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. 

Lambs + Big News! with Reflections

I'll share the Big News first. After a month and more of working tirelessly, I have a new website! Ohhhhh - I have been dying to share it with you all. It went live this weekend. Hop on over and check it out here. 

I hope you like it, find it somewhat informational, and also easy to navigate. I have known for a while that I needed to do something about my website. This is the 3rd iteration of kristinnicholas.com - the 1st was in 2002, the 2nd was in 2013 and now the 3rd is in 2019. Boy have things changed. 

1. My first website was mostly an info only site built by my friend Lori Gayle. It had a couple of patterns for sale via something called Payloadz. This was before Ravelry came along. The first site lasted a very long time -- eleven years! - I am amazed to reflect on that for sure. 

2. My second website was built by my friend Mary Hager. She did it just before my Craftsy class launched in something called Cold Fusion. The purpose of the site was informational and also commerce driven. I would be able to sell the Crewel Embroidery Supplies for my Craftsy (now Bluprint) class on-line. That site was built just before everything went mobile and it was very serviceable but I couldn't easily change things myself. That site lasted six years. 

3. This third website was built by ME! on a platform call Big Cartel. I interviewed 3 different shopping platforms - Shopify, Squarespace and Big Cartel. I went with Big Cartel because it seemed to be artist friendly. Also, when I sent them questions, they answered sometimes within an hour. There were several themes to chose from and I chose one that I thought was easily navigable. They also have a sliding fee scale so that if my number of products changes, the monthly fee can be adjusted. 

So that is my big news. Check out the new site here and if you have any comments or critiques, I am glad to hear them. The website has categories and you can search by "newest" and "most popular" items. At the bottom of the left hand column, I have added several pages that are informational. 

Now - on to the lambs....... They are still coming - maybe not as fast as a couple weeks ago but still being born. We had snow and ice this week so it is a bit treacherous at the barns now. These photos were taken when the last batch of snow had melted. I'm not sure if you have noticed but many of the lambs still have tails. The Farmer decided to only "tail" the females. We have many Muslim customers and they will only purchase male lambs. Last year we discovered that they prefer lambs with tails. Always learning. 

Just born that morning outside in the sun.

This little lamb has the craziest ears - they curl backward. Never seen anything like it. She is very vocal too.

Nice set of twins with a very attentive mother.

Outside on top of ye olde manure pile. 

This little guy was loving the sun. 

Mama and one of the older lambs on top of ye olde manure pile.

I hope you all are having a nice weekend. Maybe you have the day off tomorrow. Lucky you! I have some more news to share tomorrow so pop on back then. 

Photos from 4th Holiday Open House 2018

The 2018 Open House was a wild success. It was so much fun to meet so many new people and connect with friends I only see once in a while. We were busy both days and although the finishing touches weren't completely done on time (that is me - wait til the last minute) - it all worked out fine. I don't have a lot of photos of everyone's work --- I was so busy I forgot to take many at all and remembered in the evenings when everyone was gone. My friends Gail Callahan, Alicia Hunsicker and Deborah Garner added their distinct styles to the creative and colorful flavor of our home. 

This year I had help from my friends Kay and Alexxis at the check-out counter (no photos there either) and farm friends Jess and Emily helped me hang holiday decorations because I was so behind. Miraculously I got 2 loads of pottery fired before the Open House - even if the second load didn't get unloaded until Sunday morning. It has been a difficult year for me making with Mark's surgery and slow recovery but somehow I had plenty of things to sell. 

We had a lovely spread of food -- appetizers, cheese, lamb tagine, chocolates, veggies, coffee and drinks. This Apple Harvest Cake which Gail made was a huge hit. Follow this link for the Harvest Apple Cake recipe from my blog back in 2012 - it is delicious and very easy to make. I wish I had photos of the food table because it was so beautifully presented (thanks Alicia and Deborah). 

I will be doing a shop update this weekend with pottery, tea towels and books. If you would like to know when it goes live, please sign up for my Newsletter on the top right hand side of this blog. You will get immediate notice when work is available ON-LINE. It takes a crazy amount of time to photo and list all the work because each is different and needs multiple photos and descriptions. I wish I could pot and make the same thing over and over because it would make that part easier but that would not be interesting to me.

