February is
one of the craziest months as the Nashville wholesale market is the first
weekend in March. For the first time ever, I had completed stitching all of my
designs by the end of December and managed to eke out a new Holiday Delights in
January! I felt great being ahead of the game but after finishing the stitching, there's the instruction writing,
printing, stuffing thousands of patterns into plastic bags (I do have help,
thank goodness!), communicating with my shops and distributor, packing the
models and patterns to travel to market, and more boring but oh so necessary
administrative details.
Did I say
I love this time off year?! I really do as I look forward to market like a
fabulous dessert - I get to see all my shopowner friends and other designers.
We all generally work our fingers to the bone while having a fabulous time with
some belly laughs and the promise of delightful sales.
At this
point, you're thinking, enough, show us the new designs - here they are! You can pre-order them from your LNS (please support them!) or from my Catalog
First up
is Cobblestones – I’ve wanted to design a piece using all the colors of the
rainbow but in muted colors. This is what came out after I chose the threads. I loved stitching it and seeing the colors merge into each other.
Finished Size
12x12 Threads used are Caron Watercolours, DMC Pearl Cotton #5, and Rainbow
Gallery threads.
Next is Patriotic Logs – working with a
variety of reds, whites, and blues, is still in my system and this is another
piece I had in my “want to design” list. I’m always amazed at the seemingly endless
ways to stitch “logs.
Finished Size 9x9 Threads used are Caron Watercolours and one Kreinik braid –
no laying of threads!!
Since the Christmas and
Halloween Holiday Delights were so popular (thank you!), I was inspired to come up with a
piece for Easter – I especially love my fluffy little bunny tail and the
Kreinik metallic that looks like Easter grass. It’s the simple things…
Easter is the 4th
design in the Holiday Delights series. Finished size is 6x6. Threads used are
Caron Watercolors, Kreinik #8 Braid DMC Pearl Cotton #5 & Rainbow Gallery
Fuzzy Stuff FZ15 (used only for the bunny tail)
The Color Delights series continues...Watermelon is #46 of the Color
Delights Series. Suggestions for colors are always welcome - leave them in the comments and if I use yours, you'll get a free pattern when it is released!
Finished Size is 4x4. Threads used are Watercolours, ThreadworX Overdyed Vineyard
Silk, Rainbow Gallery Neon Rays & Water n' Ice, and DMC Floss
Last year's Mystery is now available as a pattern or kit. This was an "out of the box" design for me and it was interesting to design on a colored canvas instead of white or eggshell. I was challenged by a person dear to me to use a bright color of canvas and leave it exposed for the 2017 Mystery. Razzmatazz is the result of her request. I was inspired by our conversations when I was coming up with the idea of this Mystery and it seemed so "out there" to me personally, I continued the "challenge" theme and added more glitz by using beads and called it Razzmatazz. Ann started to stitch the Tahiti version on yellow canvas and unfortunately, she passed before she finished the design. Her spirit lives on in this design I know she enjoyed it in the last months of her life.
Finished
Size 11.5x14.5. Razzmatazz was taught as a Mystery Class last year and is now available for
retail sale. Six additional colorways are listed in the pattern and can be seen
at here
I am not offering a Mystery class for 2018 - I do have plans to start one January 1, 2019 so look for details in the fall.
Until next time,
Kathy
Love Cobblestones! Fabulous colors and stitches. I think this will be a MUST HAVE!
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