Sarah Ann Smith Designs

Sarah Ann Smith Designs Welcome to the design portfolio of my life as a textile artist

Hi folks! Since I am semi-retired, I will be closing down this little-used FB account. Please follow me (if you don't ...
01/04/2025

Hi folks! Since I am semi-retired, I will be closing down this little-used FB account. Please follow me (if you don't already) at my personal page: Sarah Ann Smith (current profile photo was the blue ocean quilt in the background) and my artist page: Sarah Ann Smith, Artist which has me at my Janome sewing machine. Photo is just for fun! I'll close this down in a couple weeks, maybe less. Thanks for being here, and hope I see you on one or both of the other accounts! Cheers, Sarah

One of my daily joys is receiving the art and words of Kai and Fia Skye (visit them at FlyingEdna.com ). The above is f...
10/29/2024

One of my daily joys is receiving the art and words of Kai and Fia Skye (visit them at FlyingEdna.com ). The above is from today’s letter, and is so wonderful to think about as we face the final week in one of the most important election cycles in US history. I believe the right thing will happen, but so many of us are so very stressed. So pause, think about fresh strawberry ice cream (check today’s art), laughing and, if you want, visit flyingedna.com and sign up for their free or (even nicer) modestly priced subscription. It is well worth the pennies a day for the joy it brings to my life. PS: check out the grin-inducing-made-up-holidays-that-should-exist on their calendars

What a thrilling way to start my day! shared ‘s post with me: it started with a pic of below the celebratory 50th IQF...
10/28/2024

What a thrilling way to start my day! shared ‘s post with me: it started with a pic of below the celebratory 50th IQF exhibit and then my quilt! Thank you Brandon and Tori! 🙏💙💚💖💛

NOW I'm ready..... the Halloween table runner (a project a few years back), a mini pumpkin and the BatSmith sisters! M...
10/13/2024

NOW I'm ready..... the Halloween table runner (a project a few years back), a mini pumpkin and the BatSmith sisters! Made with 's pattern (on ravelry). TOO MUCH FUN! Size 1 needles and sock yarn will definitely not become my go-to for projects, but these were a blast. Agatha went home with J&A (Son and DIL), and ?Batricia? (name not set) went home with E&B (son and girlfriend) today, but Sarsaparilla BatSmith is at home on our table. I drafted my own version of the wings based on photos of my beloved Fruit Bats (fell in love with them when we lived in Gabon). Sarsaparilla is knit up in yarn in Zinnia because she is a tropical beauty and loves color. Full deets on my Ravelry project page https://www.ravelry.com/projects/SarahAnnSmith/fangs #

Twelve years after I promised our wonderful mailman, Don, that I would buy a larger mailbox so he didn’t have to come al...
10/02/2024

Twelve years after I promised our wonderful mailman, Don, that I would buy a larger mailbox so he didn’t have to come all the way up our very long driveway, I finally bought one and got it installed! We are also at the age where we needed to hire a very dependable neighborhood, teenager, Lincoln, who was able to dig out the old post from where it always wanted to fall into the drainage ditch and dig a new hole in obnoxiously hard road edge. Those of you who live in the suburbs may think it looks rather tall, and it is. But we live way out in the country and our mailman doesn’t even haveUSPS vehicle, he drives his own pick up truck. So he asked that it actually be a little higher than the old one. Now none of us have to drive into the mud and muck, but can stay on the paved road surface all year long.

Left: before. Center top: post moved 3 feet closer to the road! checking for square level and plumb, or as close as I could get the mailbox support on top of an old post Center middle: my car loaded with 200 pounds of Quickcrete (used about 130 pounds of it and gave the rest to Lincoln), and all of the tools I thought I might need. Center bottom: installing the bracket— the bracket as well-made, but the holes are stupidly placed, and you can’t get a drill with a screwdriver bit on it into that tight space so it had to be done by hand 🙄!!!!

Right: Ta DONE! All I have left to do is paint the house numbers on the front and maybe put some reflective numbers on the side of the post that faces the main road.

Farewell Edinburgh🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿💗. Goodbye soon, Scotland. is drawing to a close. Woke up for an early transfer from what is...
09/15/2024

Farewell Edinburgh🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿💗. Goodbye soon, Scotland. is drawing to a close. Woke up for an early transfer from what is one of my favorite cities on the planet, Edinburgh, to Glasgow for the loooonnnnnggggg trek home: from here to Reykjavik to Boston to Portland to Hope, Maine, thanks to incomplete information online on getting from Edinburgh to Glasgow by bus. I am at the airport five, yes 5 😱, hours early for my flight. It’s better than being 20 minutes late but well it’s a long time. I think I’m going to be so tired when I get to the US that I will probably have to spend the night somewhere rather than go straight home today, as I’m looking at about 22 hour trek. The tour with has been great, seeing was a bucket list item. But I’m really looking forward to getting home, to being with my family, to watching Percy go absolutely haywire with delight then crawling into my own bed and have him nestle in behind my knees. I don’t know if I’ll ever return, but sure hope I can. I love this country, the people, the land. photo of Edinburgh Castle from my hotel window this morning.

