty snappy like!

This is also my newest free project with my pals at Janome! Free embroidery too! We have all of the links loaded onto my Janome + Me page for you.  I talk a lot more about the process over here on the Janome projects page.  Here is a link to watch our video tutorial too!








I love them so, so much! I'd love to see your versions (even if it's not til next year of course!)
xoxo, Anna

A Gathering

I took so much sparkley, fun, giddy pleasure in putting this gathering of framed works together on Mary Anna's nursery wall. I have been looking at the blank wall, as in, a wall with absolutely nothing on it, not a thing, don't even think about it, nothing, since about June 9th. That was when I started parking my fanny in the rocker and nursing a two day old... facing that wall. A million and ten times a day. I have had a lot of time to think about that wall and what should go on it. In fact I perhaps have done that very thing more than I have done anything since June 9th with exception to possibly nursing. Let's call it a tie. Because Miss Mary Anna Louisa (Bouisa)'s room was built into the studio I have dubbed her room to be quite art-y and have filled it with lots of handwork, and the like. I will take more pictures of the whole room soon. But The Wall. Sure, I have embroideries. Sure, I have quilts. Yeh, got needlepoints. I wanted to have something framed too. My sister and I went through a huge pile of vintage handkerchiefs that belonged to my Great Grandmother earlier in the Spring. Holy Smokes, they are beautiful.  Most are about 100 years old. Perfect in frames. In smaller frames, some are folded down to show just a small corner.  A few are shown fully. Above is my favorite. Oh it's beautiful! But finally I created the first edition of my own prints. Which mix in so very well. I just adore the wall now, so very much.



So that is a long winded way to let you know that my first limited edition print collection is now for sale in the online shop! This is a *pre-sale and we'll begin shipping them out in about 3 weeks. So sit tight. And dream beautiful wall dreams while you wait.
xoxo, Anna

Around our Summer

Hi everyone.  It is so busy here.  I blink and the day is over.  Today I thought we could play match the bullet points to the photos.  Ahhehehehegg-hemm.  Here we go.

:: I am learning to look on the bright side of the garden.  Flowers are blooming in riotous ways.
:: I am learning to ignore the dark side of the garden.  Weeds are blooming in riotous ways.
:: I need to dig up and rearrange a few things, but try not to think of that every time I walk by.
:: By a few things I mean almost all of it.
:: I have hired Joseph as my gardener.   I love stroking his ego from the garden bench nursing the baby by telling him how awesome he is while he pulls weeds as tall as me from the dirt.
:: I could not be more excited about fabric right now!  (This whole year really! Still two more collections to launch this year. )  My Hand Drawn Garden collection is here, there, and everywhere.  They are a curation of my favorite Garden Party & Drawing Room prints, all rolled into one pretty group of quilting cottons.
:: And that pretty quilt- that's the Flight Map Quilt pattern that has been on hold for developing for like ever. 
:: My life stopped for a bit there, remember?
:: It is starting again, and lots of projects that were on hold are getting their wheels turning towards completion. 
:: I made some Pleasant Pathways Shorts for Juliana from one of the new colorways! 
:: That's her up there in that riotous Canna.  I can't wait to shed some baby chub and steal them right off her skinny little rear.
:: Oh and not that she needs me to make things for her seeing as how she has her own stinkin line of fabric now.
:: Yup.  It's over here, and it's called Rosette.  And I love it.  Really love it.  Soooo her.
:: We've used it quite a bit already.  Baby dresses. Baby bloomers.  Patchwork.  Window Panels.
:: It looks so pretty with Denyse's Shelbourne Falls which I absoflippintutely adore.  That is most of what is patching that rocker.
:: That is most of where I spend my time. In that rocker.   Nursing.  And watching documentaries on my phone while nursing.  And drinking Pellegrino while watching documentaries on my phone while nursing.
:: Which has a lot to do with why some other things are moving slow.
:: So my downstairs studio got divided into a nursery and studio by way of a new wall and door.
:: It's pretty great I must say.  I got that pretty rug here.  I got that gorgeous Greek Needlepoint on Ebay.  There's another one of a man playing a flute that I am going to frame and put over the piano.  Because flute art goes over a piano, everyone knows that.
:: Juliana has been home all summer which is so beyond wonderful I can hardly express it.  She has been using baby Mary Anna's new room because baby Mary Anna is of course in ours.
:: Everyone else is generally in their own.
:: Though we spend a lot of time (all of us) (yes that's nine people) in the new nursery.
:: We could have a 20,000 square foot home and I think we would still all cram into 50 sq. feet all day.
:: It's weird.
:: I can't wait to show you more pictures of the nursery.  But the young fashion student turned fabric designer turned hey I can throw my stuff everywhere needs to pick up first.
:: She's really not that messy.
:: Roman is learning to take photos. (Find that one!)
:: I have a new class on CreativeBug!
:: I was quite pregnant during the video shoot for the last few classes.
:: I might look particularly tired in this new class, please don't let it distract you from the awesomeness of needlepointing onto a sweatshirt.
:: Cause it is awesome.
:: Jeff put a rope swing onto one of giant cedar trees in the back yard.  The kids go crazy laughy screamy nuts out there pushing each other on it. 
:: It's the terrifying kind of laughter that borders on I wonder if they are enjoying it or are about to really injure themselves.
:: That tree view above is all I can see from my studio window and all the swinging is blocked by branches.
:: I think it's for the best.
:: Also the little Miss smiles all the time the past few days.
:: When she's not crying or puking or sleeping that is.
:: In other words, she is the perfect baby.