On top of it all, this week our sheep were shorn on Tuesday and Wednesday - hence the lateness of this review post. I'll share photos of that in a couple days.

Thanks to all who came out and thank you all for your support of my creative work, life and family. XO 

Here are some photos so you get a feeling for the 2018 Open House - our 4th. 

Some of my new tea towel designs that I will be listing this weekend. 

Julia's holiday emporium - pom poms and glitter ornaments

Crewel embroidery products for sale. 

Some of our little friends came and were loving the kittens. 

Cali and Bobby asleep on the radio. They were stars.

Some of my pottery that will be listed for sale this weekend.

Ruth - who had come to one of my Creative Retreats brought her finished pomegranate printed and embroidered fabric. So beautiful!

Janet (I think that is her name) sat with the kittens on her lap for at least an hour. She was in heaven.

Our newest litter of kittens resting up after all the holding and activity they got - 

Deborah's beautiful work on the porch - 

The dining room in the evening -

The dining room table full of my handmade pottery - 

The brass chandelier became a bird's nest via the artistry of my friends Jess and Emily

Come to Our Holiday Open House this Coming Weekend - Here Are My Special Guests!

I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving Holiday. We had a great visit with family and cousins. I look forward to the chaos of all the people every year. My family is quite loud (The Farmer would tell you) and so the couple of days we spend together is rather raucous but so much fun. On the Friday after Thanksgiving we continued our crafting tradition at my sister Nancy's home in New Hampshire. These two days together are really the only ones we all spend together at the same time so it is fun and memorable.

My friends Gail, Alicia and Deborah and I have been very busy making beautiful things for this coming weekend's 4th Annual Holiday Open House. I hope some of you can make it. I thought I would share some of their recent work here today.  

I'll start with Gail. Many of you probably know her as The Kangaroo Dyer if you are into yarn. She is also the author of Hand Dyeing Yarn and Fleece. Her book is one of the best selling craft books ever. Gail is the inventor of The Color Grid which I have written about before. Recently Gail has been dyeing silk fabrics. She will have her hand dyed yarn and silks, books, and Color Grids with her this weekend. I have a few of her brightly colored silks that I wear almost every day as scarves. They keep my neck warm, are lightweight and don't get in my way. 

Here are some of Gail's silks. Gorgeous. 

Here are some of her beautiful hand dyed yarns. 

Check out Gail's website here if you are too far away to come to the Open House. 

My neighbor Alicia Blaze Hunsicker is a Fine Artist. She is an incredibly talented painter and has exhibited widely in the Northeast. Alicia has painted in oils and most recently acrylics. Her recent work has an other-worldly quality to it. Here is some of her work and you can see more on her website here. 

Recently Alicia began experimenting with a new technique of art. It is much quicker for her to produce and she can lower the price point to make her art more accessible. Here is her new work....... 

Color and attention to detail has always been part of Alicia's world and I think this new work is stunning. Check out her website for more. 

My last guest is my Textile Loving Friend Deborah Garner. For years, Deborah and her partner Jay travelled the world collecting textiles from foreign lands. Their main business was supplying museums with rare tribal textiles. You can imagine how Deborah and I hit it off once we discovered our mutual love of textiles. Deborah has a wealth of knowledge and has lived quite an amazing life.  

In her textile travels, Deborah collected lots of beads and trinkets from the tribes. For this Holiday Open House, she is making jewelry out of objects from her collection. Here are some of the baubles that she has made so far. 

You can check out Deborah's website here and see some of the incredible textiles she has collected. Here is the link to her Jewelry page which has many beautiful earrings and necklaces for sale too. 

So that is a little preview of what we have in store for this coming weekend. I will be sharing some of my finished work later this week as it cools down from the latest kiln firing. Fingers crossed the weather cooperates for us all. 

Paisley Crewel Embroidered Pillow Project

I want to share a project I have been working on for a while...... a Crewel Embroidered Paisley Pillow. This was a super fun project to make. 

Here is a close-up.

It is a variation on a different Paisley Crewelwork Project that I shared here and here. 

I used a royal blue fabric paint and the cornflower blue linen fabric I sell on my website here. To begin, I printed the paisley shapes following instructions in my new book Crafting A Patterned Home. 

Then I collected some odds and ends of blues and green crewel wool colors. I designed the pillow to go on my sister's new screened in porch. I also made a second pillow - in a bit simpler design that I will share soon. 

