January 2008

Hope you all had a lovely holiday season and are ready for some great stitching this year! I always love the change in the year as I dream of new things to do. To that whole new thing... I have a few 'new' things to tell you.

Here are the new patterns for Nashville Needlework Market.

This promises to be a little journey through MA and a great look into the past --The Bay State Sampler - Massachusetts- the new addition to the American Journey Series.

A Needle and Thread Sampler - done for a great Canadian Magazine Publication - A Needle Pulling Thread - this charming sampler features some lovely pulled thread work using a soft colour palate.

Two additions to the 'Sititches' series in Pomegranate and Pear Stitches, and Silver Needle Stitches. These 2 pieces are exactly the same size as the others and will also fit into the box made for them by Olde Colonial Designs. On the cover photos I have shown them framed but they certainly can fit the box as the stitch count remains the same.

For release this June ( maybe earlier if I can get the instructions written sooner! )will be "My Stitching Treasures Accessories. They are finally coming. I have worked on this for several years, I did one alphabet and hated it so I sent it the 'recycle' bin, we had it all finished and I couldn't live with the font, so I changed everything and redid it all! (I know what you are thinking! <grin>)This has 5 pieces to it and I will have it with me in Nashville for you to see but the pattern writing is not complete.

For release this September is a whole new series called 'My Stitching Album'. As you see on the home page there is a brochure with some information and I will post more as I work on updating the website. This is a ten page project (including front and backpage) featuring some of the basic stitches used in samplers. A poem per page reflects on stitching and our passion along with displaying the stitch in various different ways.

One last exciting project we are working on is a Jeannette Douglas Stitch and Sail, January 2009. I will be posting more of this exciting cruise with Jeannette when the details are refined.

So as usual I have my hand in many things and so along with my teaching this year we look forward to some very exciting times!

December 2007

My apologies for not doing this sooner, I was having webserver changes which changed other things.... you know how that goes, but finally here we are. It is almost the middle of December and Christmas is around the corner. I do hope that you all are able to enjoy some stitching, family and friends time. It seems that the lead up to the season becomes so frantic that we forget to enjoy some of our favourite things to do. Did you see the ornament issue? I hope you got a chance to see Christmas Tree One and Christmas Tree Two in the Just Cross Stitch Sept./Oct. Issue and the Ornament issue. They were such fun for me to stitch, I am working on something for next year with the same idea as I liked it so much....either an ornament, bell or candy cane....or?

Due to the full event schedule last year and this year I haven't had as many designs for general publishing as I would have liked. It adds up and creates a very small window for other designs. I am working on quite a few and hope that I finish some of these in this year to come.

But I am madly in the process of getting all the patterns ready for printing for Nashville Needlework Market again. I have a few lined up and will have some new additions to series and some other interesting designs. I hope to start a whole new series and will keep you in suspense as to what it might be! I have another cool thing in the works too, so keep posted and I promise to be a bit quicker with an update, but truly events for most of October and then regrouping and trying to finish the new designs for events and cleaning up and bringing to the printer the newest ones it seems I always run out of time

I just want to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support and encouragement this year. I am blessed to have you all in my life and it truly is the richer for it. Our shared love of stitching is something that people who don't stitch miss out on!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and the very best of wishes for a great 2008!

January 2007

Due to fiddling with web pages we have inadvertently lost the November update, my apologies!

So a little update for you now.

As you can see on the events page I have added several other event places to the roster this year. It worked out that my far away places were in the summer so an addition to Edmonton, in my home province was very easy to do, and the addition of Ottawa our capital city of Canada is always a delight!

You can also check on the new releases page for information on my newest patterns for release in Nashville. Pictures will be coming soon.

In the summer issue of A Needle Pulling Thread I have submitted a piece in band sampler style and wrote a poem for it. I didn't realize poem writing was something that I could do until I wrote the poem for the new release 'We Stitch' and I haven't stopped since!

I have also added the Hamilton City Sampler to the City Sampler page, and a link to Stitchers Hideaway. Sue does wonderful upbeat retreats in different cities across the States, a good fit for me and my geographical samplers isn't it!