Kitchen towels for Mother and a cross stitch update

How to break this down? I thought that I could do 1 post per day but I don't think that I am patient enough to wait all 7 days for them all... So I think that I will cover it all here in this post, huge as it will be.
My dear Mother never asks for any sort of stitchy items, she always remarks on what I show her and she is always interested in hearing about my most current projects. When I did the chickens for my neighbor I caught the strong vibe from her that she would like her own set of towels. After searching through my collection of patterns via my computer, I found what I felt to be the perfect set for her. Day of the week flowers, and I set about getting them all stitched up one by one.
I honestly do not know whom the maker of the patterns are, I had to enlarge them prior to printing them, after I printed I found that the lines were not very sharp at all due to my enlargement so I went over them in black fine felt tip to get a nice crisp pattern from them. I don't use a fabric pencil for my tracing, I rig up a sort of poor-woman's light box to trace them onto my fabric using a standard #2 pencil a glass coffee table and an old desk lamp that is bendy and that I can face upward towards the glass. I think that when I have a chance I will scan my patterns into the computer and post them here so that they can be shared, I would normally reference where I located them but honestly I can't remember what blog/web site I pulled them from.
Onto the stitchery... let the insanity begin.

Starting with Saturday as it is Saturday today... still.




I think that I'm in love with how Sunday turned out.





Monday looking lovely.





Tuesday is another of my favorites.






Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday. I think it's the floss I chose for the writing but I just could not find a variegated floss color that looked right.





Thursday, I may do some bookmarks with this design I got quite a few compliments on the colors that I used for it.





Friday is so bright and cheery to finish out the week.





Here they all are ready to be given to my Mother.


She loved them, she even had tears in her eyes and told me that Grandma Lefa would be very pleased to see the hard work and would not know what to say. But that they reminded her more of what my Grandma Lois would have stitched up... it means so much to me to hear that, Grandma Lois taught me to embroider when I was around 7 or 8. I often think of her when I embroider and thought of her very much during the stitching of these towels. Here is the ugly truth though... My mother doesn't want to use them, afraid to ruin them! And to share another tid-bit... the chickens I made for my neighbor... she won't use her's either!
After all that work, I just feel a bit sad to think of them laying in a drawer for years not really being enjoyed. I'm proud to have made items for people that hold their gift in such high regard but I think that they are more honored in usage. I know that they are pretty and mom used the words keep-sake. But really, I made them to be enjoyed, touched and used.
I have a set of towels that I made for my kitchen and I use them all of the time... they make me smile and add a little personality to my kitchen.
They live here if you wish to see all 6 just view the embroidery set:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrs_kitty/2915157399/in/set-72157607898983071/

*sigh*

How about a cross stitch update...?



Keep stitching my stitchy peeps! I know I will!