Winterfest 2014

 Last fall when Amy approached me about teaching at Winterfest, 

we talked about doing a Valentine project.  

Something cheerful to work on during the cold of winter.  

I came up with this idea in my head and made a paper sample up. 

 Next I picked a palette to work with - that was the hardest part! 

And it morphed over time as I started creating.  

The brighter jewel tones really spoke to me.

 It was a delightful mess of colorful wool and threads.  I wanted to incorporate some vintage buttons and bits and bob of lace I have collected over time.  I also wanted a project that could be up year round, not just for Valentine's Day.  My heart is full of love for my family as this time and so this led me to the final product!

 The envelope is what we spent a good amount of time.  It is lined with peltex and has a sweet little crocheted edge.  You could tuck away some photos or love notes inside.  The tree has 6 hearts representing each of our 6 children.  Two velvet heart for my husband  and me.  For colorful hearts for our parents.  I had fun painting and doing a simple embroidery on an old postcard I found at a flea market inn Vienna this past spring.  On the large heart I included some special scouting pins from my sons, my husbands Air Force pin, and few other little things that needed to have a better life out of a dark drawer!  I thought it was kind of fun to clip two photos of our parents wedding day.   I joked that the button filled heart was representative of all of the adorable grandchildren I will have one day :)  I hope the ladies will fill their project with love and happy memories.

I still need to add a few dangles and get my backing on, 

but it has been such a fun project o create.  

Many thanks to all of you adorable ladies for your patience and love!

Some of the cute ladies in class!  

I know I didn't get photos of everyone - I am easily distracted when teaching!  

I loved being with each and every one you!

Riverwoods Conference Center in our hometown, Logan, was a beautiful venue for Winterfest.  It's always so rewarding to see what becomes of everyone's work.  Such creativity!  Hope I'll get to see some of the finished projects one day!  Happy Stitching :)

PS.  I also taught a hand stitched journal class and left my camera home :(  

Here is a peek at what I taught.  

They are so much fun to do and they make wonderful gifts!

A New Year

Doesn't the a new year hold such promise? I started this one off on a very lucky note!  I won a giveaway from the fun blog (here) of The Middle Sister!  Gayle is such a talented, creative, warm person.  Who does a give-way on their birthday?  Gayle does! I have followed her blog for awhile now and got to meet her in person this past fall at my open house.  I'm looking forward to some rug hooking days in the near future and I'm certainly going to treasure this sweet little quilt.  Can't wait until Molly comes up so she can gently tuck her baby doll under it!  She and Gayle share the same New Year's Birthday :)

I wanted to thank everyone for their sweet words of encouragement and love.  Our family has grown a lot in the past few months and we have been reminded over and over of the genuine kindness those around us possess.  Thanks for the love and prayers.  We feel it.

We reopened up our etsy shop.  My daughter put up my book, Savor The Seasons and some kits for the pillow covers.  We will be adding more kits and patterns soon!  Check out our etsy shop here!

I have been busy preparing for a couple of classes I am teaching at Winterfest  next week.  One is a hand stitched journal and the other is a Wool Lovers Mystery project.  It's been hard to keep a secret!  I am excited to post the pretty little piece next week after my class gets the first look. It has been a great way to spend my time.  Designing is quite a process.  I usually start with something in mind and tweak things to get them just so.  This last one was a bit of a challenge.  Not sure if was just that my creative muse had been in hibernation for too long what the problem was, but it definitely went through some awkward teen age years before it blossomed :)  Now I can't get enough of it.  I can't wait to see what the ladies do with their own interpretations of it.

It is full of color, stitches and lots of old buttons :)
I gleaned a lot of inspiration from all the visual eye candy on Pinterest

It feels good to back!
Happy Stitching everyone!
xo

Some Quiet Time

With much heartache, I need to have some time away from business. We lost our son, Davis this past Sunday. You can read his obituary, here.  Thank you for your understanding.

Full House!

