New 2020 Tea Towel Pre-Orders by Monday November 16th

This poor little neglected blog. I've been focusing lots of my energy on my Email Newsletters. Friday I sent out an announcement about my three new Tea Towel Designs - each in 4 different colors. I design these Tea Towels myself - my website is the ONLY PLACE IN THE WORLD where you can get these Tea Towels (except for our booth at the Amherst MA Farmers Market). 

Here's how I design them......I draw the designs out in black Flair felt tip marker or paint in black gouache on paper. I scan the sketches and bring them into Adobe Illustrator. In Illustrator, I do lots of computer manipulation and resizing of the different motifs and put them into the size format of the tea towels. I use a Wacom Pen Tablet at this point. Once I have the different design elements in, I move them around and resize to fit the Tea Towel format. Then I build a pattern repeat (if there is one needed). I export the Illustrator document into a jpeg format and import it into Photoshop. Then I can upload the digital file and do a test print. Once I see that the file prints perfectly, I do several different colorways and test them. Finally it is time to do a real print run. 

As you can imagine - when you look at the designs below and if you know Illustrator - these darn tea towels take FOREVER to design. I only have the energy to do the fabric design once a year because I find the computer illustration too tedious. I'm working with an old version of Illustrator and a very old laptop. If I upgraded both the Adobe Creative Suite and my computer, it would be faster. Unfortunately Adobe has changed their pricing and structure so that you have to pay $50/month forever to have the program (if I am correct? that was last time I looked) and a new laptop isn't in the cards right now. And so, I sally on with antiquated equipment! 

I forgot to post the photos of the new designs. Here they are......

I am taking orders through Monday evening at midnight. After that, I will order the fabric and then sew up the Tea Towels. If you order you will get them in time for the holidays. Your credit card will be charged when you order. 

This is something new I am trying. In past years, I have only sold the Tea Towel leftovers from the Farmers Market season. That method has never given my Online Shoppers much of a choice. By doing the pre-order, I can order the amount of fabric I need and not be stuck with lots leftover fabric sitting in my dining room waiting for months until the Farmers Market opens again. 

So far, there has been lots of interest in these and I am very thankful for the support my followers have shown! Hop on over to my website to order by Monday evening the 16th of November at midnight Eastern Time. (I may order a bit of overflow fabric to have on hand for those that haven't heard about this offer. I will order extra fabric of the colors that sell the best.) 

I only ship to the US at this point. Sorry to all the overseas and Canadian readers.