Spring (cleaning) Is Here!

"It was one  of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold:  when it is summer in the light,  and winter in the shade."  ~Charles Dickens

No, this isn't a new pattern design. It's something I made years and years ago.

I've been so productive these past few days and simply because the weather has been so nice.

Spring cleaning is what it's called.  Redding up (that's a Pittsburgh term for cleaning) my office space,  vacuuming behind the furniture and generally getting rid of the clutter, are just some of my accomplishments.  It's a really good feeling and it makes me happy when I see the clean results. I'm hoping to finish by the end of this week so that I can plan for our Easter family time.

I do have some new designs all stitched up and ready for pattern printing.  I'm so very very pleased with their results.  I'm going to wait a bit for their release until after Easter so that I can enjoy my Spring cleaning efforts.

March and April have always been a slower time for my business ...I'm pretty sure it's because everyone, just like me, is outside enjoying the beauty of Spring.  I take advantage of this slower time to "catch up"with everything that I've put aside because the business was just too busy.

In the meantime, I'd love to show off some of my treasured things that I've given as gifts to very special people in my life.
This is the wall hanging that I made for my grandson.

 Fang is a beagle and my grandson named him after one of the character's dog in the Harry Potter books.
Fang certainly doesn't live up to his ferocious name.  He's a gentle, loving soul.  Although, I have to say, if you aren't guarding the hamburger in your hand very closely, he will make it disappear so fast that you'll wonder if it was ever in your hand!  :)  I still laugh when I think of the look on my grandson's face after his hamburger disappeared from his hand. 
To make this, I took a picture of Fang .....

Then I drew/sketched him to the size I wanted to make for the wall-hanging and drafted the pattern for it.  I hand-dyed the wool to get that mottled brown color to match his fur.  I even held the dyed wool up to Fang just to make sure the color was perfect.
I found a special "Harry Potter" font and cut the letters to resemble that.  My grandson has always loved Harry Potter.  He's 9 now but even back when he was 3, his mom was reading the books with/to him so I knew he would recognize that special letter font.
For the circle dog tag, On one side I stitched, "I love Kaiden" and on the reverse side, I stitched "Kaiden loves me".
I attached a dowel rod to the top and have a dog collar chain attached to that for hanging.
I made this for him 3 years ago and it's hanging in his bedroom.
If think if I were to make it again, I'd make his snout just a little longer.  I made him look more like he did as a puppy rather than a full-grown 8 year old dog.  Even so, my grandson loves it and that's all that matters.  :)

I'll have more treasured gift pictures to share in a few days.....cars.  I do old cars.

"Do it for joy and you can do it forever"  ~ Stephen King 

Thank you for reading and have a wonderfully Happy Day!

More Lilacs!

Good morning!  Thursday, March 10, 2016

Shown below is my "Lilac Beauty" design done with a black background.  The wonderful lady who packs my kits for me will be working tomorrow, so expect to see more wool kits on Saturday for both the white background "Lilac Beauty" candle mat and the black background option.

I stitched both the black background and the white background and just couldn't decide which to show on the pattern front.  I loved how they both looked.  I finally decided to print the pattern with the white background and only because the "Geranium Beauty" design (which is similar) was done with the black background.  It was either that or doing eeny meeny miny moe.
The pattern and the wool kit can be purchased from my website by CLICKING HERE

Want a weekend project?

Make a traditional penny rug!

No, this isn't available as a  pattern but only because it doesn't need a pattern to make it!

I cut the pennies all by hand, but a die cutter like Accuquilt can do that job for you too.

Any graduating sizes can be used but for mine:  The large pennies are about 1 1/2".  Medium pennies are 1" and the small pennies are about 3/4".

I traced the circles onto freezer paper then ironed the freezer paper onto my wool.  Then started cutting.

I always do my cutting while watching the Penguins hockey game.  So, this past Saturday, I cut the large and medium pennies and started stitching.  

