While She Naps

Write Your Own Craft Book: An Event at Brookline Booksmith

Have you ever considered writing a craft book? Wondered about the ins and outs of getting a book deal? Been curious about the process of producing the manuscript and working with an editor?

On Monday, May 20, I'll be part of a panel discussion with several other craft book authors, and an editor at a major craft book publishing house, to talk about the process of writing craft books. 

We'll be discussing how to come up with and pitch a book idea, whether you need an agent, what we wish we knew before we started, what kinds of books publishing houses are likely to acquire now, and what advice we'd give to aspiring authors about selling a book idea and working with a publisher successfully. And there will be time for questions, of course!

If you'll be in the Boston area that day, I'd love for you to join us!

The panelists will be:

Kari Chapin, author of The Handmade Marketplace and Grow Your Handmade Business

Stacey Trock, author of Crocheted Softies and Cuddly Crochet

Jennifer Urban-Brown, editor at Roost Books

and myself.

The panel will be moderated by the amazing and inspiring Virginia Johnson, owner of Gather Here in Cambridge.

We'll have a signing afterwards with plenty of time to chat, too. I hope to see you there!

The Official Stuffed Animals Release Date Giveaway!

Today is May 7, 2013, the official release date of my new book, Stuffed Animals: From Concept to Construction!  I have been waiting for this day for a very long time.

Way back in the spring of 2009 I began dreaming of writing a book that would be a comprehensive guide to designing and sewing stuffed animals and now that book is on shelves in bookstores nationwide. I’m so grateful to you guys, my blog readers, for all of your ideas and support along the way. Many of you were here when I wrote the Elements of Soft Toy Design series a few years ago. Your enthusiastic response to those posts gave me to confidence to forge ahead with the book proposal and helped me prove to big name publishers that there was indeed an audience for a book like this.

To say thank you to you, and to celebrate today, I’ve put together two giveaway packages that I think will be delightful for any softie maker to receive. Here’s the scoop:

The Ram Package

Everything you’ll need, and more, to make the Ram from Stuffed Animals. Here’s a 30 second video clip that explains a bit more about the Ram.

Ram Featurette from Stuffed Animals from Abby Glassenberg on Vimeo.

He’s so fun to make and you’ll pick up some neat skills along the way, too. This package contains:

-an autographed copy of Stuffed Animals

-two pairs of 12mm safety eyes in light blue from 6060 eyes on Etsy

-one yard of Sherpa Faux Fur in Oatmeal from Shannon Fabrics

-one yard of wool-blend felt in white from National Nonwovens

-one yard of wool-blend felt in gray from National Nonwovens

-a pair of my favorite hemostats (the kind with the curved tip and ridges)

 

The Hippo Package

Everything you’ll need, and more, to make the Hippo from Stuffed Animals. I don’t have a special video clip for the hippo, but you can seem him really well in the trailer.

Stuffed Animals Book Trailer from Abby Glassenberg on Vimeo.

Learn to design a softie with an open mouth and do some needle sculpting while you make this guy. This package contains:

-an autographed copy of Stuffed Animals

-a wool felt ball and wool-blend felt scraps in blue and black to make the hippo’s eyes

-one yard of Cuddle fabric in silver from Shannon Fabrics

-one yard of wool-blend felt in cotton candy pink from National Nonwovens

-one yard of wool-blend felt in white from National Nonwovens

-a pair of my favorite hemostats (the kind with the curved tip and ridges)

 

Sweet, right? These are all top quality materials and there’s enough in each package to make many, many softies. Thank you so much to Shannon Fabrics, National Nonwovens, and 6060 for donating these amazing supplies. All three of these companies have been incredibly generous and supportive of softie makers and using their products is a total pleasure.

My goal with this book is to provide all the tricks and techniques you’ll need to design your own softies so leave me a comment telling me what kind of stuffed animals you’re dreaming of designing.

Please be sure that I have your correct email address and please only leave one comment. If you have a correction or something more to say, just email me directly. Open to everyone, including international entries. I’ll draw two names at random on Friday, May 10 at 1:00 pm Eastern and send you one of the two packages (I get to choose who gets what).

