First things first. Wow. I was really touched by everyone who commented on the last post or sent emails, I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of your kind words. We're still trying to figure things out on this end, and there will probably end up being some type of upheaval soon, but hopefully nothing too drastic.
Well, the cow girl pattern is now available. I've finally finished it, and the kinks have all been ironed out. I was waiting on someone to agree to let me use her name for the pattern, but unfortunately I never heard back, so instead I named her after my grandpa's sister Bess. It seems like a very cow-ish name to me.
I was going to include templates for the spots, but have decided that it's really a rather personal choice, I gave instruction, but every time I made templates for the spots I just didn't like them. There are templates for the ears and the udder, and for this one you should probably be familiar with a couple of embroidery stitches- the blanket stitch, and the detached chain stitch (click on the little magnifying glass next to each stitch to see illustrations of the stitch).
The pattern ended up being 7 pages long, with 14 images and 2 illustrations. To make this little girl, you'll need:
C/2.5mm and E/3.5mm crochet hooks
Worsted weight yarn in a flesh color, white and black
Locking stitch markers
Yarn & Embroidery needles
DMC Embroidery floss in 310, 777, and 152
DMC perle cotton in tan
Black & pink felt
6mm craft eyes
polyfil/wool roving to stuff the cow girl!
ETA, I forgot to add that the pattern is available at both Etsy & Ravelry for those interested :)
A couple of other random things before getting down to the giveaway part...
I have a couple of dolls that I think I'm going to start working on soon, before I can get to them I have to make a couple of dolls for the Plush You! show up at Schmancy this fall. They're due next month and I'm not 100% certain which dolls I'm going to make.
Additionally, I just wanted to kind of purge a bit more and get off my chest that another reason I've been silent of late is that while most of the time I have awesome interactions with customers, there were a couple of VERY problematic ones last month that drug on and on that just sort of left me feeling burnt out. Hopefully by mentioning it, it'll stop lingering and let me just move on.
So, with that in mind, let's discuss the giveaway :)
To enter the contest, all you have to do to enter to win a free Bess pattern is leave a comment and tell me- What is your favorite name? And if you want to tell me why, that's always even more fun. Only one comment counts per person, and no comments will be entered after noon PST Wednesday.