The Wind and The Sail is really, really excited about the upcoming Crafty Supermarket in Cincinnati, OH. It will be the first show that will exclusively showcase the new Vintage Linens collection! Many of the current designs will be there, along with quite a few brand new designs, all made out of vintage linens. Embroidered dresser scarfs, tea towels, bed sheets, even a unique jacket were used to impress the pants off of all The Wind and The Sail fans out there!

To commemorate such an occasion, I’m offering up my brand new goose pattern for FREE! You can download the goose pattern and instructions and get to making! Email me pictures of your creations to lstantz {at} gmail {dot} com and I’ll be sure to post them on the website! A quick aside, this pattern is for personal use only. Please don’t make my goose pattern to sell. I hear if you make one for profit, the sewing gods will strike you with a thread tension curse. It’s something you just don’t want. It is the herpes of the sewing world.

People always ask me how I make my pattern. They mostly start out like this; just a pretty vector drawing in photoshop. Then it gets cut up and moved around as needed. That’s about the extent of my creative process. I see a shape, I like it, I use the pen tool and make it. The rest happens with scissors, card stock and scotch tape. (dropping name brands! that’s how much of a pro I am!) Then I just trace and sew. If it looks good, I keep the pattern. If it looks like a lopsided alien version of what I wanted to make, I take the pattern and adjust. But it all just starts with an idea and ctrl + n in photoshop.

The internet makes this weird thing happen sometimes. You read and read and read a million blogs/tweets/status updates a million times a day. You develop this relationship through html code and even gain some big time heroes. You look up to these people you know through pictures and passages; dreaming of the day you’ll be just as amazing as they are. One of my heroes is Abby Glassenberg. I purchased her book a long time ago and have read her blog for months.

And then, one glorious day, a message arrived from twitter: @abbyglassenberg is now following you! I even forwarded the email to my boyfriend to gloat.

A couple of weeks ago it got even better. Abby asked me to answer a few questions about my experiences in the wholesale market. I was ecstatic. Even if it did take me a couple of days to fish around in my head for good answers.

Head on over to Abby’s lovely blog to read the interview and see The Wind and The Sail’s animals! And thanks to Abby for being such an amazing designer and artist! (and, dare I say, internet friend! swoon.)

Elsie Elephant made her tv debut last night on The Weekly Special! The Weekly Special is on our local pbs station about fun things going on in Southern Indiana. She looks amazing. Totally slim and in shape. That rule that the camera adds five pounds? Yeah, it doesn’t apply to Elsie. She’s way too cool for that mess.

Watch The Sweet Arts on PBS. See more from The Weekly Special.