We really enjoyed our time with all of you that came to our Fall Open House!  Thank you for your support and for your wonderful friendships!  It is so neat to see what you have been creating!  These gatherings seem to get a little bigger and better each time.  I have to smile when I look back on the first one we had in  2010.  I started this blog the following year.  {This links} to a slideshow on our family blog of our first Open House.  Take a peek at some fabulous Ronda creations!  She is a gem.  At that time I had just started designing projects and only had about a table full of wool for sale.  Our new studio has been a blessing.  Such a wonderful place to work and create as well as a sweet gathering place.

It was great to have my sister's family up for the weekend!  

They were a huge help in getting things ready and organized.

  A few of our guests!  

Shelley snapped these with her phone.  

What would we do without those little wonders!?

Suzanne and Judy shared a beautiful trunk show with us!  

What gorgeous pieces they have created.  We were all inspired.

 Christmas is just around the corner...

  Lots of eye candy!  

 Beautiful stitches.  I should have been better about some up close photos.

 Sheep and 12 months of woolie goodness!

 Pincushion Collection

 I couldn't have done it without you lovely ladies!
(Kaye...the cash register was a dream!)

 It seems there is a spot in the studio for everyone to create :)  Great job, Abbie!

Here is a link to the fabulous Raspberry Cream Cheese Bars my sister made. 

 {She adds a sprinkling of Chocolate Chips before she puts the topping on}

Hope you all enjoy stitching up those those sweet little velvet pumpkins.  

This is such a wonderful time of year!

A few apologies...

It seems we left out the green piece of wool in the kits:

Bountiful

Wool Pillow & Table Runner 

I have had one call on that.  Please let me know if you purchased one of these kits and it is missing green for the stems.   We will get that mailed right out to you!

Cold Days Kit

Will be missing 3 cream wool pieces.  We caught that late Friday night and tried to pull them.  Please let us know if you have one of these kits as well and we will mail the missing wool to you! 

Again, please accept our apologies! 
We want every single customer to be happy and satisfied with their purchase.

Last of all, I have contacted Wooly Lady and Heart to Hand to order some of their patterns.  I will let you know when they are available.  We will be kitting the Autumn Wall Hanging that Suzanne shared with us.  (Pictured in this post above) The title of this pattern is Harvest Moon. 

We would love to hear any suggestions or comments from you!  

Happy Stitching

xo 

Dye Kitchen Rockin

We are really looking forward to our fall open house!  Two talented wool gatherers from the Pocatello, Idaho area will be sharing some of their beautiful wool works.  Thank you Judy and Suzanne for being so gracious about sharing your love of wool with us!  The wool is piling up and kits are being assembled.  Here are a few teasers that you can look forward to seeing in the studio!  More to come ;)  Hope you are enjoying the change of the seasons.  Such a sweet time of year!

Save the Date

The summer has been full to the brim this year.  It's nice to be settling back into a regular routine again.  We are looking forward to our Fall Open House next month.  Details will follow.  We wanted to get the dates out so you can put them on your calender!  Hope you have all had a wonderful summer, too!

A Good Day

We sure had a great time in the studio Saturday!  My favorite quote of the day was, " I hope we all end up in the same old folks home together!"  We relished in the sweet time it is to create with other women who enjoy the same things we do.  Watching a fuzzy pipe cleaner magically form the  armature of tiny little 3" fairy was pretty exciting.  There is a lot of wrapping and sometimes a lot of starting over!   The best is part is making her clothes and dressing her.  We all agreed how we were similar to these tiny dolls; not looking to hot without any clothes on!  I failed as a photographer that afternoon, but I will share a few photos to document the day anyway.  Thanks for coming ladies!  You were so much fun to work with!

 We sure had a great time!  Sorry I couldn't focus my camera...

A few of the wee ones all finished up.

We worked from Salley Mavor's book Felt Wee Folk.  She is currently revising it and will be printing a new edition in 2015.  I understand the distributor is out but she has some copies available in her ETSY shop. Once in awhile one will come up on Amazon. I also highly recommend her newest book, Pocketful of Posies that I blogged about here.  Wonderful inspiration!

Hope your gardens will have magic all summer long!