Thank you so much!

Where to Buy Wool Felt for Softies and Some Studio Glimpses

As copies of my book are beginning to make their way out into the world I'm going to periodically share some of my favorite sources for the fabrics and supplies you might want to play with while working your way through the projects. First up, a material I used every single day: wool felt. I love wool felt, and it's more reasonably priced cousin wool-blend felt. It's vibrantly colored, it's sturdy, and it doesn't fray. I wrote a guest post for Craftsy a few months ago about how I cut felt shapes accurately if that interests you.

My local big box fabric store has a very limited selection of wool-blend felt, and doesn't carry 100% wool felt at all, so I source my felt elsewhere. All of the felt I've used for the past few years was manufactured by National Nonwovens. This company is based here in Massachusetts and many of the retail stores, both brick-and-mortar and online, that sell wool felt get it from National Nonwovens. The colors are lusious and the quality impeccable. Buy it retail at Wool Felt Central. They seem to have every color and the prices are pretty darn good.

National Nonwovens provided all the felt I used in the projects in Stuffed Animals. Way back when I was just starting to plan the project they sent me all of their sample cards in the mail. I spent a wonderful few days figuring out what I wanted. This was one of the most exciting activities ever and it was the beginning of a great relationship, too.

I've been sewing samples for National Nonwovens' Quilt Market booth ever since. I made butterflies when they did a spring theme and then I made hibiscus flowers for an island theme. This year Stuffed Animals' official release date is just before spring Market and I'm really excited that the book will be displayed in their booth! I won't be there, but my toys will hang out and represent me.This week I'm sewing projects from the book using National Nonwovens wool felt including:

the bumblebee, which is a toy I designed to demonstrate what you can do with just basic shapes (two spheres):

some fish, which are very simple softies that begin with just a coloring-book style outline and become the most basic sewing pattern:

and the elephant, a toy that demonstrates how to draw a great underbody gusset (I love a great underbody gusset!). This elephant is going to be pink! I'm super excited about him.

I'm putting together some amazing giveaway prizes to celebrate the book's official release date, May 7, and you can bet they'll be some National Nonwovens' felt in the mix, along with some other awesome goodies. The prize piles are growing so you might want to mark your calendar!

That's a peek into my studio right now. Today I'm putting the eyes on all the toys and then they'll go into the mail. I'm hoping to spot a few photos of them on display at Market on Twitter.

My New Book - Stuffed Animals: From Concept to Construction

I don't like the big reveal. I like to share my ideas and my projects with you as I work them through and to give you a sense of the creative struggles and triumphs of my day to day work. From time to time I work on a project that I need to keep pretty quiet until it is all done. My new book was one of those projects and now I'm so excited to share it with you.

This is the book I was searching for when I began sewing softies. It's a comprehensive guide to soft toy design. A project book and a reference book all in one.

Stuffed Animals has 16 brand new projects that build in complexity from the very simplest of softies to designs that feature all kinds of awesome construction techniques. After each project are a series of lessons, 52 in total, which break down the design process step-by-step. See how to draw gussets and darts, use joints, add pockets and zippered mouths, and much more.

Need to design a tail or a snout? Want to try shoe button eyes or excelsior stuffing? This book shows you how. My goal is to help you grow your own creativity by giving you every tool you would need turn your ideas into finished softies.

This book is my baby. I've been dreaming of writing it for over five years. I wrote the book proposal one month after my first book was released, when our third daughter was only two months old. This is a book I feel I was meant to write and I truly hope you love it.

We have four additional short video featurettes highlighting particular projects and techniques from the book. Look for these videos popping up on blogs throughout the week to learn more and to get a flavor of what Stuffed Animals is all about.

The book officially ships on May 7. Place your order for Stuffed Animals: From Concept to Construction now and it will be on your doorstep as soon as it's released. Thank you so very much.

A Timeline of Producing a Craft Book

It arrived Friday night and I'm overnighting it back tomorrow. It's been a marathon few days of editing, but it looks amazing.