Then Sunday, when they played again, I cut the small pennies and finished stitching the rest of them later that night while watching Downton Abbey. (stitching while watching tv keeps me awake!) Once they're all stitched, simply string them together.  I string them by rows.  Then I string the rows together.  

I used my pastel wool and the natural white Dorr wool for this one, but any colors you might have will look wonderful.

This penny rug was made just for me.  I have a really cute vintage pastel Easter basket that will look really nice with it.  

Give it a try!  

I have hand-dyed pastel wool and the felted natural white wool available on my website CLICK HERE

Thank you for reading!

Blessings and Happy Day!

The Power Of Prayer Needed

My very good internet friend and customer is having heart surgery this morning.  Kelly has been a constant source of goodness for me over the years.  Her first email to me was a request to design something with a scarecrow.
I did.  Our friendship grew from there.  It's her positive spirit that is inspiring and oh so contagious.
So, if you believe in the power of prayer, please say one right now for Kelly and her beautiful family.

I do believe in the power of prayer.
When I was little, our family would go on summer camping trips. We'd often camp alongside groups of family friends.  Some really good memories I have of our vacations at the beach with family and friends.
So, the one summer, the weather was beautiful with no rain and lots of sunshine.  Now, sunshine is great for vacations, especially when camping.  But the long drought we were having during that time, was causing much distress too.
With so many people talking about the drought, that night, during my nightly prayers, I prayed for rain.  I didn't just ask God for rain, I pretty much begged God for rain.
That next day, it rained.
The day after that....
it rained.
It continued to rain, HARD.  Our tent trailer had to be moved to a higher location.  Our friends had to move their tents to a different location.
Everyone started complaining about the rain and I felt so guilty.  I was convinced that my prayers had caused the rain.  I must remind you, I was young...about 8 or 9 years old?
I felt so guilty, that I finally confessed to the group that it was my fault that it was raining so much.  They all had a good laugh,  I know now that they were laughing because it was pretty cute that I really believed that I caused the rain.  Back then though, I thought they were just trying to make me feel better.
After that, I was really cautious about what I prayed for.  I made sure to emphasize to God exactly what was needed and gave him instructions for his limitations.   I  laugh as I type that, because eventually, I did figure it all out, thankfully.
But, I still try to say a prayer every night.  A pastor and friend of ours now, once told me that even if we are too tired to take the time to pray at night,  just fitting in a quick, "help me to be a better person tomorrow" is easy, fast and helpful.
That is always included in my nighttime prayers.  Although, there are times that I'm not a better person, there are definitely many times that I remember that prayer and I take the high road and do my very best to be a better person than I was yesterday.
That alone is how the power of prayer can help each of us every day. 

Goodness, that has really helped with the worry about Kelly's surgery today.
Kelly....when you read this, know that I think you're *almost* the best.  *wink* :)
Your faith and the goodness inside you will get you through this difficult time. 

God Bless and Happy Day everyone!

(comments are turned off because of silly internet foreign spammers who keep peddling their woven rugs throughout my blog.)  email me instead!  cathspennies@gmail.com

New Pattern! Lilac Beauty!

"Lilac Beauty" wool applique penny rug candle mat pattern.  The finished size is 13 1/2" round.
The wool kit for this is also available.  It's now available on my website.
I'll also be showing this later today done with a black background.  So pretty!
This design is very similar to my "Geranium Beauty" design.  The flowers are done just a bit differently though.

We have 4 large oversize lilac bushes on our property.  Last year, I trimmed back the bushes since they had overgrown the area.  I'm hoping that the cut-back will help with the blooms this year, giving me even more splendor.  But, I'm a bit concerned that I might have cut them back a little too much.  I love their scent.  While they're blooming, I always keep a bouquet of them on my living fireplace mantal.  The scent fills the entire room.
This color is my favorite of all the lilac colors.  It's what I struggled with for two days last week, trying to get the dye recipe just right.
Just love my lilacs!

Another design is in the works for hydrangeas too.  Wait until you see the colors!

