Saturday Sampler: Late Summer Stitching Edition

 It has been nearly a year since my last Saturday Sampler. How is that possible? 

Needle minder: Michelle Palmer Originals

Scissor holder: Mini Stash 'n Store

Orange fabric: 28 ct. PTP Flash

Inventory Heaven! (and a PSA)

 Y'all, I made a fiber/bead inventory book and I am tickled pink with it! I'm sure there are spiffy apps and stuff for inventories, but I'm an old-fashioned, paper and pencil kinda gal. I love writing things down on paper, I love flipping through notebooks and books and magazines, and I try to limit or eliminate screen usage when possible. Behold! My new inventory!

I save the covers of stitching catalogs if they're particularly pretty. They're great for notebooks with cover sleeves. This is the book I used. I love these things and keep several tucked away all the time. I'm always finding uses for them.

My fancy new inventory includes all of my most-used fibers and beads: Classic Colorworks, Gentle Arts Sampler Threads, Weeks Dye Works, Cosmo, Kreinik, and Mill Hill beads.

Now all I have to do is check off what I have in my stash and I'm all set. Making shopping lists will be much quicker! You may wonder how I've survived all these years without an inventory, but believe it or not, I usually can look at a list of threads and pretty much know what I have and what I don't. And I usually don't buy for more than one or two projects at a time, so it's not inconvenient to just check my threads or beads for a few colors. That changed with the pandemic, and that brings me to my PSA.

***Public Service Announcement: If you're planning a lot of fall and Christmas stitching, consider doing your shopping now. 

No industry escaped pandemic-related difficulties in the spring, including the stitching industry: online shops were flooded with orders and were weeks behind in shipping, local shops were closed, dyers couldn't get supplies, etc. Gentle Arts, which is based in Ohio, completely shut down in compliance with state orders, and if you tried to find GAST during the spring, you know how hard it was. 

Along with all of you, I'm hoping and praying we don't go through this again in the fall and winter, but I'm preparing just in case. A few weeks ago I sat down and planned a bunch of projects and made a shopping list. Even with most things returning to normal, I still had to hunt for all the threads I needed and ended up having to order from three different shops. 

So if you really have your heart set on some special projects for this fall and Christmas (and who doesn't?), you might want to think about not waiting too long to get your supplies together. 

***This concludes today's PSA. And now I'm off to play with my inventory. 

Happy Stitching!