Just a little recap of the process of writing a craft book. I pitched this book to publishers in February of 2011 and it was acquired by Lark in March. It took a month or two to get a contract to sign and get assigned an editor. My editor, Thom O'Hearn, is fantastic. I feel so incredibly lucky.

Then there was a month or so of back and forth between me and Thom and the art department at Lark as I took sample photos on different backdrops, with different lighting (and bought a light kit and a tripod and a photography lesson) until I learned to take really good step-by-step photos myself.

We also worked quite a bit on tightening my table of contents and figuring out how the book would be formatted. Whew! By then I think it was June of 2011.

From June to March of 2012 (so let's see, 9 months) I made the whole book. There really is very little contact during those months between the author and the editor. I created 16 projects, wrote all of text, and took all of the step-by-step photos (often these include illustrating concepts like designing a muzzle that require sewing a whole slew of samples showing different variations). I did a ton of research on soft toy design, tried a lot of new materials and stretched my design skills further than they had ever been stretched. I gave the patterns to Twitter friends to test and incorporated their changes. Everything was mailed out mid-March.

The photographer is in California (I'm in Massachusetts and Lark is in North Carolina). She received all of the finished samples and took all the beauty shots this summer. Over the summer the text went to a freelance sewing book editor (Thom doesn't sew) and to a proofreader. Then it came back to me digitally to review the edits. This summer we also settled on a title, a cover design, and a layout. Thom hired an outside graphic design company to create the design for the book. And someone was hired to digitize all the pattern templates.

Then all the text and images were flowed into the designed pages, the whole thing was printed out, and overnighted to me on Friday. I'm sure there are steps I'm skipping, things that went on with the text, design, and photos at Lark that I didn't see.

Thom and I have a call tomorrow to go over all of my new edits and then it's in his hands for double and triple checking before it goes to China to be printed. I should get some advance copies in early spring (yep, that's two full years after the book was acquired) and it should be available everywhere in early May.

In order to write a book you have to be in love. The big idea behind the book has to be something that drives you forward, that compels you to create. This one is my baby and it's nearly ready to face the world. I can't wait for you to see it!

sketching

It's raining and blustery in Wellesley today. I taught another session of Get To Know Your Sewing Machine this morning and now I'm home, sketching the project for chapter 13, while the baby naps.

I hope this guy doesn't give me too much trouble.

learning to make teddy bears

I am learning to make jointed teddy bears.  Although making teddy bears is not so different from making any other kind of softie, it is intimidating because there is a whole huge community of artist teddy bear makers out there and they are very particular about the way these things are made. 

There are long, complicated books solely about how to make teddy bears, and active online discussion forums.The teddy bear makers have national conventions and attract some hardcore collectors.

Artist teddy bear making requires some different supplies than regular softie making, including jointing tools like cotter keys and locknuts, expensive fabrics like mohair, and a hard-pack stuffing called excelsior. All this stuff is available through specialty suppliers that sell to the teddy bear making community. It's pretty intense, and pretty cool, really.

One of my teddy bear making idols is Peng Peng. She makes amazing sock monkeys, too.  I love that that her teddy bears don't look like any bear I ever had as a child. They are urban and hip and just all around awesome.

For a long time I have sort of avoided making artist teddy bears. It just seemed overwhelming. But chapter 12 in the book is a teddy bear (dang table of contents). Sure enough, the time has come for me to write chapter 12. See what I do to myself? Force myself to figure it out.

And as I start making these little guys I can see how this industry developed. These are really, really fun.

checking in

Hello! I am working and working with nothing to show here, but I decided to say hello anyway and give you an update on how things are coming along.

A week or two ago I met with Lauren who owns Sew Easy, a sewing studio that offers afterschool classes for kids. Sew Easy has had a location in Needham, the next town over from us, for 15 years and I have driven by many times and always wanted to know more about it.  Lauren recently expanded her business and opened a second location down the street from me in Wellesley. She and I had coffee and I'm really excited to be able to teach some adult classes - a first for Sew Easy - right here in town. 

