New bag wrap stickers for the season! I am working hard on getting orders filled and out the door – if you’ve ordered from me over the past weeks, you can look forward to getting your order soon! Limited edition holiday fabric is on its way to me, too! (And yes, you can still order!) #sewsewsew #stitchedbyjessalu #handmade #projectbags for your #knitting and #crochet #holidayprojectbags #grateful

On Hobbits and Tolkien…

In a hole in the ground, lived a Hobbit…

Yesterday, Boothbait and I went on an adventure to the Big City (NYC) and visited the Tolkien exhibition at the Morgan Library. This is a collection of artwork, notes, and manuscripts from J.R.R. Tolkien, brought here by the Morgan through the Bodleian Library and the Tolkien estate.

It was, in a word, Amazing.

In case you don’t already know, I love The Hobbit. I re-read it almost annually. This book was an escape for me while I was growing up. No matter what was going on in real life, I knew I could open up my book and Bilbo would be there, waiting for me.

To be in the same room as the original artwork? I never thought it possible. To have a bag I made from the original artwork in a photo with the original artwork? The possibility was inconceivable to me. But it happened.

The photo (even though there was a lady in the room yelling “NO PICTURES” lol):

 

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once-in-a-lifetime experience, once-in-a-lifetime photo <3

There were also drinks with friends at the Algonquin Hotel, a super cool Japanese stationery store, and an amazing pastrami reuben. All in all, a very good day in the city.

If you are interested in having your very own Hobbit bag, I did a little inventory and found that I have a few cuts available – go here to see what I have!

~jess

 

Happy Spring!

I thought I’d post a little update to let you all know what’s going on in SbJL world 🙂

Well, the last two weeks have been (less than) fun around here – first R (boothbait) got sick, then he gave it to me (so nice of him, right? lol) and after a week of not being able to breathe, I had him take me to urgent care. Come to find out, I had an ongoing asthma thing going on and boothbait won the booby prize of pneumonia! He wasn’t even going to get checked, but since he was there decided why not! (I think this means I saved his life or something, ha ha)

Anyway, we are both on the mend, I am working hard on getting club bags made and out the door to all of you wonderful people who ordered one for April! This fabric is so amazing, you’re going to love it, I just know it!

I’m also working on show orders, and am keeping up to date on shop orders! It sucks when you are on top of things and then whammo, two weeks sick. I’m going severely stir crazy over here.

I hope all is well with all of you and it’s beginning to warm up wherever you are! Thanks as always for supporting my little corner of the internet! <3

~jess

A New Way…

…of doing things!

I’ve been doing limited edition bags for a few years now – I have them for holidays and seasons and always in a limited number so they’re special. I always feel bad when I sell out too quickly and can’t get more fabric, so I’ve been trying to think up a way to keep them limited but still be able to expand the number of bags (and shapes!) I offer and not run out of fabric. After much hemming and hawing (because omg do I hate change, as anyone who has read my ‘about SbJL page can attest (I haven’t changed that since…2010? Crazy.)) I’ve come up with the idea of a Limited Edition Club!

The Club will work like most yarn clubs, except you will have the choice to sign up every month (eventually I’d like to offer recurring, but this is kind of an experiment) and those who sign up will get first dibs at extras I have available at the end of the month. Sign ups will happen the first week of each month, bags will ship the last week of the month and any extras not nabbed by club members will go up for public consumption the first week of the following month. I’ll throw extras in here and there, but it will be a basic bag+shipping price. Did I mention the print will be a surprise? How fun is that?

This first round is going to be a little different because I’m behind on my usual schedule for Limited Editions. September sign ups are going to be for either a fall print OR a Halloween print (or you can do both). Next year the August club will be for a Fall print and September will be for Halloween (yes, I have a schedule worked out already lol).

I hope you guys like this idea as much as I do, and I hope it works out! I think this will be a good way to keep the special bags limited, but yet available to more people and available in more shapes and sizes :o)

You can get more info (including prices – as noted, there’s no extra charges, just bag + shipping) and sign up here!

As always, thank you all for loving my bags!!

~jess

9/2 ETA: where to find pricing

What a weekend… (or, nature is stupid.)

Hi all! As I announced on my shop page back in August, I was scheduled for surgery on 8/17 and expected to return to work 2 weeks later.

Well, the universe had other plans. and I’m here to tell you about it.

At my 2 week checkup, I was doing great and my doc was really impressed with my progress and gave me clearance to sew (but not iron, fold fabric, cut fabric or use my press). So what did I do? All the things, because it needed to be done and I had deadlines looming (pop-up shop in Cambridge on 9/17, Southern Adirondack on 9/24 & 25 plus club bags need to be delivered to my club partner by 9/30).

