I’m Back! New Design for Valentine’s Day!

Oh, I’ve had a nice little vacation away from the computer and the blog. 

Christmas was wonderful and I know it’s because the grandson is right at that perfect age of 3 so he understands what’s going on with the gift-giving.  It was pretty cute how he’d open up one gift and was so excited to play with it, he’d forget all about all of his other unopened gifts.

New Years Eve was dull with the hubby and I both falling asleep around …. oh … 10:30 pm.  :)  Rach and her boyfriend invited some friends over for the evening so Jimmy and I retired to the upstairs to give them some fun time without old people. 

New Years Day was great though.  I made my traditional Pork and sauerkraut with dumplings and the whole family actually ate it … K even ate a little pork, but only after his parents told him it was Pork BUTT.  He liked the idea of eating pork butt. 

The rest of my extended family came over in the evening with both my brothers and their families and my sister (Casserole Carol) with her family.  It was a perfect evening because I didn’t have to cook a meal and be slave.  Everyone brought snacks so we munched all evening.  I have to say, my sister lived up to her reputation which earned her name , “Casserole Carol” that night.  She brought something unusual to snack on and although it turned out really delicious, it really did almost look like a curtain wrapped around a chunk of Brie cheese, mangos and berries.  She said that it was puffed pastry but I bet if it was baked long enough, a curtain would do just as well spread on crackers.

My brother-in-law, Mark was by far the highlight of the evening.  A little bit LOT of Irish Whiskey brought out the fact that our grandfather was Jewish??  And our children now know that Mark and my hubby had some underage drinking fun before my sister and I knew them.  That’s all I’m saying on a public blog!

Even though it was a blog vacation time, I was still busy with finishing up orders and getting a new design ready to print for a pattern. 

I’m calling it “Love Ewes”

It’s a round scalloped wool candle mat and when I first drew it, I knew I wanted to make wheels instead of feet for the sheep, but I hadn’t really thought out how to actually make the wheels look like wheels.  So I experimented.
Using some grey wool with black threads, I kinda like how this looked, but the grey didn’t really blend well with the rest of the colors.  I tried using dark brown instead of the grey and that looked much better, but I forgot to get a picture of it for y’all to see.  But it' doesn’t really matter now ….
The idea of using BUTTONS for the wheels overtook any further experimentation with wools.  I have a rather large button collection but I knew that finding 16 matching buttons might be a problem.  I did find the perfect ones but became frustrated because I only had 14 matching buttons. 
I took a trip to Joann fabrics to find 16 matching buttons but discovered that even with a 50% off sale, sheesh, buttons are expensive!  What’s up with that?!? 3 button on a pack for over $2.00???
Even if I were willing to pay almost $10 for buttons, Joann’s didn’t have enough packs to get 16 matching.
I went home disappointed and accepting the fact that this mat will have to have wheels of wool, not buttons.
So I continued making brown wool wheels with black spokes and suddenly, it dawned on me … sheesh, back in the primitive days, women didn’t go to Joann’s when they needed buttons.  They used whatever they had at home.  Buttons were removed from clothing and stored in containers back in those days.  Those recycled buttons were used again and it didn’t matter if they matched or not … they served their purpose by holding pants up or a shirt together.  Who says my buttons on the sheep have to match!!?
So back to the button box I went and I easily found 8 pairs of brown buttons to use for my sheep.

It looks so much nicer now!

This is almost done now, I just need to blanketstitch the backing on and finish typing up the pattern instructions.
“Love Ewes!” should be ready to sell by this Wednesday, hopefully. 
After this pattern is done, I’m going to be thinking “Fall” because so many of you silly ladies want to make this Fall candle mat ….
I’ve promised many that I would work on making the pattern  in January.  Since it is January, I guess I’m going to have to get this done!  The pattern will be ready to sell for this soon!  Silly ladies sewing fall things in the winter!  Oh wait … I’ll be sewing fall things in the winter!  I do love this design though and it’s well worth the time that it takes to stitch all those details.
Happy Day everyone!  Happy New Year too!