xoxoAnna

Little Blossoms

It's really happening.  Spring.  I am in awe at the feel of the air and the smell of newness on the landscape.  Jeff and I took a quick last minute trip to NYC on Thursday.  We each snuck in a work-ish meeting, and both snuck in as many moments with our Juliana as we could.  The weather in the city was gorgeous, and I had a great feeling of disappointment on Friday night after dinner when I realized I had just had my last New York meal before leaving very early Saturday morning.  Though getting home early meant we had a whole weekend with the rest of the brood which included getting a Spring hairdressing on the front porch by my two other girls and also catching a 4ft long snake in the garden who was escorted by the more boyish sort to a nearby creek well away from our property.   I guess Spring happens for snakes too, and they want to get out a bit more.  Eeesh.

While I should have glanced up at the big movie screen to see this shot of my Square Dance fabric appear in Oz the Great and Powerful, I must have been cramming popcorn or Mike & Ikes in my face.  Cuz I missed it.  Thanks to several of you who have emailed to let me know.  Among several little movie and TV moments that my fabric has enjoyed (Footloose remake (snort), Meet the Fockers (double snort), Judy Moody (yay!), Modern Family (double yay) and others) this has to be my proudest.  The color in this film is beyond beautiful, and I applaud their most perfect use of this little panel print.  I glow a little thinking back to sitting in front of the TV every year with my sister and our snacks waiting for the Wizard of Oz to begin.  Remember when you had to wait a whole year?  I miss that.

I hope things are blossoming where you are.
xoxoAM

ps. just noticed after catching up w blog friends that I titled this post the same as Alicia's last, good company and a welcome phrase- little blossoms!!

Breaking

The middle four are all home for two weeks of Spring Break.  I have been coming and going, starting and stopping, planning then rearranging plans.  I traveled to my parents house last week to spend some time with them before they headed to Houston to investigate new treatment options for my mama.  My brother and my sister came to do the same.  I think we figured out that it has been about 20+ years since our little Demacopoulos family of 5 has been together - only us together - in one house.  And even longer since the 5 of us have packed into the car to make the drive out to Big Ed's Pizza, where daddy now carefully guards the red pepper shaker to prevent my brother from covertly unscrewing the lid.  It was so good to be together.  So, so good.  Much laughing, card playing, handwork and smokey scotch too.  You can likely sort out who did what.  This week my Eleni, Roman and I are getting over a little bug which put us all in bed with fevers and yuckies.  It didn't keep me down too long, but you know how your brain frets a little when you take away a few days from plans you had made.

Walking down the hall to check on snoozing Eleni yesterday I was ushered by the lazy sounds of a radio playing softly. Arrived to catch this glimpse of Isabela stretched across her bed managing the perfect Spring Break afternoon with a ziploc of potato chips, a sketchbook, markers, and pajama pants.  Her little sister heavy breathing through some much needed sleep in the next bed.  I aspire to have such simplicity, and to remember to just take what's right there in front of you and mess around in it.  Loving it.  Later that night I read Twelve Dancing Princesses to Eleni while she took another rest in the living room.  I have forgotten that I can still read to her now that she is such a good reader herself.  Why did I forget?  We both loved it so much.

back with more going-ons tomorrow, xoxoAnna

At Our House

* we are sweet-ing


* we are (still) gift-making


* we are painting & glittering


* we are playing


* we are stamping (homemade giftwrap)


* we are warming


* we are anticipating


* we are remembering



* we are wishing you a joyous Nativity & that all you love & cherish will be near to you.

Thank you for the simple gift of being here with me now and then-
so much love, Anna Maria & family xoxoxoxox