"In your Easter bonnet,
with all the frills upon it,
you'll be the grandest lady in the Easter Parade"
~Irving Berlin
It's been a while and despite customer requests that I blog more often, my time is so very limited now and other things, dyeing wool, stitching and orders are always at the top of my "to do" list.
I'm here now though and I'm very excited to show off my newest pattern design called "In Their Easter Bonnets". Finished size is 14" across.
The entire time while creating and stitching this , I kept humming that "in your Easter bonnets" tune. Every time I get an order for the pattern, that tune again emerges as the current tune that gets hummed. So, I'm thinking if that tune is stuck in my brain, most likely, while you're stitching it, you'll be humming it too!
The design process for this one took quite a bit of time.
It all starts in my brain, of course. I see the design/image in my head that I want to make and in this case, since lately I've been obsessed with HATS (look over at the Christmas "Snow Ladies" design for their hats) I visioned Easter bonnets on my "Bunnies In Spring" design.
Sometimes the most difficult part of the design process for me is to draw on paper what my brain sees. Sometimes it comes super easy and quick. Other times, it's pretty time consuming because I work and work at it until the drawing matches or is better than what the image is in my brain.
So here's my pencil sketch of what my brain image was at the time:
I started with the "Bunnies in Spring" basic design which looks like this:
I used the same background shape and the same nose and cheeks but I had to redesign the ears so that they would fit better with the Easter bonnets. I also had to resize the eyes and the little tooth and create a background face shape since the original design uses the brown background for the face shape.
My most useful tool is my eraser. If that eraser could talk, it would complain of abuse.
A LOT of erasing went into getting those bonnets to fit right onto their cute little heads.
Not only did the bonnets have to fit correctly but I also had to struggle with fitting the hat sizes onto the background shape too. It took some time and I would draw it, then hang it up on my cork board and look at it for a day or so, then erase more, hang it, look at it again and again and again. It took about a week to finally get the bunnies with their bonnets to look just how I wanted them to look.
I'm so very proud of this design. It's so much fun to make. I went easy on decorating the bonnets but knowing some of my customers like I do and how much they love decorating with beads and buttons, I'm betting I'm going to be seeing some pretty fancy Easter bonnets soon!
I used feathers in the bonnets and gave this bunny lady a yellow tulle net veil.
This Bunny lady has a rosebud with tulle netting bonnet. The underside of the bonnet is a darker shade of wool to show off the dimensional detail.
If you love this design as much as I do, just click on the little "buy" button over there on the left sidebar to purchase it. I'm offering it at a special price for the next week or so.
If you prefer to pay by check, just email me at cathspennies@gmail.com and I'll send you my mailing address.
I have the wool kit available for this too. It's all 100% wool. I used Dorr & Woolrich wools for this and quite a bit of it is my own hand-dyed wools. The wool will come felted and ready to stitch so all you'll need is the thread, the needle and some freezer paper. I even include the tulle netting and the feathers. For purchasing the wool kit with the pattern, visit my website here:
There's a lot of wool involve with making this but I promise that you'll love the finished result and it will be well worth the time and $$ that you put into finishing this.
Although this design is shown with all beautiful 100% wool, it would work well with wool felt for any or all of the wool requirements. If cost is the issue, then wool felt is the way to make this inexpensively. Otherwise, please consider 100% wool.
There are so many possibilities to decorate those Easter bonnets to make your bunny ladies the grandest ladies in the Easter parade!
