Maid a-Milking pattern available/Black Friday sale

Happy Friday! Two EXCITING THINGS.
OK, First Exciting Thing: Pattern number 8 in the Twelve Days series is now available in my Etsy shop! Maid a-Milking! Whoo!

The Benzie Design felt/floss bundle that goes with the new hand sewn Maid a-Milking pattern is the previous Turtle Dove bundle, seen here. The color bundles will all be repeating like that. All the samples you see in the photos above^ were made using that felt bundle!

Who can guess what the next ornament in the series will be? It's probably not the one you think. More on that later!

Second Exciting Thing: My annual Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale is here!

Coupon Code: MMMSALE

Use that code in my Etsy shop only to receive 20% off your pattern purchase! Sale ends at midnight EST on Monday, November 28th. Don't forget the code at checkout, for Pete's sake!

(Pete really wants you to get a deal.)

thankful for you

Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow world citizens. I know we are officially celebrating today here in the US, but we can all count our blessings don't you think? Every single one of us.

I'm thankful to be a child of God.
I'm thankful to live in a country that is free.
And free to disagree.
I'm thankful for you.
I'm thankful for your wonderful patience as I try to complete this series in a timely manner!

Speaking of which, this Maid a-Milking pattern is absolutely positively going to be available this weekend. Keep in mind I have one sale a year in my Etsy shop and this is the weekend it happens! Stay tuned for a shop announcement later today. In the meantime I'm planning to be very thankful indeed for broccoli salad, smoked turkey and pecan pies. And coffee.

Maid a-Milking samples

I'm getting very close to finishing the Maid a-Milking pattern! I plan to sequester myself upstairs with Squeegee Beckinheim* over the next few days to finish up. My youngest's school play is over and I'm looking at a mostly commitment free weekend. I have to tell you I'm a little panicked to find myself so close to Thanksgiving and so little prepared for December. This should be a familiar feeling since I'm NEVER prepared to meet December. It's always a surprise. It's only been twelve months since the last one!

Do you want to know more about this Twelve Days ornament series? Click here.

*Gilmore Girls reference. Are you guys excited about the new episodes? I want to be. But I have a dark premonition that the magic will be gone. Oy with the poodles already.

as long as the front looks nice

There are some excellent crafters in this world whose embroidery looks as great from the back as it does from the front. I am not one of those crafters. 

My philosophy about felt crafting embroidery is as long as it looks neat from the front, the back doesn't matter. I'm all about gettin' it done. I'm just showing you guys this so you don't sweat that part. I've heard from crafters making the Twelve Days ornaments who actually worry about this! Bless your hearts.

I design the ornaments so that any knotty, tangly wrong-sided messes are always hidden in the end. The only thing you need to do in this ornament series is make sure you have no anchor knots on the front. Make the back as ugly as you like! Snip the long ends, tuck in any stray threads, and forget about it. No one's going to see it (unless you publish a shot of it on your blog).  

sneak peek of Maid a-Milking WIP

This WIP will be the future pattern release for Maid a-Milking, the 8th pattern in my Twelve Days ornament series.

She's still a bit too tall and also missing her buckets and all the loopy signature embroidery. But overall I'm very happy with her proportions and her look! With this one I had many construction/style dilemmas to work out. Since they are all people figurines from now til the end of the series, it was important to iron all that out now. My goal is to keep the style consistent between all twelve and make them look like a cohesive set. It's tricky sometimes.

I'm excessively fond of her tiny hat. You'll be seeing more of her soon. I'm still tweaking and making samples at this point.

I confess that I had expected to be further along with this series at this point in 2016. Can I just blame other people right now for this delay? Other people in love? Can I just say THREE family weddings, all out of state and all since August? Ah, young love, and I'm very happy for them! haha! Sorry to throw them under the bus. But seriously what about my micro business goals?  :-)

My goal was to release through #10 this year, but I'm 99.9% certain that will not happen. I think I can get this one and number 9 done, possibly, in time for Christmas. The rest of the series will need to be finished up in 2017.

Thanks for your continued support and kind enthusiasm for this ornament series!