Mrs. Claus pattern is now available!

Mrs. Claus, the second pattern in my new 'Twas the Night Ornament Series, is now available! These ornaments are inspired by Clement C. Moore's 1823 poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas, better known as The Night Before Christmas. The sparkly sequins and beads evoke a vintage feel.

Mrs. Claus is holding a special wrapped Christmas gift for her sweet Santa Claus, and also a teeny tiny mistletoe ball in anticipation of getting a Christmas smooch after he returns from his busy night. (There are also options for her to hold a shiny apple for her favorite reindeer, or a Christmas clementine for Santa!)

This design proved a wee bit difficult. Some designs fly out of my head and onto paper and into prototypes with hardly any changes and everything seems to just fall into place. Not so with high maintenance Mrs. Claus. I had some major creative block on her accessories and some pretty serious second guessing about her proportions and shape. It took a lot longer to get her in the shop than I anticipated, but hopefully this very late release is still in time for determined crafty folks to make last minute ornaments before Christmas!

It takes me about two crafternoons to make a Mrs. Claus, and if you have the materials for Santa Claus already in your arsenal, you have most of what you need to make his lovely bride. 

The 23 page detailed PDF pattern comes with an extra pattern sheet that has 20 years worth of dates for the back of the ornament, if you are like me and appreciate the years written on your ornaments.

This pattern has options to make her with either a stiffened felt wrapped gift or a card stock one. The felt gift is sewn, while the card stock gift is glued. You can also choose if you'd like to tackle the mistletoe ball or substitute the simpler Christmas clementine for Santa (or an apple for Mrs. Claus's favorite reindeer).

Just like my Twelve Days Ornament Series, these ornaments also utilize Sulky Stick 'n Stitch to make the embroidery, beading, and pattern assembly a snap. More ornaments are to follow in this series, so stay tuned next year. I do not have a release date for the next pattern, but you can be sure you will see updates and posts right here and on my other channels.

These three sparkly samples (I still owe myself a 4th sample but time was of the essence) were made using Benzie Design's wonderful wool-blend felts, glass seed beads, and sequins. Such lovely quality! I really enjoyed working with them, and highly recommend them for yours. I'll be posting detailed color guides for these samples, and Benzie Design already offers kits for you with these felt colors! Yay! (They are the Classic and Retro 'Twas the Night bundles.) The red/blue and also mustard/bronze samples are both made from the Classic bundle, and the pink/orange sample is done with Retro. (The 4th sample will be a mint green retro one.) Thank you again, wonderful Benzie folks! Stay tuned for more information on the color guides.

a glimpse into my process

As I stitch my ornaments, I flip the pieces to the wrong sides and layer them together. That way I can keep an eye on how the colors are coming together for the overall look without the cloudy stabilizer skewing my view. While color is a chief concern to me, you can see from the photo that neatness on the reverse sides is not. Y'all, I do not sweat this. My theory: If you can’t see it on the final product, it doesn’t exist. *waves hands magically*

Now there are some wonderfully talented embroiderers who keep their reverse sides looking like a flipped version of the front side. I freely admit that’s a level I will never attain. I greatly admire that kind of craftsmanship, but I'm much more worried about the front side.

This felt sample you see in progress is a mustard yellow Mrs Claus, for my soon-to-be-released second #twasthenightornaments pattern. These felt colors are part of the Classic color bundle offered by @benziedesign.

The pattern is getting close. I'm sewing, drawing, and writing as fast as I can. #whichisnotveryfast