Here it is March 16th already.  We have had a few nice days, with temps in the high 50's and low 60's.  It was so nice, I started to plan my garden and then Minnesota played a joke on me.  I woke up to wet, heavy snow.  This on top of many inches of rain yesterday.  Wish I would have had my rain gauge out.  Just North East of us they received over 4" yesterday and last night.  The forecast is for up to 18" of snow in some areas around us.  I sure hope we don't get that here. 

Anyway in celebration of spring I have a simple little candle mat pattern for you.  Sorry, it took me so long to get this out.  This isn't as detailed as most of my patterns are, so if you need me to break it out into parts, please post below and give me few days to get it done.  When drawing your parts just be sure to extended them down behind each other and you will be fine.  This is the mat I was telling you about in my previous posts.  Where Sue Spargo meets Laura Bailey.  It was tons of fun, doing all of the stitching, I need a lot more practice too.  I think it will be just as cute if you just use a blanket stitch on it.  The butterflies are part of the "In The Garden" BOM over at Quilting Around the Worlds website QATW You are welcome to go on over and join if you are not a member.  If you aren't a member, you have to go through the steps to join and then give the Administrator a bit to accept your membership and then you are free to download the pattern.  The admin is usually on top of memberships, but please be patient incase she is busy.  She will get to it as quickly as is possible. 

Now for some pictures of the mat. 
It is hard to see in my pictures - The hearts are surrounded by bullion knots and covered with sparkly little seed beads.  The rim of the cup and the rim of the saucer are also done in bullion knots.  The flower petals are done with Palestrina knots.  The butterflies have the Palestrina knot, bullion knots, the Pekinese stitch and a beaded French knot.  What Sue has you do is to stitch all your piece down with a matching thread using a whip stitch and then you go back and add all of your ornate stitches.  I cut the heart out with a tiny pair of scissors.  At a guess there is between 80 and 100 hours of stitchin here.  But, it was well worth the time and was so much fun.  I am glad I did it.  Also, this was my first time using wool threads - they glide through the wool like butter.  So, of course I purchased more.

Here is the link to Crocus_Heart_Tea_Cup_pattern Please let me know if you have any problems or need any help.

 

Now onto the next project.  I have been doodling the past few mornings and I think my next wooly project is going to be a "Garden Angel"  I have her all sketched out, so I may just play with some wool and get her ready to stitch in the evenings when I get home from work. 

 

Please take a little time to check out a few of the blogs I follow, you will find they have posted their new BOM's.  Sorry, I haven't had the time to post the links for February.  There are some really cute patterns out there.

 

Happy Stitchin!

Laura