Dear Lil' Devas News December 2015 December 11, 2015 16:18

My fondest greetings for the season everyone. (Rosie here) I find myself focusing on the lovely traditions of the past. Cedar boughs, Aunt Annie's Christmas Cake recipe with lots of rum, the delight of the children in the family looking at old ornaments and hearing the stories of the older family members. And, of course what caused Dear Lil' Devas in the first place is my enjoyment of cooking up new things on my sewing machine.

A friend recently said to me - just imagine what it would have been like if you had to, as in the old days, make all the clothing for everyone in your family, you probably wouldn't like sewing so much then. That was a good reminder, causing me to appreciate the luxuries that I have all around me.

This year I found great delight in a totally new design - well, new to Dear Lil' Devas that is, cloaks or capes (we've called them "Mantles" have been around almost as long as people have been on the earth. Funny that we didn't think of making them before, they are absolutely in line with the theme that runs through all Dear Lil' Devas clothing and accessories - designed to preserve... and I must add, enhance your serenity. From the Original Cotton Dream Pants to keep you very cool but covered to the width of the neck on the turtlenecks, and even to the small details like making sure there are no scratchy labels, this is our credo for sure!

Our new items for the holidays: 

Dear Lil' Devas Mantles of Warmth - these are two separate layers. Both layers are designed to be able to be worn alone or together. A soft surplus (yes i got lucky again, but unfortunately this causes there to be a limited quantity) fabric with a looped face and soft fleecy inside for the under layer (Under-Mantle) and 3 fantastic Under-Mantle colour choices. And, the over layer (Over-Mantle) is a luxurious Pure Virgin Wool woven in the classic colour charcoal. You can purchase the two layers as a set on this page or separately. As usual we ran away a bit wanting to give you a lot of choice - I suggest that you view the page for the set first, and be sure to scroll through all the pictures and the explanations that go along with them first. I hope that you will enjoy looking at the pictures, we had great fun taking them, thanks to the enthusiasm for these new mantles that the models had - I chose these ladies as the models because it was their idea in the first place that we make them and they gave me a lot of input to do with the design (we thank them for the big inside pocket on the thicker Under-Mantle and the high cozy collars) if you're in the neighbourhood, you may catch a glimpse of see these dear neighbours sporting their Mantles of Warmth out and about this holiday.

Mending my son's martial arts gi earlier in autumn caused me a lightbulb moment... the bumpy "gi cotton" is the perfect fabric for yoga mat covers or towels. This is something I've been trying to "solve" for many years. Finding a supplier for this fabric in Canada after this light-bulb moment proved to be not simple either, but we found it. They are available to pre-order (to make them we have to clear a lot of space and a good chunk of time) because it involves changing our production process, so we are accepting your orders, for delivery in January. Yoga Towels

BUT - here's some more anecdotal "rosie" information... and rather a long story. Last year at Christmas, I'm not sure how or why, my father-in-law and I got talking about cherry pits. He told me about how the pits of cherries have amazing properties for maintaining temperature. Well... as you know, I really do like all things natural and you know those hot and cold packs that you use as a warmer/cooler when you are sore somewhere, I've made with rice before, but eventually that rice gets a bit old inside those packs, and with heating and cooling eventually the pack smells. So, I got excited about trying out cherry pits (friends and family saved them for me this summer, can't tell you how much i got teased about that request, ha!) But, the stones aren't always free of the meat of the cherries, so i thought that i'd freeze them for a while after the summer to see if the meat came off more easily after that) and just pulled them out a couple of weeks ago. Well, they still were not easy to clean after freezing them, and it got rather messy in the kitchen. I was soaking through tea-towels at an alarming rate and grabbed some scraps of the new yoga towel fabric which i knew was really absorbent... New tea-towels folks, not only are they absorbent, but the massive amount of water they will hold before soaking through is kind of crazy!! We've made them very big this time - a Jumbo (can be used for many other purposes besides in the kitchen) and in Big Squares. Thirsty Woven Cotton Tea-Towels

My mother has been collecting bigger boxes for your holiday orders at her favorite health food store. When I saw all the boxes that she has lately collected, I thought to myself that we wouldn't possibly need them all, I was delightfully wrong!! Thank you to my mother, and to the good folks at Jo Anne's Place in Peterborough for saving the boxes for us - wonderful to be able to reuse them! Of course I mustn't forget to thank our neighbours for continuing to drop off your empty cereal boxes on our porch, it's funny, even though you've been dropping them off for such a long time now, I still feel so pleasantly surprised when I find them!

And, great news - our new website is proving to be fantastic. It is on the Shopify platform and I feel that must give great kudos to the people at Shopify for all the help they've given me in the the last 5 months. They have support available 24/7!!! I have a dear friend who has started working there, and he is finding the experience to be really remarkable. This is a Canadian company, and one that we can be very proud of. 

Thank you again for all of your communications, suggestions, accolades - in one word, patronage. We wish you deep serenity this holiday season. Love Rosie.