New Animal Sewing Kits, a New Web Site, and a Brand New Look for the Blog!
Well, good morning! Yes, you're in the right place! Welcome to my new . . . everything! I have so much to tell you. But first let me tell you about the newest members of the Posie Little Animal Family.
There are four new members of the family. The first is Miss Juniper Kitty. She wears an empire peasant dress, a knitted wool cowl, and removable Wellington boots. She has two dress and yarn options. This is Emma and Georgina dress fabric with Lemongrass yarn:
Next there's Miss Dandelion Doe. She's a shy little doe in a mini-dress, knitted kerchief, and removable embroidered boots. Here she is in Fairford dress fabric with Blue Fog yarn:
Then there's Miss Phyllis Mouse. She, too, wears a mini-dress but with knitted wool leg warmers and moccasins. Here she is in Elysian dress fabric with Lavender Cloud yarn:
Mwah. Love her.
Okay, and then we have the long-awaited and ever-dapper Mr. Basil Fox, here sporting a gray gingham cotton lawn shirt with denim jeans, a scarlet wool scarf, and removable boots:
And of course last but not least, you know Miss Maggie Rabbit. We still have kits for her, and she has a new scarf color to go with her Meadow dress fabric:
Hello, little girl. It's good to see you again! :)
CLICK HERE to see all of the KITS in the Little Animal Family!
And CLICK HERE if you'd just like to download the digital PDF patterns for any of these animals.
Each kit includes a printed pattern with stitching instructions and photos, an embroidery tutorial, a knitting pattern, and all full-size pattern templates. Each item page also contains a detailed list of what materials are included in each kit and what else you will need to have. You can choose your fabric/yarn from the drop-down menu for each animal. Each softie kit costs $34 each, plus shipping. Fabrics and yarns are not interchangable between kits, nor do we sell yardage of any fabric.
All of the clothes and accessories that have been designed for these animals are interchangeable between animals. Dandelion's knitted kerchief includes ear-holes that only really fit her and Maggie, but the kerchief can be worn as a little shawl by the other animals. (And Basil's pants and shirt are pretty much the same pattern as the original Little Pants and Shirt for Rabbits pattern, FYI.) But if you purchase a kit for one of the animals, you might also want to look at the rest of downloadable animal patterns for making more clothes and accessories for your particular critter.
Yes, we do ship internationally, but please read the following before placing your order: All international shipments are sent via USPS first-class international mail (or Priority, depending on their weight) and are charged a higher shipping fee depending on the weight of items and the destination. Shipping fees are added automatically when you place your order; to calculate them you need to walk through steps 1 and 2 of the ordering process. Once items leave the U.S. they are not able to be tracked past their last location here. It is happening more and more often: You — especially if you are in the United Kingdom — may also be charged import taxes, customs fees, duties, or other charges by your home country when you receive the shipment; you are responsible for these. Unfortunately I can't control where, why, or how customs agents determine whether to charge you or not and, after shipping thousands of overseas packages through the years, there doesn't seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason to who gets charged. Please note that the USPS does not allow us to pay any taxes or fees for you on our end, prior to shipping. I mark all of my shipments "merchandise"; please don't ask me to mark them as gifts because it is illegal to do that, and I won't. Thank you!
Because we are shipping so quickly, please make sure that your shipping address is correct when you place your order. Since Greta is literally moving to Ohio tomorrow, but wanted to be in on this first day of the sale at least, we will begin shipping orders today, so it's important that you check your address on your end properly before submitting your order, because once it's out there, it's out there! If you do need to change your address (before it is shipped), or anything about your order, or add things to your order, etc., please email me immediately. I will not be able to add anything to your original order for you (because the system won't let me), but what I will do is cancel the original order and have you place a new order with everything you need in it. I do not accept phone orders, or checks in the mail.
My best advice is that if you like a particular fabric/yarn combo, do not wait to order it. I can never predict exactly how things will go, but in the past, new kits have sold out very quickly. (I will update this page as things sell out.) We WILL make more kits if they sell out, but we will use new fabrics and new yarns, because it's just a lot more fun that way. I rarely like to do the exactly same thing twice! But we can talk about that more if/when it happens.
Last but not least, before I let you go I just have to say exactly how incredibly thrilled I am to show you my new blog and web site designs, built by the amazing, lovely, and extraordinarily talented folks at Aeolidia. I'll talk more about the process of how this all came together after I get some sleep, but for now I just want to invite you to explore these new designs and thank you so much for being here!
P.S. If you have any questions or problems today, just let me know in a comment and I will answer here (as soon as I can). Thank you!
***Okay, a few answers — sorry for the delay! Regarding skill level to make these: So, I always say that you need more enthusiasm than skill to make my projects — although they aren't designed specifically for beginners, my patterns do include step-by-step sewing instructions with photo illustrations, along with drawings and instructions for particular sewing and embroidery stitches. That said, in the pattern I do encourage everyone to practice stitching on scraps of felt, or to make a practice dress (or shirt, or pants) out of other fabric first, to practice. The clothes — especially Phyllis's and Dandelion's dress — are challenging, because they're really small! If you have clothing construction experience it helps, because you understand the order in which dresses (and shirts) kind of get put together. That all said, as I also always say, it's just stuffed animals, not brain surgery! So just go for it and have fun! I have had several people write to me in the past year since Maggie was developed to say that she was the first thing that they've ever made and they enjoyed making her very much, so I think you can do it! And if you ever don't understand something, just let me know and I will help you!
***I don't teach people how to knit in the knitting patterns, however. You do need to know how to knit — cast on, knit, purl, increase, decrease, cast on in the middle of a row (I use backward loop), and read knitting directions — in order to follow the directions for the knitwear. There are so many videos online that can teach you these basics, so if you have a hankering to knit, these patterns are small and pretty simple, and are good first and second projects.
***I've gotten a couple of emails from people who are having trouble finding their digital patterns after payment. So, after payment is completed, the screen will display a link toward the bottom of the box that says "Click here to download your pattern." Just click it, and then save your pattern to your harddrive. Then print it out for your use. If you should miss this link, a separate email — not the order confirmation or the Paypal, but an automatically generated email from the server that hosts the patterns — will be sent to you at the email address you used to place the order, and that will also include a link to download your patterns. These emails do bounce sometimes, so do check your junk folder. If all else fails, don't even worry — just email me and I'll send them to you via email, no problem!