I know, I know....this looks like a lot of work to cut and stitch all of those little flowers!
Well, it is a lot of work, but stitching them on is really easy!  Since they're stitched so close together, if they're not cut perfectly, it's fine and not the least bit noticeable.
And...one trick, if you just trace and cut enough flowers for one lilac, once that lilac is stitched and finished, your fingers are rested and ready to cut the flowers for the next one.

The other trick is to cut them while watching TV.  My favorite time to cut is during the Penguins hockey games.  If you root for the Pens, this is what you need to do too!  They win every time I cut these little flowers during the game !  :)
Way back before I sold patterns of my designs, I used to make cute little woolly pincushions, mug rugs and some candle mats to sell as finished items on Ebay.
The lilac pincushion that I made was so popular and in much demand.  However, as you can see by the picture, there are lots of little flowers that need to be cut.  Because of that, I had to turn customers down. It was just too much on my fingers to cut thousands of little flowers!

Browsing though my Photobucket account is like a stroll through my past.  It stores pictures of every single Ebay item that I sold.  Designs are stored in there that I completely forgot about because it's been so long!
It brings back so many memories and it also reminds me of how long I have been obsessed with wool.
Way back in 2000, I discovered wool and penny rugs. 16 years now, wool and I have been together.  :)
Since then, I've learned a lot about wool and working with wool.  I've also learned a tremendous amount from my customers / stitching sisters.
For all of you wonderful sisters (and some brothers too!) in stitching, I thank you, from the bottom of my heart for the business and the lessons that I've received from you.

I have comments shut off for now.  I've been getting a lot of foreign spam peddler comments so I'm hoping by shutting the comments off for a while, they'll move on and leave me alone later.
If you have a comment or a question, just email me at cathspennies@gmail.com.
My website is http://ww.cathspenniesdesigns.com
God Bless every one of you and Happy Day!

Also....a big THANK YOU to Kelly for the encouragement to do even better every day!                      

New Pattern! "Geranium Beauty"!

 The new design is called "Geranium Beauty"

Cath's Pennies Designs "Geranium Beauty" Wool Applique Candle Mat Pattern

The pattern and wool kit is available on my website,  CLICK HERE 

I often get emails with suggestions for designs.  I recently had a regular customer email to ask me for a design with Geraniums.  I love geraniums!
I started thinking seriously of what I could do and then I remembered that many years ago, I made a geranium candle mat and sold it as a finished design.
So I went on a search through all of my old sketchbooks to try to find it.
Unfortunately, back in the time before I sold my designs as patterns, I wouldn't save the design.  I never enjoyed remaking more than a few of the same thing...always preferring to try something new. so I never bothered saving anything other than the original sketches of it.  So, the only thing I found of my previous geranium design was a rough sketch.
The other problem is that most times, my finished version of it turns out nothing at all like the sketch!
I love to design and cut as I stitch, just making it up as I go.  That's pretty much what I did with this geranium design.

I had to start fresh with the design.  Thanks to my blogging back then, I did find some pictures ...
 
Here is one of the finished candle mats that I made and sold back in 2009.  This version was made with a cream colored background instead of the black.  I did my best to duplicate the design. 

 I like both the cream colored background and the black background but chose the black background for the pattern picture.
My favorite geranium color is the red but I'm going to make it with shades of pink too.

This candle mat looks difficult to make but it's actually super easy.  There are approximately 50 little flowers that make up each one of the geraniums.  That's a lot of cutting!  The good thing though is that those little flowers don't have to be cut perfectly.  They just need the basic shape. They are folded and then attached and because they're so close to each other, the shape doesn't show.  The pattern instructions include a step-by-step tutorial which shows exactly how to stitch those little flowers on.
So pretty and it's really fun to make!
Here's a side view of the flower details.  There are two different shades of red used in the flowers to give them even more definition.

 

Buy the Pattern on my website CLICK HERE 

The wool kit which includes the pattern and all of the 100% felted wool (NOT wool felt) needed to complete the candle mat can by found by CLICKING HERE

Thank you for reading !  Happy Day!