Tips and Tea on Tuesdays is taking a break…..

I have enjoyed posting this weekly installment on my blog, and I hope that you have enjoyed reading them, however I think that it is time to take a much needed break… This year has flown by for me, and I frankly have no idea how it became May 23, 2023.

I started the year, upgrading my teaching skills, to this century, and learning how to navigate the process of “video-style” learning. I created a class for Creative Spark, Upcycle it with Embellishments, and enjoyed the entire process.

I spent February through April of this year, promoting my newest book, Creative Embroidery, Mixing the Old with the New. I was able to have many friends involved in the series of blog posts that I wrote for C&T’s blog, as well as my own. In addition my newest line of Embroidery Stencils, Crazy Quilt Seam Designs debuted in March. I designed a Free Project, and wrote a series of blog posts to help introduce the readers, to this product.

I also created a lecture and class for C&T’s symposium, Embroidery Extravaganza, which was held on a Zoom platform, May 11, 2023. I needed to learn even more “tech skills”, which was a bit scary at times. Throughout the process I began to realize how much I needed to learn, and that this was going to be a challenge, as well as a humbling experience, due to my lack of tech-savvy knowledge.

That being said I have new projects on the horizon, that I will need to spend time on, and turn my focus to these. I will not be posting on Tips and Tea on Tuesdays for the summer, and probably through the fall. I will also be cutting back on my other two weekly posts, but may occasionally install a Friday’s Favorite, or a Slow Stitchin’ on Sunday Mornings entry.

New things to look forward to:

I will be giving a series of short lectures for the Quilt Festival Long Beach, July 8, 2023.
I will be creating a series of embroidery classes for Creative Spark this summer, and will update you all on the availability of these classes.
I have a new product coming out, Periodic Table of Embroidery Stitches Poster, available for pre-order through C&T Publishing, and will debut in stores after September 24, 2023.
I will be giving a series of short lectures for the Quilt Festival Houston, November 2-5, 2023.
I am writing an article for AQS Magazine, which will be featured in the March 2024 publication.
I am also working on a new product, that will be available next year, June 2024. Details will follow.
Lastly, I am also working on my next book, this will be available sometime in 2025. Details will follow.

Tips:

Be kind to yourself, be fair, and understand your limits.

Happy tea drinking and stitching to you, I have enjoyed meeting and talking to you all! ~Christen

PS: If you have any questions or thoughts, just leave a comment! See Tips, Tricks, the Basics, for more helpful ideas.

Tips and Tea on Tuesdays

May16

On Tips and Tea on Tuesdays, I will cover a topic and hopefully provide you with some tips that will be helpful! And just as an afterthought, tea may occasionally be a cup of Joe!

Tea today, is a nice soft green jasmine tea. Lovely aroma, and it is so nice to drink it from this lovely vintage tea cup that my friend Jeri gave to me many years ago. Pictured here are the flowers that my guy bought me for Mother’s Day, and vintage iron that my daughter bought for me. The lovely tablecloth belonged to my grandmother.

Tip:

Today’s tip is another simple one, treasure your past, present, and leave something for the future.

Happy tea drinking and stitching to you! ~Christen

PS: If you have any questions or thoughts, just leave a comment! See Tips, Tricks, the Basics, for more helpful ideas.

Tips and Tea on Tuesdays

May9

On Tips and Tea on Tuesdays, I will cover a topic and hopefully provide you with some tips that will be helpful! And just as an afterthought, tea may occasionally be a cup of Joe!

Tea today, is a cup of Jo, in a cup that I am feeling is really important today. It is hard to listen to the news, and understand that there are people who are full of so much hate. I personally am blessed, I love my husband, we have a great relationship. We have a beautiful daughter. We have a wonderful family.

Today my Tips are simple ones:

Think of small ways that will make someone you love happy.

Be kind.
Smile.
Say thank you.
Enjoy the moment.
Listen.
Laugh.

I know that these are sometimes hard to achieve, but a little encouragement may be all that you need, I know that it helps me.

Happy tea drinking and stitching to you! ~Christen

PS: If you have any questions or thoughts, just leave a comment! See Tips, Tricks, the Basics, for more helpful ideas.

Tips and Tea on Tuesdays

May2

On Tips and Tea on Tuesdays, I will cover a topic and hopefully provide you with some tips that will be helpful! And just as an afterthought, tea may occasionally be a cup of Joe!

Tea today is Celestial Seasoning’s Lemon Zinger! Flavorful with a bit of a zap! A bit like the color explosion in the photo. I love to shop thrift stores, and find wonderful bits of colorful pottery like the examples above. I have a collection of wooden boxes that I painted, and stacked into a shelving unit. I use these to store my collection of “kitchen” finds, and hand-me-down utensils.

