Gourd all dressed up

If you look way-ay-ay back in our posts you'll see some of the gourds we grew in our garden a couple of years ago. We dried them with plans to use them in our handcrafts. A woman from the Holiday Market found out we had dried gourds and purchased some from us. Tonight she sent me a picture of one she painted for the shop...

Isn't he adorable? It's amazing how those moldy, brown gourds can be transformed.

The shop has been so successful that I'm spending all my spare moments trying to keep inventory in stock. The biggest seller by far is the catnip mice made from felted sweaters. The 2nd best are the embroidered mitten decorations. It's been a lot of fun working with the other artists/handcrafters. I know how I'll pass the winter months...preparing for next year's holiday market!

Jon's Find

Jonathan has been growing so fast that he's outgrown all his pants that we started out with in September. I stopped into the thrift shop with he and the 2 girls this afternoon and found several pairs of pants for him. It was 1/2 off day at the thrift shop so I was especially pleased to find pants for him.

Jonathan had been browsing through the store with the girls. The girls found some Christmas presents for their brothers. They were happily discussing the items when Jonathan saw me and called, "Mom, I need to show you something!" I went with him and asked where we were going. He answered, "To the coats." I couldn't imagine why he wanted to go to the coat section, but as soon as we reached the rack I understood...He had seen this wonderful lined raincoat.

As you can see, it fits perfectly, and since it was 1/2 price, I couldn't say no. So our little fireman is happily walking around the house in his new coat with a big smile on his face.

November Projects

November 1st the Unadilla Holiday Market opened in a storefront on Main Street. We joined in on the market and this is a picture of our display before opening day. The shop will be open through Christmas Eve and is doing very well for a new shop in a small town. We've made our investment back in sales already. Wayne has cut glass items on display, too. He has several projects still in the works and hopes to get them to the store soon.

Here are the best sellers of my product line...catnip mice

and embroidered felt mitten decorations.When I'm not cranking out more of these two items, I'm working on alpaca/merino socks to fill orders. Here is the first of a pair which also has some bamboo blended in with the alpaca. They are so-o-o soft (the color is black, but it turned out to look more gray in the pictures).

It's wonderful doing what you love!