Blue Coppice Blatherings

Here's hoping for a really boring 2008...

2007-12-31T22:12:00.000Z

It's the end of 2007 so I thought it was time for my annual blog entry! So much has happened this year that I'm only now starting to breathe. To summarise:

29th January: Fell down a flight of concrete stairs when leaving work, managing to dislocate my right elbow so badly it fractured both bones in my lower arm...oops... I ended up in the Royal Infirmary in Manchester for a week (fantastic staff, unbelievably bad food and extremely uncomfortable beds) and left with two pins sticking out of me and a 4 inch scar. Not good. My boss was amazing, even paying for taxis to work and back when I insisted on working part-time and taking the train was too painful, and generally humouring me through the drug-induced haze of February and March!

I can't describe how well A looked after me - he did everything from washing my hair to getting up in the middle of the night to check I was okay, not to mention visiting me every day from 2-8pm in hospital and bringing me all kinds of delicious food to tempt me to eat (I think I should have bought shares in M&S before I went in!)...I wasn't the best company, being either doped up or unconscious, but words can't express how good it felt to wake up in the ward & see him reading in the chair next to me. I hated being in hospital and being so helpless but he made it bearable and I will never be able to thank him enough.

Oh, and of course not being able to stitch normally for 3 months wasn't much fun either! One-handed stitching is bad enough, let alone when you're not left-handed...deeply frustrating...all that time off work and nothing to show for it...snarl...

February & March: Both months passed in a haze while I worked part-time and tried to catch up with sleep - I still can't remember half the conversations I had with clients or friends! Those drugs were gooooooooooooooooood.....

April to August: When I wasn't slaving at the office to catch up with work, physio and hospital appointments took care of any spare time through the summer, and I celebrated with an extremely good chinese dinner after the physio finally gave me the all-clear. The elbow isn't totally straight and I can't turn it completely over but it's workable! Catherine (the physio) and her colleagues worked really hard to fix it, and did a damn fine job :-) Thanks guys!!

September & October: This house went on the market and we found a new place further south. A had found himself a new job by this time and I started working in my new role as Branch Manager at the new office. A comes home at weekends while I commute every day so I can look after Daisy - the 5.30am start isn't much fun but I love the challenge and can't wait to be moved closer to work! At the same time, we were planning the wedding for the end of October...me, stressed? Surely not...

27th October: Our wedding day! See the next post if you want all the details, if not, all you need to know is that it was amazing and better than we had ever imagined :-)

November & December: We are still waiting to move but hopeful that everything will be sorted out soon :-) I managed to come down with an infected cyst just before Christmas which meant I was enjoyed the cuisine of the local hospital...again...luckily I only needed to be in for a couple of nights but I really, really don't want to be there again! Christmas hasn't been quite as we'd hoped but it's been thankfully quiet - just the two of us and Daisy - and rather sober as I've been on antibiotics and A has been suffering from a case of man-flu. All entertaining and socialising can wait till next year!

As far as stitching goes, I finished the wedding sampler for my sister and presented it to her the day before our wedding - only a year late... Frustratingly enough, I only had a couple of hours work to do on it when I fell down the stairs and had planned to finish it that weekend - instead I had to wait until I'd recovered properly as I was halfway through an over-one section, and on 32ct linen I didn't dare take a risk... It was based on my Honeyapple Meadow Floral Sampler, but with some changes :-) One of the topiary birds was turned into a robin (after my BIL's name) and the bee nearest to that tree was moved so that it kissed the robin, and I added a tiny gold crown too! Other changes included a blue spider amongst the forget-me-knots, a particular phrase (understood only by the family!) made from the forget-me-knot stems and half covered so it is only visible in certain lights, and of course I added the year they married :-) Unfortunately I totally forgot to take a picture, but my sister seemed to like it!

I also started Anagram Diffusion's Les Caleches, finished Mirabilia's New Year's Fairy and a very cute one by The Trilogy called Happy Bunny Bunny Day which I did over-one, and I've finished the stitching for Lavender & Lace's Angel of Love - there's still a lot more beading to do though...Daisy's finding this bit entertaining... The Sampler Guild's Huswif is slowly progressing too :-)

I've not stitched as much as I would have liked this year, but I have been coming up with quite a few new design ideas which are at various stages of completion. It's been such a busy time with work that I have found my brain cells sadly lacking in energy in the evenings! A has promised to start working on a new website for me next year but I suspect it might be towards the end of next year...there may be a little interior decorating to help with first...tee hee... ;-)

Phew. I think that covers most things. As you can see, it's been eventful - and while some of it has also been fun, I really, really hope 2008 will be very, very boring...the most exciting thing I want to happen is for us to move with as few hiccups as possible...hmm...anyone taking bets?