I used embroidery stitches that are found in my PDF downloadable pattern Circles Sampler Pillow Pattern. You can purchase that here. You can also find many of the stitches in my book Colorful Stitchery. 

I love the free-form quality of Crewel Embroidery. Each paisley motif can be treated differently - a small experiment in color and design and stitch combinations. Here are some close-ups of the different paisley motifs that I stitched. 

Hope you try some Crewel Embroidery too this fall. I have many Crewel Wool Embroidery supplies available on my website and you can taken an on-line class called Stitch It with Wool on the BluPrint and Craftsy websites. Getting into Crewel Embroidery is very reasonable - all you need is some linen fabric, wool thread, needle and a hoop. And it will bring you hours of enjoyable time creating. 

Craftsy Changes? + Beautiful New Colors Of Linen in The Shop Now

I'm not sure if you all have heard this news - rather old by now...... But Craftsy - the on-line teaching website where I teach an on-line Crewel Embroidery Class called Stitch It With Wool was sold to NBCUniversal for 230 Million $ in 2017. That's a big chunk of change. There has been a lot of on-line chatter from the many different teachers who have classes on the on-line platform. I know that many teachers made a huge portion of their income from their on-line classes (from what I surmise). My class has never been really popular - just a steady seller. The Craftsy model has changed a bit (they have gone to a subscription model and a pay for a single class). If you bought a class, you still own it and have access to it. This summer NBCUniversal changed the name of Craftsy to BluPrint and redesigned the website. NBCUniversal is a huge company and I assumed there would be many changes. That is what happens when big companies buy smaller companies. Life moves on for all of us little people. 

One cool thing is that NBC is now doing a tv show called Making It. I'm assuming this new show is part of their plan for "craftertainment." The judges of the show are a woman from Etsy and Simon Doonan (of Barney's window decoration fame). It is hosted by Nick Offerman and Amy Poehler. Season One is just done. I watched a few times. Funny story was - I was approached by the producers to interview to be a contestant on the first season a couple summers ago. I wasn't interested in the contest type format and so I said no - much to Julia's disappointment. (She is a huge Amy Poehler fan.) The show was  cute. I picked the winner after watching it a couple times. The guy was super talented. 

When I originally taped my Craftsy class Stitch It With Wool, I decided to add a section to my website for crewel embroidery supplies. It isn't a big business but it is a steady one. It is very difficult to find these supplies now as so many needlework stores have disappeared. Crewel embroidery and embroidery seems to be making a bit of a comeback in general. My little store chugs along. 

Today I want to introduce to you all 6 new colors of LINEN for Crewel Embroidery. Here they are:

You all are going to pretty amused by the next part...... I have been teaching Crewel Embroidery here at the farm for several years. Each year, I ask the students what color fabric they want to stitch on. One year, Lee said to me - don't you have any neutrals? You see - as you would guess -- my original 10 colors were all COLOR, not neutral. 

Here are the original 10 colors:

I never even thought to stock off-white, flax, and brown shades of linen. Never occurred to me! So now, by popular demand, I now have FLAX (natural color of linen fiber), OFF-WHITE, and a pretty brown called FAWN. 

In addition - I have added a gorgeous CORAL color, a pretty GRASS GREEN, and a stunning SUNFLOWER shade.  

Hop on over to my website to order some linen fabric and crewel wool for a embroidery project in your future. 

I'll be sharing a new project that I just stitched in an upcoming post. 

Kristin's On-Line Pottery and Tea Towels Now Available

A quick note today to let you all that my On-Line Pottery and Tea Towel Etsy Shop is now re-stocked. 

Here is the link to my Etsy Shop. 

Hop on over and check out all the colorful pottery including vases, mugs, platters and more. I've also designed and sewn some new patterns of tea towels that are also in the shop. 

Here are a few of the items now for sale.

If you have any questions, shoot me an email at kristinnicholasATgmailDOTcom

A note on the freight charges - I make a guess on postage. I ship via US Postal Service. If I have overcharged, I will refund the amount in excess of $2. When combining orders, the freight charges will likely look higher. Thanks for understanding. All my pottery is different sizes and weights and there is no way to standardize as each piece is different. 

Happy shopping at Kristin's On-Line Pottery Etsy Shop.