Tip: Thrift Store Shopping

When you first start out, look for colors that you like, or colors that match some of the pieces that you already have on display.
Make sure that the pieces you are going to buy are in good condition, and don’t have any noticeable chips or big cracks!
When you get your treasures home, give them a good cleaning, preferably in the dishwasher.
When you are shopping, set yourself a price limit, that way you will still have money left over for a cup of tea or coffee!

Happy tea drinking and stitching to you! ~Christen

PS: If you have any questions or thoughts, just leave a comment! See Tips, Tricks, the Basics, for more helpful ideas.

Tips and Tea on Tuesdays

Apr25

On Tips and Tea on Tuesdays, I will cover a topic and hopefully provide you with some tips that will be helpful! And just as an afterthought, tea may occasionally be a cup of Joe!

Tea today, is actually coffee. I needed a bit of a jolt this morning, and well, it did the trick. I am sitting here at my work-table trying to re-organize and clean up my room after finishing a piece for an upcoming project. It is always fun to gather your treasures together, but I must admit, that it is challenge to put everything back. I guess my young self would have told my old self, well at least you have all of those treasures. Ok, I am listening, and I promise to quietly work away, and try to enjoy the moment.

Speaking of work-spaces, I recently participated in a survey that Lynn from Create Whimsy posted: Best Fabric Storage. She asked us a series of questions on how we organized our workspace, tools, and supplies. As I read through the other artist’s comments and saw their workspace, I was so impressed by how organized and clean each workspace was. In comparison, I noticed one thing about myself, my workspace looks like my artwork. A combination of using old and new, left-over bits, and well let’s be honest, piling as much stuff as I can into one space. And to be fair, my workspace which is 10′ x 12′, can be pretty cramped, and often times I find my work spills onto the kitchen table.

Tip: Organizing Your Workspace

Keep the tools handy that you use regularly, and designate a place to put them on your work table. Keep it fun, and give new purpose to unused containers or other household items that have found their way to your table. Include things on your table that make you happy, like small artworks, old postcards, or gathered ephemera.

Designate a place on your work table for your tools so that they are within arms reach.
An unused coffee mug is a great place to store your scissors, rulers, tweezers, stuffing tool, marking pen, and pencil.
Keep one pincushion for embroidery needles, and one for beading needles.
Use old Jello-O molds to store spools of thread, or for your thread cuttings.
Use a tea tray as the destination spot for small tools like a strawberry needle sharpener, a pair of scissors, or a bead scoop.
Keep a picture of your kid on the desk, ’cause I bet she makes you smile, mine does!

Happy tea drinking and stitching to you! ~Christen

PS: If you have any questions or thoughts, just leave a comment! See Tips, Tricks, the Basics, for more helpful ideas.

Tips and Tea on Tuesdays

Apr18

On Tips and Tea on Tuesdays, I will cover a topic and hopefully provide you with some tips that will be helpful! And just as an afterthought, tea may occasionally be a cup of Joe!

Tea today, is a new tea, well to me, it is called Himalayan Spring, which is an organic white tea, it has a light and smooth flavor. I love to look at my cup and pot set (in back on the left), but don’t use it much because the cup is so big, it doesn’t fit in the designated spot on my work table. Priorities over beauty I suppose!

Today I have set some time aside to sort through and organize the button bags and boxes, that were set aside for a project but were not used. This is always a happy task for me, as I enjoy looking at them, and resorting them, and bonus I get to revisit old friends. As I am doing this I think of the upcoming pieces that are waiting to be made, or even the ones that have not been imagined yet. I think of the colors, themes, and designs that I will be using and try to find just the right project to put these little gems on, so they have forever home.

vintage buttons, felt heart — Heartfelt Collage

vintage buttons, vintage hanky — Heartfelt Collage

Here is an example of an ensemble where I think the buttons, beads, charms, and ribbons are quite happy together! Well at least, I am happy that they were used to make these pieces. The two bracelets (left image) and the necklace (right image), are made from predominantly vintage buttons, with two exceptions, the bright yellow plastic sunflower buttons, and the green plastic leaf charms (bracelet on the right). The ribbon on the necklace, and the vintage earrings were made during the 1940’s-50’s. The felt heart pin was made many, many years ago.

Design Tip: Choosing Colors For a Jewelry Ensemble

As a starting point, find a colorway, piece of fabric, or another object that has all the colors that you want to work with. In this case I choose a colorway that I call “Crayon Colors”, which are the ones used for the vintage hanky and the pin in the center of the necklace.
Start collecting your components, choosing colors that match your palette, or are some slight variation of the colors. Notice that the green in the hanky is different from the green in the pin. The bead and button bracelet (left) has a variety of greens, and the leaves on the charm bracelet (right) is a warmer green.
Choose a color/s that will be used throughout the piece/s to bring some cohesiveness. For this ensemble, it was yellow.
For consistency choose one color to stitch all of the buttons in place. For the necklace, I choose a red perle cotton.
Another thing to consider, is that when worn, the pieces in the ensemble will not be next to each other, so a little variation is OK, as long as you feel all the colors work together!

