I’m so exited to tell you about the Gigi Cardigan Kit, but first I want to tell you how it all came about. I remember years ago packaging up orders for a customer named Susan Anderson in Wisconsin. I would thank her for her support of our family business, and as I do with every package of buttons I mail out, I would wonder what creative things she was going to make with her buttons. One day I received a handful of custom order requests in our shop and one gal mentioned finding out about our buttons on a podcast. I asked her which one, saying I would love to listen to it, and she directed me to Susan B. Anderson’s blog and podcast.

I didn’t know that the customer I had been sending buttons to -Susan Anderson in Wisconsin- was a knitwear designer, and I was delighted looking through all of her beautiful knitting patterns on Ravelry. Turns out Susan is not only an amazing designer, she’s also just one of the sweetest people. When we’ve written back and forth, her kindness shines through every message she sends. I think feeding her creative spirit so often has made her radiate joy and she has a special warmth and glow to her. (I hope we get to meet in person someday.)

Susan told me she found out about our buttons when we advertised on SouleMama blog, and since then she has made so many beautiful projects with WoolyMossRoots buttons. Many times Susan shared her projects on her blog and Instagram, and linked to our buttons and brought us new customers. We were so grateful to her for spreading the word about our little family business!

Recently Susan contacted me and told me about her new yarn, kit, and pattern company she started with her son, called Barrett Wool Co. She said they were about to release a new cardigan kit with their Wisconsin Woolen Spun yarn and wondered if we would be interested in partnering with them and providing the buttons. We were so happy to collaborate with her. We’ve had other companies contact us in the past about making buttons for them, but they wanted us to put their brand name on them, and wanted very uniform buttons. The beautiful buttons that Jeff makes are handmade and they are each unique, so no two sets will be exactly alike, and Susan appreciated that about them. She also wanted to promote our business because she’s wonderful like that.

Jeff was quite busy in his shop working on the black walnut buttons for the kit. Many times Jeff hands me the finished buttons and I tie them on cards, but this time I helped with more stages of the button making process, which was really fun. I helped drill the buttons and cut the wood. As I did that the smell of the black walnut wood transported me to my grandpa’s woodshop when I was a little girl. I was surprised by that because I didn’t remember my grandpa working with black walnut (I always thought of him when I smelled cedar because of the cedar closet he made), but I asked my dad and he told me that black walnut was one of my grandpa’s favorite woods. That was a sweet memory, thinking of my grandpa in his woodshop, while I helped work on the buttons. Jeff put so much love into making the buttons for the kit and then I worked to get them all tied on cards. What a great feeling it was when we got them all packaged up and mailed out. Susan was so patient while we finished the buttons up, knowing how long the process takes.

  
And the kit… that’s what I came here to tell you about. The Gigi Cardigan Kit is now available! When I first saw the picture of the Gigi Cardigan, I fell in love with it. It’s really a gorgeous cardigan. The kit is available in five different colorways. We feel so honored to have our buttons included!  Susan wrote a post introducing the Gigi Cardigan Kit here, and she wrote the sweetest post about our buttons here. I love the kits that Barrett Wool Co. offers because you have everything you need to make your project. I had my eye on a few of the kits from them and they already sold out. Susan sent me a message that said: “Hey! We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Black Walnut buttons to no end. I can’t believe how beautiful they are. We are selling lots of kits and buttons.” We couldn’t be more pleased!

{Susan has brought some new people to our shop this last week in search of buttons. I was hoping to squeeze in another shop update with new buttons, but it didn’t happen. We’re getting ready to visit family this weekend and next week we’re busy getting ready for our next festival the following weekend. I’ll be doing a shop update when we return from that and that’s also when Jeff will work on the custom orders for buttons that we’ve received. By the way- I won’t be in this space for Gratitude Sunday this weekend, but I’ll be back here next week with more updates. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend ahead!}