The Saturday after my 2 week checkup, we had family over for dinner and ate on the patio. I went out, put my feet up and noticed a spot on my ankle. Upon closer inspection I saw it was a #$%$ing tick! It was pretty tiny and I barely touched it and it fell off, but you could see that it had bit me. I kept an eye on the spot over the next few days and never noticed a bullseye so thought nothing further of it and kept trying to prep all the things so I could start sewing bags for my pop-up shop.

Fast-forward to this past Friday, I had a great night’s sleep (unheard of, trust me) and felt ready to take on the world. By 1pm I was flat on my back with a 100+ degree fever.

I checked with my doc and she gave me some antibiotics thinking I might have something going on due to the surgery and overdoing it all week.

My temp spiked high on Friday in the wee hours but I woke up with a somewhat normal temp. By dinnertime, it was back to 103 and I was told to head in to the ER. Where I got to enjoy a lovely barium cocktail and a CT scan then admission to the hospital for an overnight stay and more IV antibiotics. After multiple conversations with many medical professionals, it finally entered my fever-riddled brain to mention the damned tick and that changed everything.

A few more blood draws (oh.my.god. I now have a new respect for my pincushion) and a few more tests and it was determined that I had contracted ehrlichiosis. I was happy to have a diagnosis that wasn’t some kind of horrible abscess that would need God only knows what to treat it and also happy to hear I was going home.

I’m feeling much better today, but still nowhere near ready to stand in a booth for 6 hours (and sew to fill it in 3 days, and travel and setup etc) so I’ve had to cancel my pop-up shop at Mind’s Eye Yarns in Cambridge on the 17th. BUT they will have a whole bunch of my bags since I’m sending out a box to her tomorrow! I also expect to be able to be back to sewing for a few hours a day starting tomorrow so I will have a pretty full booth for Southern Adirondack next weekend and club bags out the door within their expected date.

…as long as I don’t manage to contract some other crazypants thing between now and then. I might look into getting myself a nice bubble… and, as I said to all the doctors, I don’t get sick often but when I do, I go full bore. I mean, why do only half a job? 😉

Thank you all for your patience – I do have fall/halloween prints to get listed and I’ve been trying to move my shop over to a self-hosted site for weeks which is holding up the listing process too. I wish there were more me’s and more hours in the day, and I’m pretty sick of this being sick thing, trust me. xo

 

Spring 2016 Show Season is upon us!

Hi all! First, I can’t believe it’s been almost 2 years since I changed the shop theme (and posted in the shop blog)! I’ve switched it up again to something even more simple, with a lot less fancy overlay, which will hopefully be easier for some of you who had trouble finding info and how to check out! :o)

Spring show season is here! I am vending again at the Chancellor’s Sheep and Wool Showcase in Clermont, NY on April 23! The Clermont show is on some beautiful property that is situated on the Hudson river. It’s usually a wonderful day with wonderful views, I hope you’ll be able to make it!

For more show info, please visit my show schedule page. If you are looking for a bag for a gift or don’t think you’ll be able to wait until June to get a SbJL bag of your very own, please contact me through the shop contact page and I will see what I can do! Thank you all for your patience during my show seasons, one of these days I’ll be able to invest in that clone I keep talking about ;o)

 

New shop layout!

I’ve done a little tweaking with the shop theme, I hope you all like it! I love the overlays and the clean look – hopefully it will make it easier for everyone to find a print they love!

The new look meant moving some info around so if you’re looking for info, check the shop policies or about pages :o)

ETA: Well it appears the new theme doesn’t automatically recognize the line breaks that are in my product description, I’ve sent an email to big cartel in the hopes it’s something they can fix on their end.

 

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Good News! Re: SbJL Postage Rates

Here we go again – USPS is raising rates and it looks like it’s going to be super expensive to send packages overseas. Let’s all hope the service will get better with the price increases. ;o) I have no complaints about my regular mail person but let’s just say I’m a little tired of the Springfield sorting facility losing things on me.

That being said, I’ve done a little research and it looks like I will NOT be raising shipping fees in the shop. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? However, the way I can send your orders makes all the difference! According to the USPS guidelines, I don’t send ‘packages’, I send ‘large envelopes’ which are priced MUCH lower than packages – between that and using stamps.com which charges me commercial base postage pricing, my postage cost is still slightly less than what I currently charge for S&H in the shop! Hooray!

 

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p.s. Did you know I started a shop blog? Welcome!