It's sunny and it's lunchtime!

2006-11-02T11:18:00.000Z

I'm not sure I should bother apologising for the length of time between posts anymore...let's face it, the muse comes upon me in fits & spurts - and completely depends on how many brain cells I'm carrying at any one time.

So to update you all, yet again my job has changed somewhat. Following staff movement in the summer, my manager asked if I'd like to head up the Birmingham/West Midlands division & return to a consultancy role - something I swore I'd never do again... However, she's very persuasive and to be fair the company has a very different culture to that of the last consultancy I worked in, so here I am, wondering if I've made the right move but thoroughly enjoying myself!

Unfortunately, this does leave less time for stitching and designing as it requires far more brain power than my previous role, I think partly because I'm still getting used to it all. I've been making fairly silly mistakes while stitching in the evenings so have decided to leave all work on the wedding sampler for the weekends - there's not much left to do but I'd hate to make a mess of it at this late stage. In the evenings, I've been alternating between the TSG Challenge Huswif, all the Shepherds Bush ornaments from Just Cross Stitch Ornament issues over the past few years (nearly finished and waiting this year's!) and The Sweetheart Tree's B for Bunny (should be finished this evening - only 14 tiny beads to go!).

The Halloween Fairy by Mirabilia is finished but not framed yet - unfortunately the fabric provided isn't large enough to stretch around the board for the frame I want to use so it needs to have extra strips sewn to the edges. I must admit I did try to take the lazy route & just lay it in the frame but as I'd suspected gravity took its toll! I have the same problem with the Christmas Elf Fairy so they're both temporarily in their frame to keep them safe before I get to do a proper job.

On other stitchy news, I met up with a group from the Sampler Guild on 21st October where we gossiped, stitched and ate till we burst! We met at "Patchworks" in Chorley, Lancashire - an Aladdin's Cave of a shop stuffed to the brim with everything you could possibly need for quilting, patchwork and card-making/scrapbooking...not to mention stitching supplies :-) The shop has only been open since July and has undergone an amazing transformation from a rundown victorian terrace into a ground floor shop and 1st floor kitchenette, sitting room and a gloriously bright and airy front room - ideal for get-togethers and workshops! We were all made to feel incredibly welcome by the owner, and the sandwiches and cakes supplied by the baker next door were much appreciated. It was Sylvia's birthday and so we not only had the cakes from the baker, but also a fabulous victoria sponge and chcolate sponge - both loaded with fresh cream...yum...yum...

We all enjoyed ourselves so I'm hoping it will be come a regular event - Chorley's very easy to get to from here and it's lovely to meet up with everyone. Seeing everyone's work always inspires me too - there are so many ways of working, tricks and techniques to be picked up, not to mention the drooling over new charts and completed pieces :-)

What else? It was my birthday the other week & we celebrated by getting extremely wet & muddy walking round the Yorkshire Sculpture Park - it's huge & we only skimmed the surface! I can highly recommend it as a day out (or three!), seeing Henry Moore sculptures in the middle of a field surrounded by sheep is slightly surreal but well worth the trip. There was a series of light installations by James Tyrell in one of the galleries (there are several dotted round the ground) which was quite incredible - A & I were the only ones inside which emphasised how peaceful and calming the pieces were...we could have stayed there for hours just staring at the colours and shadows..

A & I love going out and about at weekends, either strolling round the deer park at our local stately home (Dunham Massey) or exploring a little further afield, especially at this time of year when the temperature cools. A little dampness doesn't put us off either, in fact the best days out have been when we have these places to ourselves because everyone else has been driven inside by the torrential rain! For future trips, we're thinking about a local otter and owl sanctuary, revisiting YSP, going to see the Gormley sculptures in the sea near Morecambe, the Liverpool Tate...etc...etc....there just aren't enough weekends in the year!

Apart from all the fresh air benefits, these trips are really good times to discuss wedding plans without distractions! So far we have "notified of our intent to marry", booked the registrar, the reception, the photographer and the wedding night hotel and told our friends & family to keep the date free. I still haven't decided what I'm wearing, we have no idea about the colour scheme (although that will probably depend on my outfit!), flowers, food, rings, music, words for the ceremony...etc...etc...etc... At least we know what we'll be getting the best man & bridesmaid and we've got a pretty good idea about what we don't want to happen!

