Why September's Flower Basket is Late

It was the first week in September when Meg sent me this breathtaking photo from her garden. Thinking of the Flower Basket of the Month, I immediately changed gears from Sunflowers to Zinnias. 

Anyone who knows me, knows I don't like butterflies and have never digitized them-- it's not that I absolutely hate them, but just that they have been so overused in decoration, and mostly not well. But something about this one got me... he even visited Meg again the next day!

I have never digitized zinnias before, either-- there's a lot of petals there! But it was early in the month and I decided to go for it. Meg was good enough to bring me some of her zinnias for reference, and all was well!

All the while, I was slightly concerned about my mom and sister who live in Naples, Florida-- Irma was on the way! They had brand new hurricane shutters installed and weathered the storm fine, although power was out. Until...

the day AFTER the storm. Apparently those hurricane shutters make the inside of a house dark. Well, my mom, who is 84, tripped on something, fell, and broke her arm! She was able to get to the emergency room, but no surgeon was available and it was packed, so she got sent home for a miserable week before they could fix it (steel rod, pins) and all.

So to make a long story short, I have been back and forth to Florida twice in the last three weeks, but my mom is doing well and I finally did get that flower basket finished. 

After all the stress-- I am really pleased with it!

Here's a picture of all of the flower basket mug rugs so far this year-- there are ten. We started with crocuses in January and have gone through the year so far with whatever we can find in bloom that month. They are completely quilted in the hoop, very realistic-- I guess you can see how proud I am of this work.

We hope you are stitching along-- 

if you are not, and also to apologize to our customers for the late month, here's a free single zinnia picked from the basket, just for you... 

visit the webpage link and you'll see the download on the left side of the page.

FREE ZINNIA

Thanks for your patience as always, and we hope no more disasters and no more delays for any of us for the rest of the year!

XOX