Happy tea drinking and stitching to you! ~Christen

PS: If you have any questions or thoughts, just leave a comment! See Tips, Tricks, the Basics, for more helpful ideas.

Tips and Tea on Tuesdays

Apr11

On Tips and Tea on Tuesdays, I will cover a topic and hopefully provide you with some tips that will be helpful! And just as an afterthought, tea may occasionally be a cup of Joe!

Tea today is a light Jasmine green tea, with a bit of orange honey, freshly made locally. I am also munching on a slice of carrot cake left-over from the weekend. The lovely china cup was a gift from my dear friend Jeri, and I treasure it. She introduced me to all things feminine, like drinking tea in beautiful vintage cups, playing with lace, and collecting mother of pearl buttons.

She also was a staunch believer in re-cycling. Her workroom was filled with all manner of collected treasures, displayed in jars, boxes, and tins. Her spirit lives on here in my collections.

Tip: Repurposing Glass Jars

Wash your glass jar thoroughly in hot water, preferably in the dishwasher, this will remove all leftover food or oils.
All manner of collected treasures can be stored, I usually leave the lid off.
Store buttons made from glass, metal, shell, and wood.

Note: Do not store vintage plastic buttons in glass jars with the lid on, as the materials and chemicals have a tendency to breakdown. If you ever wondered why those buttons have a funny smell, that is it! I store vintage plastics in a cardboard or wood box.

re-purposing vintage and new glass jars and salt shakers

Here are some additional ideas for ways to use unusual vessels:

Fill a spice jar with flowers from Michael’s or your local craft store and place it on a doily.
Keep a jar for all of those bead blips, broken buttons, odd pits of ribbon, stuff you don’t want to throw out.
Fill the holes of a salt shaker with hatpins, or remove the metal top and fill it full of hat pins.

Happy tea drinking and stitching to you! ~Christen

PS: If you have any questions or thoughts, just leave a comment! See Tips, Tricks, the Basics, for more helpful ideas.

Tips and Tea on Tuesdays

Apr4

On Tips and Tea on Tuesdays, I will cover a topic and hopefully provide you with some tips that will be helpful! And just as an afterthought, tea may occasionally be a cup of Joe!

Tea today is Sangria Zinger, a combination of tangy hibiscus, blood orange, pineapple, and additional citrus flavors. Doesn’t the color look so pretty here, in my vintage daffodil china cup? This is one of my mix-matched sets, with a beautiful floral saucer that lost it’s mate. They don’t match exactly, but I think that the colors blend well, and they seem happy teamed together.

Speaking of color, do you sometimes struggle putting colors together? Me too! So what do I do to address this hurdle, so I can get down to stitching???

Pistachio Moss, is a gallery piece that you can see in my new book, Creative Embroidery, Mixing the Old with the New, by C&T Publishing. This piece was a bit of a challenge, and became a large growling monster, as I gathered my materials. I was working with small bits of fabric, and finite amounts of lace and ribbons.

Pistachio Moss Beginnings: the colors seemed to be disparate, the fabrics and beads were contemporary, but the threads, ribbons and buttons were vintage looking. So, what did I do?

Tip: Begin at the Beginning

This is the print that I used for the border of the piece. Conveniently, the manufacturer provided a color section of all of the colors that appear in the print. I started here, because sometimes greens can be a challenge for me. Another great tool that I suggest for you to use, is Stitch Palettes, you won’t be sorry!

Once I had my color palette selected, I found anther fabric that matched the first. Then I chose colors that matched and blended with the two fabrics, to use for the remaining materials. Before I stitched the base, I dyed the center section of silk fabric, the appliques, some of the silk bias ribbon that I used for the flowers, and all of the vintage laces.

Then I gathered the perle cotton, cotton floss, and silk embroidery ribbons that I wanted to include. When the embroidery materials are chosen, I create a color swatch card, and list the manufacturer, the thread or ribbon size, and the color number.

Here are some close-ups of the embroidery and ribbonwork sections.

Final Tip for Today: In my new book, I have included directions and tips on dyeing with Colorhue dyes, in the chapter Altering the Past. I also made a video introducing the book, and you can see this piece “up close and in person”!

Happy tea drinking and stitching to you! ~Christen

PS: If you have any questions or thoughts, just leave a comment! See Tips, Tricks, the Basics, for more helpful ideas.

