Little Elves pattern is now available!

Little Elves, the third (and technically fourth) pattern in my ongoing '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. As you may have noticed, elves are not mentioned in the poem (except for the right jolly old elf himself of course!) but we are taking a little tour of the North Pole to pick up some beloved characters before we dive into the actual lines of the poem. 

Samples made from the Benzie Classic palette

Samples made from the Benzie Retro palette

I'm designing this intermediate level ornament series with what hopefully seems like a vintage-meets-modern type of style, with sparkly sequins and beads and plenty of tiny, charming details.

The Elf Girl is just coming back from the mailbox with Santa's letters. She's sporting a scarf and mittens and carrying a teeny mailbag with removable letters while she reads the message on the back of the envelope in her other mitten. The Elf Boy is helping Mrs. Claus check off the Naughty Or Nice List with his little adorable pencil. You can, of course, customize the Naughty Or Nice list for your own family. :-)

This design basically went well but MAN it was just a lot to get done. A LOT. It's two very detailed patterns in one, with no fewer than 139 steps. So many illustrations! I had thought at first to make them separate patterns but soon decided combining them into one pattern just made more sense.

It takes me about three crafternoons to make both Little Elves, and if you have the materials for Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus already in your arsenal, you have most of what you need to make this pair of cheerful helpers. I think the only additional thing might be the toothpick and colored card stock? And if you'd like the metallic felt for the mailbag. But regular felt works well for it also!

The 29 page detailed PDF pattern comes with two extra pattern sheets containing 20 years worth of dates for the backs of both, if you are like me and appreciate the years noted on the backs of special ornaments.

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 later in 2021. I will be back to working on the Ebenezer series in the first half of the year. You can be sure you will see updates and posts right here and on my other channels.

All the samples you see here 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 Little Elves color guides for these samples but probably not before I make the other samples I need. I'm missing the mint/pink/green palette samples and need to get those done. They will be similar to the samples you've seen already for the rest of the series. (But in the meantime I am taking a break to get ready for Christmas. Holy cow. So much to do.)

UPDATE: The samples and color guides are now complete! 

If you are wondering, Benzie Design already offers kits for these ornaments! Yay! (They are the Classic and Retro 'Twas the Night bundles.) The red/blue and mustard/blue samples in this post are all made from the Classic bundle and the pink/orange and mint/olive samples are made from the Retro bundle. Thank you once again, wonderful Benzie folks!