A few years ago, I was on a shop hop, and I discovered Kimberbell. I thought the projects were so cute, but when I saw the price tags, I lost interest pretty quickly. Well, I lost interest in BUYING the projects, but I still thought they were cute. I moved on and thought that was that. 

Fast forward a year or two, and I was on a shop hop and found myself at All Brands in Clear Lake, Texas. I was very familiar with the store, at least when it was still Sew Contempo, because that’s where I bought my very first sewing/embroidery combination machine, a Brother PC8500 back around 2001-ish. By that point, we had a little more disposable income, and I saw the Kimberbell display. I told the woman in the shop that while the project was very cute, it looked difficult. She told me that Kimberbell has step by step instructions, and it’s much easier than it looked. I was skeptical, but I spent $80 on that first project book. I didn’t buy the embellishment kit, nor the fabric kit, but I had the book, which also contained a CD of the designs. 

I have yet to make that project. 

I still have the book and CD, in fact, tucked away in the Kimberbell archive that I am now keeping. Because that first purchase was just a gateway purchase, and over time, I slowly began to buy a project here, an embellishment kit there, but I was short on time, so I tucked those away, too. 

And then I found Kimberbell and Me Time subscriptions online. My carefully curated Kimberbell stash “for when I retire” became “I must have all the cute things to do for when I retire because what if they aren’t available then” and all hell broke loose. 

If you are a frequent visitor to this blog, you are probably aware that I own a plethora of sewing/embroidery combination machines. I love to quilt, but that’s become difficult for me over the last year due to a heel issue I’ve been dealing with since at least December of last year. It started out as a twinge, but in the intervening nine months, it has turned into pain that bothers me when I keep consistent pressure on it, such as you do when you’re sewing. I was never one to sew with the start/stop button on my machines, so I’ve been limited to what I can do in the studio. 

I found other ways to keep myself occupied while trying to stay off the heel as much as possible without becoming a couch potato, so I have returned to photography, and I’ve taken up coloring, watercolors and art journaling. It occurred to me last week, though, that I miss spending time in the studio, and that I really want to get in there and do something. That’s when I remembered my Kimberbell stash. 

Umm … yeah … I know, that’s a lot of Kimberbell. Hoop Studios and Me Time are also Kimberbell, if you haven’t been initiated yet. 

When envelope 189 arrived last week, I realized that the answer to my “What can I do with myself?” has already been answered, and it’s all in my studio, patiently waiting its turn for my attention. 

The photos above don’t encompass all of the stash; I also have digital products and probably a few physical projects on hand that I didn’t photograph for this post. It’s clear, though, that this is what I need to start working on. Next week, we’ll be on vacation, so I’ll have plenty of time to get started on The Great Kimberbell Project Mastery program. That’s just a fancy way of saying that I’m going to be focusing my efforts over the next however long it takes to work through the backlog of Kimberbell projects I own. 

In fact, I have decided that before I can buy another Kimberbell project, I need to finish a Kimberbell project. One out, one in may not reduce the number of projects in the queue, but it will at the very least keep the cycle moving. I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to do this, but I think I may start with the envelopes, which are all subscriptions. From there, I can decide which project I want to work on, or if I want to do another subscription envelope. Either way, the goal is to start moving some of these projects toward the finish line. 

I’m going to start a new series on the blog, to document my progress in getting these projects started and then completed. I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to call it, but it will be focused on completing some of those projects before I purchase more of them (we’re going to ignore the order I placed last week full of Kimberbell products, because I just made the decision to stop buying until I can finish something). 

I haven’t quite decided how I’m going to choose the projects, but I think I may just grab one of the Me Time or Hoop Studios envelopes if I want a “quick” afternoon type project, and then for larger projects, I can choose whatever appeals to me at the time. No rules, no first in, first out. I’m just looking to start making steady progress and clear some of the backlog. 

Hopefully, you’ll find it engaging and interesting to watch those projects start to come together. That isn’t the only thing I’ll be doing for the next however many years (Can I get them all done in one year? Two? Ten?!), but it will be a recurring series starting a week from Monday. I’ll be off social media next week because I want to spend time with Chris while he’s off work. In the meantime, if you’re not familiar with Kimberbell, take a look at their site. There are so many cute projects, you may end up hooked, too!