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.
September seems to us here at Dear Lil' Devas to be THE month of birthdays! In no other month do I (Rosie) receive as many emails from you folks letting me know that what you've just purchased from us is a birthday gift for your friend or relative. I wonder, could there be a high concentration of Virgos among you? Or, perhaps Virgos are more likely to have friends who would be so kind as to send them a gift of DLD?
We hope that you have all had a wonderful summer. I am not going to say that I'm sorry it's over, because I won't acknowledge that reality until it snows!
We have some new items in the works, it's still a bit early to announce them - but one that is for sure safe to say is that we will have turtlenecks this year - out of the beautiful bamboo interlock. Any suggestions for new items are, as always, very welcome!
All our very best to you and we wish you much success with the journeys ahead during this (still summer ;) time!
Greetings everyone, it's Rosie and I'm so lucky to be writing to you from Brittany, France!! It's that favourite time of the year again, summer :-) Please do not mind that there is more "news" in this email than usual; there is a lot to share with you.
On the way here, at Charles de Gaulle, the most beautiful thing happened. There was a piano (of all the unexpected things) right in the terminal where our departure gate was, welcoming anyone to sit down and play. When we first came across it, a policeman was playing "Did You Ever See a Lassie" - which i'mtold is the tune for "Liebe St. Augustine" in German, and I don't (still don't know what it is in French, does anyone?). Children were grouped around him, some dancing and some just awestruck. Later I was sleeping on the floor in front of a big window, (we had a 6 hr stopover before the flight to Brest). Still have chuckle about that, my rolled up warmest pants were my pillow, had my grey bamboo dress on over a pair of jeans, my chocolate infinity scarf wrapped around my head and shoulders with my lilac sleep mask on - ha!
As I gradually awoke I felt that i must be still dreaming...the hallelujah chorus had started, it was so ethereal and beautiful that i felt I might be in heaven instead of on the floor at CDG!... and it was live, the acoustics in the terminal were amazing. The Charles de Gaulle workers have a choir. What a sight to behold; people dressed in their flight-crew uniforms, people with their reflective ground crew gear on and some people in plain clothes all gathered at the piano singing their hearts out!! At that moment I wished that everyone I hold dear could have been there with me to experience this.
Speaking of people who are held dear, before going further: Announcing this summer's new design! The design was created by Vijanthy. In case you are new to DLD, Vijanthy is our Production Manager - the woman to thank for conducting all of the daily workings of our little business.
When Vijanthy was in Sri Lanka the last time, she brought me back a 100% cotton woven caftan. Such a simple garment, but
so elegant. She used the caftan-style for the pattern for the tees - but in jersey knit fabric. This style is quite popular in stores this year, but always out of satiny-polyester fabrics. We are happy to be able to offer them to
you in either 100% cotton jersey or our bamboo jersey - much cooler. Some of the colours are in a limited quantity. A really wonderful addition to the DLD line, because they add a layering prospect.
So handy to just throw on well, anytime if
you need to all of a sudden look a bit more "put together". Elegant, AND comfortable. "
Instant Elegance Relaxed T-Shirts for Women"
This could be a really long e-mail. I do have quite a lot of news. We went to Montréal in early May, and thank you to everyone who sent suggestions as to what not to miss in Montreal. I must admit, that I personally didn't do anything except look at fabric, and wish I'd had the foresight to do a photographic exposee, because it would have been fun for you to see me come out unscathed.. (who'd have thought fabric shopping could be dangerous - ha). I climbed and climbed over rolls and rolls and rolls and up high into the rafters. It was truly my own private amusement park, so much fun that I didn't end up getting around to purchasing too much at all! Must go back. When you see us calling any of the colours by a French name, you will know that it is the "Montreal fabric".
Then when we got home, a little hiccup with the new website had to be addressed. That was - it had been gradually becoming evident that aspects of the design that needed changing, could not be changed. The new platform we had switched to was not Rosie-friendly at all. AND the person we had looking after it turned out to be not so "Rosie-friendly" either. Seriously. Can you imagine that??! So, with the epic generosity, elbow-grease and expertise of a veteran DLD-enthusiast we changed platforms again (I like to think of it as building and moving into a new house). Everything is ok now, very copacetic :-) And thank goodness that Vijanthy has such an amazing skillset and was able to step in as designer while I had my hard-hat on!!
Gollygee folks! (I want to say "guys" but recognize that most of us are "gals" - but not all) anyhow, gollygee folks! - having the reviews that you've put on the website has been an unexpected gift to us.
What has been unexpected is that this public format has inspired an even higher level of pride in the people who work with us. The reviews are like accolades. Can you please put more in? You can be absolutely sure that they will not go unnoticed, in fact, every word you write is devoured! Wonderful.
And, finally.. as always, please don't hesitate to communicate with any questions, suggestions or just plain observations. I am always so pleased to hear fromyou. I suspect that some of the replies that I've sent recently have been going into people's spam folders. If you write to me, and don't hear back for more than a day, (you know that i love to write back to you), please check your spam folder. One thing that I would like especially to know about the design of DLD's "new house" is: when you are on a page devoted to one of our items (say the Linen Dream Pants), is it obvious to you that you can click on the big picture, and it will open so that you can scroll through the rest of the pictures?
Mentioning the regular Linen Dream Pants has caused me to realize that
i haven't let
you know that we have a
new colour there,
it's Tan. And, gosh, other new colours are: Licorice and Ochre for the
thicker linen dream pants and two new immensely beautiful colours of the thicker cotton (for the
long skirts and thicker cotton dream pants
men's |
women's): Ocean and Grape. 2 colours of the thicker cotton have had name changes - Paprika is now Garnet, and Orange is now Terra-Cotta.
Much, much love, Rosie.
