Chris Cringle First Sale

Hi!  No, we haven't forgotten you.  We've been a little busy.  Early in November, we had a booth at the annual Chris Cringle craft show in Champaign, IL.  This was our 5th year participating in the show.  If you've ever had a booth at a craft show, you never know how long you will have to wait for your first sale of the day.  Sometimes it takes over an hour for the first person to buy something.  At the start of a show, it seems that everyone just wants to look around to see what is available.  But sometimes we have buyers before the show is officially open.  That's what happened to us this year.

For the past 3 years, we have had the same people as our first sale.  There are 3 sisters who attend Chris Cringle every year.  For the first 2 years we were at the show, one of the sisters came alone.  And she made a purchase from us both years.  Then 3 years ago, she brought her 2 sisters.  2 of them fought over wanting to buy the same elephant tote.  So we had to make a custom order for the sister who didn't have first dibs on the tote.  This year they both came carrying their elephant totes.  Yay for loyalty!

The past 2 years, these 3 sisters have made a point of coming to our booth first to make their first purchases.  Who knew we would have a following.  It's kind of fun.  So, we took pictures of our first sales this year.  You get to vote on which item you like best:  a phone bag or a wristlet.

Phone Bag

Wristlet

A couple hours after these ladies made their annual purchase from us, another lady stopped by and asked if we had any more elephant totes.  She had seen the sisters with their totes and wanted to know where they got them.  She loved elephants, too.  They directed her to our booth, but we didn't have elephant totes this year.  We didn't have anything that had elephants on it.  We've realized from these craft shows that people love fabrics with animals.  We try to have a variety of animal prints, but we just can't please everyone all the time.

Stay tune for our exciting new challenges we have planned for next year.  Just remember to vote!

Have a safe and happy holiday season.

Mother's Sewing Challenge

I know this is the first day of September, and we're technically a day late for our August challenge.  We're ok with that.  We've had alot going on this year.

Our August challenge is very special to us, because our projects were made in honor of our Mom. She would have turned 84 in August. Yes, we called her Mother.  Seems a bit formal, but she wasn't formal at all.  She lived a very simple fulfilling life raising 7 kids.  Mother didn't work outside the home.  She was a stay-at-home mom.  Every day, she cooked 3 meals and did multiple loads of laundry.  She always said our house had a "lived in" look, meaning things weren't always in their place.  She was ok with that.  I take that same approach with my house, too.

When we were trying to decide what to make to honor our mom, we tried to think of things that Mother loved.  We each chose a different memory of her to be represented in our projects.

Marigolds and Word Search Puzzles
Mother always planted marigolds in front of the house, and they always looked beautiful.  We each planted some marigolds in our flower beds this summer to honor her love of those simple flowers.

Mother loved doing word search puzzles and would sit for hours working on them.  Even in her later years when Alzheimer's had robbed her of many memories, she still would sit with a puzzle in her hand searching for words.

Last weekend, our family gathered at the family farm one last time to honor our parents.  We celebrated our parents' lives out in the yard with a wiener roast, complete with s'mores and watermelon.  We all had a great time in spite of the sweltering heat and humidity.

Our first project represents Mother's love of marigolds and puzzles.  At the wiener roast, each of the women and girls received a wristlet made of fabric with marigolds, word search puzzles or marigold colored fabric.  They are so cute and useful.  My wristlet is in my purse holding secret notes.  :)

Marigolds and Word Search Puzzles

Embroidery
When we were young, our mom taught us to embroider.  She would buy pillowcases with pre-stamped embroidery patterns on them for us to complete.  I have several sets of those pillowcases in my home now.  Each time I look at them, I remember working on them as a child.

This embroidered wall hanging represents the craft we learned and now use in our sewing projects.  It's a simple rendering of a great Bible verse surrounded by flowers.

The joy of the LORD is your strength

We hope you will vote for your favorite project.  We have enjoyed making these last 2 projects that represented our parents lives.

Custom Orders

Hi!  We've taken a short break from our sewing challenges, but we're back.  As you may know, we recently lost both of our parents within 11 days of each other.  We are planning a couple of sewing challenges to honor our parents in the near future.  We're pretty excited about them.

We both recently had custom orders to make, and we thought we would share those with you.  Who knew that the orders would be pretty similar.  One of us had an order for some wristlets and coin purses.  The other one had an order for a bunch of coin purses.

Check out what we made.

Wristlets and Coin Purses

80 Coin Purses

Both orders have been safely delivered to our customers.  We hope our customers are happy with them, because we know we are.  You can keep us happy by voting for your favorite.