Tamora Pierce Bookmarks SAL Design Insights - Release 2

The Circle of Magic books are some of my favorites by Tamora Pierce, and so there were a couple of things I wanted to be sure were included on their bookmarks. Where with the Tortall bookmarks there's one per series, for the Circle of Magic books there's one for each of the four main characters.

The Circle of Magic books were some of the first Tamora Pierce books that I read, and I still reread them once a year or so. I really enjoy the development of the characters over time, how they learn to use their magic both together and separately, and how they show the natural flow and ebb of friendship over time, like a tide going out and coming in.

Sandry's bookmark I had the inspiration for as soon as we had the idea to make bookmarks. The braid around the quote is the braid she makes when she's trapped, when she's first introduced into the books, and yes I did have to pull my book out to double check the colors used! I also very much wanted the quote to be something that involved Uvumi (which for anyone that doesn't know this series well means Patience in "trader talk")

I was really pleased at how this one came out overall, and I can't wait to stitch it!

(I'd have added a picture, but Wix is apparently having issues uploading pictures - so I'll add that later when their issue is fixed!)

Get the pattern in our SAL Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/730040497646157

Tamora Pierce Bookmark SAL Design Insights - Release 1

So for this SAL we wanted to go with something simpler, especially as we're doing a release every week and there's another SAL going on at the same time. These shouldn't take longer than a few days to stitch. The plan for the releases is to intersperse the Tortall bookmarks and the Emelan bookmarks.

I've always enjoyed Tamora Pierce's books, from the first day I found them in the very tiny "Young Adult" section of the library in my small town. I remember reading the Song of the Lioness Series for the first time, but it wasn't the first series by Tamora Pierce that I read. I started with Protector of the Small, so I'd already met Alanna in those books. Going back to read her history and what she had to go through to get where she wanted in life, following having read about Keladry, even with her struggles, showed me a wonderful amount of growth in the world of Tortall. It made me think that our world could be a better place if we worked for it, because that's what Alanna did through her series, and Keladry was able to become a Lady Knight in hers, because of Alanna. I think it's still something important to realize in this day and age, that what we do now affects the future, what we do now sets the stage for our children, and theirs. Tamora Pierce's books have always been very meaningful to me, because they're some of the first books I ever read that had female main characters that actually did something.

We started at the beginning with these bookmarks and for Alanna's series we had to go with her necklace as the graphic (setting the stage for some of the future bookmarks as well!). In the books it's described as glowing purple when she's using it, and being made from a piece of coal from her fire, tied with a strip of leather. We played around with several ideas, but I ended up liking one of the cover's renditions of it, so that's what we made. For the quote we had to go with something short, but something meaningful, and considering that this is a bookmark a quote about learning seemed appropriate. Everyone can always learn.

Next week we'll release a bookmark from Emelan!

Here's the link to the pattern (available free through July 2021): https://www.facebook.com/groups/730040497646157/permalink/795057141144492

Broadway SAL - Release 5 Design Insights

We are finally at Little Shop! I don't think this letter is going to come as a surprise for most as almost everyone who guessed got it pretty easily.

Of course the main graphic on this one had to be Audrey II! There are so many iterations of the Audrey, similar but with little differences, that we went back and forth a lot on the design. The final choice tried to include some elements from a couple of different shows, but we also wanted to keep the nice bright colors going. The other elements for this letter everyone has gotten to see spread out across the first 4 letters, blood spatter (with 1 accidental chili) and vines. You can see that the vines are reaching out towards the W and will continue to tie letters together.

For the coloring of the D we wanted to reflect the blood font found on many of the posters with the red dripping down and almost covering it.

There was almost no debate on the working inside of the letter. Though there are a handful of other lines that would have fit well we had to go with Feed Me.

There are more graphics coming into play on this one. The bubbles are back and I know a lot of you have a good idea where they are coming from. You can see some more of the graphics coming over from the W as well as part of the letter itself. I've seen a lot of correct guesses on the Facebook page as for what the W is, so I'm betting y'all will be able to figure out what they are. However we have reached the point where we have another far reaching element starting up. You can see it in a little burst of red at the top and silver at the bottom. You'll have to wait a little before we reach where these are coming from, but I look forward to people figuring out what they are. I will give you the hint that for those of you who are incorporating metallic or shiny thread into you piece these might be something you want to wait to stitch (or preemptively incorporated shiny on.)

We hope our Little Shop of Horrors letter was worth all the build up to it! I'm looking forward to seeing the little changes y'all make to make this section your own! The ones on the last letter were so much fun. I can't wait to see how everyone will personalize Audrey!