Tips and Tea on Tuesdays

Mar28

On Tips and Tea on Tuesdays, I will cover a topic and hopefully provide you with some tips that will be helpful! And just as an afterthought, tea may occasionally be a cup of Joe!

Tea today is green tea, which is brewing in my little two-part cup, a gift from Diane, a friend and student. I am working on the project that is in the background, for a future post, but I wanted to share a preview, because the materials and the embroidery examples are part of today’s tips.

As I am sipping my tea, I was looking at one of my favorite pieces, Sweet Dreams, below. The center section was a gift from Christine, also a friend and student. This piece is featured in the gallery section of my new book, Creative Embroidery, Mixing the Old with the New, by C&T Publishing. The focus of the book, is to show you how to use and incorporate the variety of materials that you have in your stash. The projects and gallery pieces feature fabrics, linens, hankies, lace, appliques, ribbons, trims, threads, buttons, beads, and ephemera.

Close-up of **Sweet Dreams**, even I am amazed sometimes at how much embroidery and embellishments you can fit into one area!

Often my students ask me how do you know what stitch to put where, or what stitch to use. I say to start with the stitches that you like, or are familiar with. Once you get a project under your belt, then branch out and try new stitches, and new ideas. The chapter on Embroidery and Embellishment Stitches, has a great selection of stitches using a variety of threads, ribbons, buttons, notions, and beads.

General Tips: Where to Embroider

This is an excerpt from the chapter Stitching Creatively, which also includes specific tips, and hand-drawn embroidery suggestions for each of the below ideas.

Seams: The embroidery stitches can be worked on either side of a seam or straddling the seam. Begin with a continuous border row stitch, then add decorative and detail stitches.
Ribbon: The embroidery stitches can be worked over the edge of the ribbon, through the ribbon, or on the outer edges of the ribbon. You can also add decorative and detail stitches.
Lace: The embroidery stitches can be worked into the open areas of the lace pattern or along the outer edge of the lace.
Rickrack: The embroidery stitches can be worked over the trim or between the curved wave edges of the trim.
Hankies: The embroidery stitches can be worked around the outer edge, over the edge, or in the inside portion of the hanky.

Happy tea drinking and stitching to you! ~Christen

PS: If you have any questions or thoughts, just leave a comment! See Tips, Tricks, the Basics, for more helpful ideas.

Tips on Tuesdays and National BUTTON WEEK, Day 2!!!

Mar14

On Tips and Tea on Tuesdays, I will cover a topic and hopefully provide you with some tips that will be helpful! And just as an afterthought, tea may occasionally be a cup of Joe! And in honor of National Button week March 13-19, 2023 I thought that I would share a few of my favorite buttons, and buttons, and lots and lots of buttons.

Tea today is just a cup of JO, though my cup is fitting as I want to talk about Hats and to be more specific, novelty “hat” shaped buttons. I think that these are some of the funnest buttons I have in my collection.

Well Hello Dolly: This piece started these two printed doll panels, which came in a little gift box. The two ladies, Alice and Jeanne, were supposed to be cut out, stitched, and stuffed. But I couldn’t do this because I fell in love with the printed floral sections on the panels, which would have been discarded, so instead, I just cut the panels into blocks. I pieced the blocks with vintage floral jacquard ribbons from the 1940’s, along with narrow satin, picot edge, and novelty print ribbons. I decided there was never going to be a more perfect venue for my hat and flower button collection! Other embellishments include vintage celluloid pins, leaf trim, and ribbonwork flowers.

Measured Party Foul: A machine quilted base of pieces of left-over fabrics and a gifted bag full of selvage edge strips becomes the back-ground for a collection of whimsical friends. An old tape measure was used for the body of each bird, with fun googly eyes, rickrack legs, laundry pin wings, shoe beads and buttons, and more hat buttons! Other embellishments are rickrack and ribbonwork flowers, vintage buttons, glass mushrooms, vintage tin pins, and metal charms.

Tips: Where to Find the Good Stuff

For vintage items like the “hat” shaped buttons, search on eBay, you will have a broad range of vendors that specialize in vintage items, as well as the novice seller, who is “de-stashing”.
Check your local thrift and charity shop stores, they may have a sewing and craft section.
Check to see if there is a vintage swap meet in your area, sometimes these are held monthly, or yearly.
For the newer items like the hat charms or shoe button, bead, or charms, check your local craft store, or favorite on-line source.
And be patient, don’t be discouraged if you don’t find these items right away, this collection took me several years to acquire.

Happy tea drinking and stitching to you! ~Christen

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Christen's Creations

Creative Expressions from a fiber artist, beader, ribbon artist and embroiderer.

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Tips on Tuesdays and National BUTTON WEEK, Day 2!!!