Look at that adorable bench pillow. Mainstreet Celebration. Isn’t it cute?

Yeah, that’s what I thought when I shelled out the money for the embroidery designs.

Then I read the instructions. All 42 pages of them. And I set the project aside. For years.

Then one day, my good friend said she had the same kit, and she would do it if I did. She said she also had the fabric kit. But she wanted the accessories.

So here’s what I want you to know about me. I am not a huge fan of Kimberbell, having done one of her holiday quilts. I find it just a touch too cutesy at times. But if you are ever going to snag me in, it’s with houses or a village. It’s just my favorite thing. See my holiday project here and another one here.

So I decided I was going to jump in with both feet. Kimberbell sells fabric kits for all her designs, as well as accessory kits with tiny little buttons and ribbons etc. I bought them both and my friend added the accessory kit and we were off and running. Kimberbell also has a process for adding quilting to her blocks, underneath the embroidery design.

I printed out the instructions…all 42 pages. Plus another set of pages for the quilting embroidery instructions. My friend said she found it easier to work from the electronic file because she could increase the size of some of the pics, which helped tremendously. I struggled through with my printed pages. I like them because I could write notes in the margins, scratch line items off as they are completed, and I could “x” out whole sections that included instructions for multi-hooping. I had a larger hoop so I didn’t need some of those instructions.

Next comes the organizing part. Kimberbell has you separate everything into plastic bags, while trimming applique pieces to her specifications. This was something that irked me. First I had to cut all these pieces into smaller pieces…only to trim them off when using them for applique. Just seemed like a lot of extra work. Did I mention fusing SF 101 to all the background fabrics? Yeah, more tedious work.

So after days of sorting, sifting and trimming these teeny, tiny pieces. I was ready to embroider.

I have a high regard for the quality of Kimberbell’s embroidery. It stitches out beautifully.

It just takes a looong time. Because of all the thread changes and all the trimming of incredibly small pieces.

The fire station, shown partially completed here, had 48 thread changes. FORTY-EIGHT!!

Which included a lot of trimming. See those tires down there? Yeah, that’s some fussy work.

Then there’s the installation of the lights. The last thing that stitches out on every block is a set of eyelets scattered across the top of the block. The lights get pinched through those eyelets. I used a leather hole punch set at the smallest punch size. It wasn’t easy, but I wrestled those eyelets into submission. After that, setting each light was a squeeze, but I got them all in place.

There are people who do YouTube videos of these projects. I don’t think I can ever do that…too much cursing (on my part) and YouTube likes child-friendly content.

But when it was done, I was happy with it. And I had second thoughts about adding the lights, but…I really like them. They bring Mainstreet to life.

This was one of those projects that just seems to keep growing in size. Oh the blocks are done, but I still have to stitch out some accessory designs. And now I have to add all those accessories. And now the patchwork needs to be quilted,…and now I want to add cording (purchase the cording, wrap it, sew it,)…and now lights…you know how it goes. Every step needs to be figured out.

Am I losing patience as I get older? Yes, for sure.

Do I have the fortitude to push through a project like this? Yes, still got it. But it’s not necessarily how I want to spend all my time. I know Kimberbell has a cult-like following. But I prefer to own the creativity. I don’t want to outsource the ideas and just be the implementer…if that makes any sense.

So it’s nice to work through something like this once in awhile. But then I want to at least choose my own fabric. Work on something original. That’s what I crave.

I hope you try something that’s not your preferred way of working once in awhile. Keeps the brain sharp. Or it might drive you insane.

It’s a fine line.