Lady Bear Cross Stitch Pattern

I was recently able to get my laptop working again, which has been awesome. However, the biggest reason that I wanted to use it again is because a little while before it crapped out on me I had purchased a program to make cross stitch patterns. I was able to make a few before my computer, let's just say, "slept" for over a year but I never really got to share them.

So, I am very excited to share with you all, my first cross stitch pattern - Lady Bear!



Lady Bear cross stitch pattern is available now in .pdf as an instant download in the S. Jane Craft shop. She's a fun little beginner project, if you haven't done much cross stitch and she is worked up in only four colors so she's easily customizable!

Happy stitching!!

Jumble

I have really been terrible at this blogging thing lately. It's been a bit of a whirlwind end of April and beginning of May. We hosted a little end-of-semester get together for Adam's students, Monaco (the game Adam did art for) was released ,we had two of our best friends from Oregon visit us for a week, cooked a belated mother's day dinner, went to a baby shower and I think some other things that I'm probably forgetting. Point is, for people who don't usually have much on their schedules, it's been a busy jumble of weeks for us. In fact, I don't think we have any other scheduled plans until July, when my dad comes to visit from Seattle.

But oh, our friends visiting was so perfect. I think I'm still feeling a little bit (ok, maybe a lot bit) of the sting of them not being here. It was so wonderful to see their faces, and joke around with them and show them all the places and things we love about Maine and our little city of Portland. I think that, at the very least they liked it enough here to visit again.

It can be so hard to have some much distance between friends that you love so much and I'm so, so, so grateful that they wanted to come out and visit us.

Oh and I'm also grateful that Ashley gave me the idea to draw on my new business cards. I'm not sure I would have thought of it!

Tired Bear

This is how I felt earlier (super sleepy/teensy bit grumpy) so I drew a bear about it.

I felt much better after I drew her but now I'm back to sleepy! I hope if any of you drew feelings bears that yours looked a little more peppy!

Geo Cool Fabric Collection

Well, I have another new thing to share. I've put up my first collection for fabric (and even wallpaper or decals if you want) for sale via Spoonflower! I've been working on getting these up for a while. They have actually been ready for a bit now, I just needed to get brave enough to actually click something to make them public. I guess today was the day!

So, here it is! Geo Cool - a  collection of 8 simple, slightly retro and super cool patterns for your sewing pleasure. 

The samples shown above are printed on Spoonflower's basic combed cotton. 

If you are interested in any of these patterns you can click here to or on the banner to the right to visit my Spoonflower shop!

Cut and Sew Bestie Bears

Holy cow, I can not even believe I haven't posted this on the blog yet! I feel like March just flew by and was so much busier than I expected. BUT HEY.

Have you ever wanted your own little S. Jane bear to love and hug and take on adventures? And did you also want the self satisfaction of having made it yourself? I thought you might have! Introducing the Bestie Bear cut and sew fat quarter now available at Spoonflower!

Bestie Bears has two little 8 inch bears for you to sew. Here is an example of how one looks sewn up by someone (me) not so great at sewing things that aren't straight lines:

See? Still super cute! (Also the real life colors are much much much closer to the image, it's just a little dark in my apartment this morning)

So go, run! Get your little bears and sew them up and show me!

DIY - Pepper Lime Salt Scrub

I have a nice, easy DIY for you all today. I made some scrubs and bath teas for my sister-in-law this past Christmas and was surprised by how easy they actually are! I'd been thinking about making up some of my own combinations and came up with this today. The combination of the pepper and lime is fresh, light and just a tiny bit spicy. I like it with olive oil (we use a really fruity one) but if don't care for the smell or feel you could use sweet almond oil or something else. Basically, can adjust any amounts from the recipe to your liking, which is a great thing about making scrubs!

• 1/2 c fine sea salt
• 1 tsp coursely ground black pepper
• zest from 1/2 lime
• 1/2 tsp granulated lemon peel (or zest, if you have it)
• olive oil (or your oil of choice)

Combine sea salt, pepper, lime zest and lemon peel in a bowl and mix. Pour into a jar and add some olive oil. Mix and add more olive, if needed.

That's it! Super simple and you probably have most of this stuff in your house already!

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Lil' Rug

It's DONE! I recently finished the little rug I was working on and I'm really happy with how it came out.

I wrote a post about making it over at Counting By 12s, as it was part of my Make Instead of Buy challenge! Go read it!