: 4 September — walked over 10k steps before noon to and on the Water of Leith walkway, another 10k at the interesting...
09/04/2024

: 4 September — walked over 10k steps before noon to and on the Water of Leith walkway, another 10k at the interesting and free Museum of Edinburgh. Between the two I took a bus to where I found 2 skeins of Splendor 4-ply to complete my tank (bought the first scan two years ago; started a tank top and realized I needed a whole lot more so figured why mail order. I’ll just go there again because I’m lucky to be back in Edinburgh.) next stop: the aptly named where I had a perfect pot of Earl Grey tea, and the morning bun for a light lunch. then I did a fair bit of wandering and window shopping along the obnoxiously touristy Royal Mile. Now I’m sitting with a half pint of Thistle cross, in the sun, and think I’ll actually have dinner here as well then it will be home to the hotel. Tomorrow, I am taking a bus tour to Hadrian’s Wall, and I am very much looking forward to sitting and not having throbbing feet. To make the day even better it started out brisk, but warmed up to screaming blue skies. The adventure continues! I’ll post pictures of the walk along the Water of Leith separately.

continues: 3 September, Tuesday. Since the yarn shop is closed on Tuesdays I went first to 26 Drummond Place. In 1924 ...
09/03/2024

continues: 3 September, Tuesday. Since the yarn shop is closed on Tuesdays I went first to 26 Drummond Place. In 1924 my father was having his own grand adventure: he was on his first tour in the US foreign service, assigned to the US Consulate General in Edinburgh. In 1978, while doing a semester abroad in London, I came up for a long weekend and took a photo ( long gone) of the then-boarding-house where he lived. In 2022, I returned with a copy of a photo of Daddy standing on the stoop, and took a photo of and me holding his photo. Today, with the help of a gorilla-pod and the camera remote on my watch, I took a photo of me holding both photos one hundred years exactly to the day when my father was living here! Color me happy! There was so much good today I’ll have to have multiple posts so go to my IG grid or FB page for all of them if you want some vicarious travel.

And here is the finished top! I just love the Rifle Paper Co. fabric, which is current this summer so may well be avai...
08/26/2024

And here is the finished top! I just love the Rifle Paper Co. fabric, which is current this summer so may well be available near you and/or online. On the center right you can see the pattern—copyright 1989 and probably purchased that year or the next! This is the third time I’ve made it, but due to the weight of the fabric I cut the entire front as one piece and eliminated the seams and pockets. I shortened the sleeves on the linen to better clear my inner elbow and I fussy cut the fabric, placing the bottom of the books where I wanted the hem fold. Then I matched the pattern on the sleeves to match. ��Fitting: Thankfully, since I am no longer a size 12, I kept the trimmed-off bits in the envelope and was able to pin it back together to my current 14-16 size (it’s actually a skosh to big at the shoulders—I used 16 all the way and think I’d be better at the 14 size) The brown top in Liberty lawn in the bottom right photo is from maybe 6-8 years ago. I adore this top in Liberty lawn! The shoulders are almost the exact same width, but the brown print hangs better than the linen at that breadth.















Did you know you can carry TWO THREADS AT THE SAME TIME through your sewing machine and needle? Read on….I saw this fab...
08/25/2024

Did you know you can carry TWO THREADS AT THE SAME TIME through your sewing machine and needle? Read on….I saw this fabric in the booth at Maine Quilts in late July and it’s already made into a blouse—it has The Secret Garden—one of my most favorite childhood books, plus Little Women and other greatness. So even though it’s not the most flattering colors for me I had to get it. In this collage, I’m using the many presser feet and needle positions on my Janome m7Continental.

Top right: wind a bobbin with the same color, then carry both spool and bobbin thread together through the threading path and needle.

Center right: on a scrap test stitches. I tried single thread (too light), triple stitch (built in utility stitch, too heavy), sewing on top of a previous line with one thread (I wobble), and finally the Goldilocks “just right” option: two threads through the needle.

Bottom right: I used a wide, long zigzag to baste the hem in place. Then I sewed the decorative hem using the two-threads a consistent distance from the fold from the top.

Left: I lined up the first row of hem stitching in the exact center of the standard A foot, then moved the needle to the far left and sewed a parallel line. Finally, I removed the white basting stitches. By having them in a zigzag, it made it so easy to remove! �Next I’ll share the finished top!















I expect that most of you, like me, can't afford to donate much. But every little bit counts. When VP Harris's campaig...
08/21/2024

I expect that most of you, like me, can't afford to donate much. But every little bit counts. When VP Harris's campaign began, they asked us to donate $20.24, or even just $5...whatever you can. I did. I am energized by the return of hope and sanity and normalcy, so I decided I would donate an additional $11.05 to celebrate what we can all do together on 11-05-24, Election Day. Can you do the same? No matter how small an amount, anything and everything helps. Go to ActBlue.com and donate if you can. Most importantly, VOTE BLUE!
PS--feel free to copy/use my graphic!

Lesson 4: slacks. I chose to use a doubled layer for the hem to weight the bottom. I call it a turn-turn hem. The capti...
08/15/2024

Lesson 4: slacks. I chose to use a doubled layer for the hem to weight the bottom. I call it a turn-turn hem. The captions explain how. If you don’t have a bilevel foot, you can use an edge stitch foot or, my favorite until I got the bi-level foot, a zipper foot— the kind that has two scooped out bits on the outside edges of the foot. Align the edge of the foot with the fold, the move the needle so it drops onto the hem by maybe 1/16” or a bit more. How much depends on the design/sos e on your zipper foot.













by Katie O’Shea

Address

Hope, ME

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Sarah Ann Smith Designs posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Establishment

Send a message to Sarah Ann Smith Designs:

Shortcuts

Share

Category