In early December I'll be teaching a felt stocking class and then in January a "get to know your sewing machine" class.  I've met many women in Wellesley who have sewing machines that they don't use. In fact I was just talking to a mom in my neighborhood who sewed her daughter's entire Hermione Granger cape by hand because her sewing machine is in the back of her closet and she felt like by the time she took it out and figured out how to thread it and get it up and running it would take longer than just doing all the hand-sewing.  I'm on a serious mission to change that.

And I'm finishing chapter 10 of my book. This project is all about jointing. It is unbelievable to me how much I've learned about fabric and thread, specialty tools, and construction techniques since I first began this book. For me, the most professional growth happens when I am under pressure and have to learn how to do it all RIGHT NOW. Thick pile faux fur used to scare the crap out of me - no more! Invisible button joints? Oh yeah. Seriously, I feel powerful.

So that's the update. Nothing to show, but steadily working six hours a day five days a week. And I'm so happy!

hello and a shop update

I've had several visitors in my studio recently and let me tell you it is getting harder and harder to make it look neat and tidy in there.  Charlie went to open the blinds yesterday morning when we woke up and six toys fell on the floor. (Keep in mind that when I say studio what I mean is a corner, or now nearly half, of our master bedroom). 

Part of the problem is a bit of hoarding. Supplies, books, toys I've made. I had some friends over a few days ago for an art and craft supply swap. Everyone brought three supplies they were tired of and took home some new things to help them get reinspired.  And we sat at my kitchen table eating sesame cookies and sewing Betz White's felted wool flowers. So that helped some.

But the chaos continues.  I now have six bins full of fabric, pattern pieces and finished toys: one bin for each chapter in the new book.  This means that six chapters (!) are done.  Only 10 more to go. Oh my. So there will be 16 bins by March when the manuscript is due.

All of this is to say that I've updated my Etsy shop.  There are three penguins, a snake and a whale in there now. There really should be more. More will come.

 

a gathering

I went out last evening with what is tentatively being called Etsy Women of Wellesley (EWW - I think we may need a new name!).  We had a wonderful evening at Alta Strada in Wellesley Square, chatting and laughing together about how we run home after dropping our kids off at school and furiously pursue our other lives, making things with our hands, until the very last minute when we have to run out to pick up the kids again.

It can sometimes feel like creative, entrepreneurial makers are a rare breed in this town and I give huge credit to my friend, Elizabeth, for rounding us up for a great night out.  Elizabeth is a potter who makes incredible work in white porcelain.

I visited her home studio a few months ago and was just in awe of what she makes, and the space she makes it in.  And Elizabeth volunteers once a week at the take-it-or-leave-it at the Wellesley dump!  Lucky her. You should see her collection of bowling balls.

She and Laura have a vintage shop called Betty and June on Etsy together. This amazing piece of fabric caught my eye.

It would make a great summer tablecloth, with these mod dishes. They're plastic, too, and perfect for snacks out on the patio.

My friend, Carolyn, who is a photographer and who helped me design that free felt goldfish pattern you see over there on my sidebar, came, too. 

Celeste makes amazing modern wooden jewelry.

This bracelet is so gorgeous.  Maybe Celeste will invite us to visit her studio sometime to see how she makes these.  She wasn't able to make it last night, but hopefully she'll join us at our next get together.

It was great to connect with these creative women in town. If you live in Wellesley and you make things, we'd love for you to join us!

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My studio desk is a wreck, full of pieces of toys in various states of assembly, waiting to be photographed or, in most cases, rephotographed.  I'm taking all the step-by-step photos for chapter two of my soft toy design book right now which means I cut and sew and prep everything, then turn out the overhead lights, close the blinds, turn on the umbrella lights and set up the tripod and shoot a bunch of photos.

Then I run downstairs to the Mac and upload the photos and maybe 1/4 of them are good so I make a list of all the shots that need to be redone and run back upstairs to do it all again. And again. I'm learning with every shot, but it is all-consuming.

And then I'm writing pattern instructions and lessons and  I'm working on describing the toymakers' tools and materials. And soon I'll be designing the third project. I would describe the whole thing as intense in the best possible way, and immensely satisfying.