In Time for Mother's Day

As a shop owner, I have always been horrible at planning ahead for holidays.

On-time gift giving, let alone early gift-giving, is not one of my strengths. Sisters, mother-in-laws, nieces and nephews routinely get their birthday gifts mailed to them the week or two following their birthday. Oops. (Meg, go check the mail... I think yours might be coming today!)

So you can imagine how hard it is for me to conceptualize, shop for, execute, photograph, write descriptions, and finally put up for sale new holiday items or seasonal gift sets in time for anyone except pityful last-minute shoppers like myself to have any chance of ordering them. But, I have something really sweet for Mother's Day (a whole 5 weeks away!) in the shop right now, and I wanted to share it with you... if for no other reason than the fact that it's there. Small victories. :)

These are vintage-inspired french stripe kitchen towels personalized with a custom, hand-stitched, 2 letter monogram, just like antique European grain sacks and linens. They come in 3 colors - brown, blue, or red for $16.50 each. What a perfect gift for Mom! Beautiful, handmade, and just for her.

When I first introduced these towels a couple months ago, I only had the patterns created for a few letters, and I thought that it would be fun to offer the towels with anonymous monograms, just like an actual found antique.... Well, that went... OK. I ended up doing a few custom towels by special request for someone, and I noticed that several of the other people who ordered them just happened to have initials that matched the ones on the towel. {Light bulb} People wanted the towels personalized. I know, I should have known that from the beginning!

I spent the last week researching and coming up with patterns for every letter of the alphabet. The cross-stitched initials are patterned after letters from actual antique grain sacks, but some initials you almost never see on antique linens, so I had to piece them together using the patterns and style cues from letters that I did have. I used this etsy shop, which is FULL of grain sacks, for much of my inspiration when designing the letters.

I use the original (anonymous) towels that I stitched back at the beginning in my own kitchen now, and I even have some in the bathroom too. They add that perfect touch of french farmhouse style that I just love.



And did you notice that one has the initials "EC" on it?  Yep, that one is for me, too :)

Don't forget! Mother's Day is May 8th.