We're in the early stages of designing the invitations at the moment - and since we are have space for only 38 guests, we can plan for something a little different! Luckily, although we're both designers, we have very similar tastes and seem to be able to recognise each other's strengths - although it's early days yet ;-) Since we're both passionate about what we do there are bound to be a few "discussions", although A is used to awkward clients so I think he'll be able to handle me...as long as he realises I'm right.... ;-)

Time to go - hopefully I'll get round to taking some pics of my recent finishes for the next entry, but I'm not promising it'll be this side of Christmas!!

Hurrah it's raining!!

2006-08-01T13:27:00.000Z

Finally! There's been too much heat for my liking and Manchester has now returned to the cooler, damper place we all know & love :-)

After a deeply relaxing two weeks, A & I have returned to the real world, switched the phones back on & gone back to work...much as I enjoy my job, there's nothing like knowing all your colleagues are sitting in the office while you luxuriate in bed at 9am with nothing to get up for but the pitiful mews of a woebegone cat (telling me she hasn't been fed for WEEKS, nobody loves her and what does a cat have to do to get some attention round here?)...

Since we're saving for a certain date at the moment, we decided not to go abroad this year but instead planned to spend some time relaxing with my parents, then coming back home to tidy up the garden, and do a few odd jobs round the house as well as catching up on stitching and reading. Well, as usual, plans never quite work out.

My parents returned from their holiday (a few days before we were due to travel down) to find their rather large & well-stocked pond had been plundered by the local foxes! Unfortunately, with the heat of recent weeks, the water level had been rather low which made it all too easy for the foxes to grab the fish as they basked in the sun...even worse, in getting back out of the pond, the foxes evidently tore the pond lining so the majority of the water drained away leaving the remaining fish to be almost poached by the sun in the shallows :-(

So, instead of a few days relaxing in the garden with appropriate iced drinks, A & I were drafted in to help re-line the pond before the surviving fish also succumbed. As the pond is nearly 5ft deep at its deepest point and approximately 5ft across, with lots of shelves and marginal areas, this was no mean feat!! I seemed to spend most of Saturday either crouching in the bottom of the hole under the footbridge (feeling rather like a troll from a Grimm fairytale) or cavorting in the water pressing down the creases as the new liner was refilled (would like to think in the manner of a water nymph, but have a horrible feeling it bore more resemblance to a hippo from Disney's Fantasia...).

I cooked a huge chilli the day before driving down so we had a Mexican feast once all the heavy work was completed - chilli, nachos, rice, refried beans, cheese, salsa, guacamole and sour cream with a rather good bottle of red...yum....in fact, it went down so well, A requested it for dinner the following weekend!

On the Sunday, A & I were somewhat redundant as the major work had all been done the day before so were able to relax on the patio in the shade while my mother ummed & aahed about where to replant iris clumps, waterlilies, primroses....etc...etc....

Before driving back home on the Monday, A & I went to see Superman Returns at Bluewater - the local shopping mall which has not only the best doughnuts in the world (my waistline is very thankful Krispy Kreme haven't arrived in Manchester yet), but also the most comfortable cinema seats and the fluffiest cinema popcorn! I'd been looking forward to the film but while the effects were good, it wasn't as innovative as I'd hoped. To be honest, I much preferred Pirates of the Carribean 2 which we saw a couple of weeks ago - I really enjoyed the first one but this was sooooooooo much better! Casting Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow was just inspired...

Back home, it was far too hot to attempt too much gardening and as A & I are blessed/cursed with stereotypical British complexions, we decided the best plan was to stay out of the sun as much as possible by going on a few day trips to take advantage of the air-conditioning in the car! Getting lost in the Derbyshire dales and Welsh borders in glorious sunshine with our favourite music playing and air conditioning blowing....bliss.... :-)

(Now I had planned to put some pictures here of some of the places we'd been, but once again Blogger is playing silly devils! Maybe later...)

As for stitching, well I didn't get quite as much done as I'd hoped but that's always the way! The sampler is coming along nicely & I even started a couple of other little things whilst travelling about :-) Mirabilia's Halloween Fairy is looking rather lovely - the earthy tones of the dress with the vivid touches of orange and peacock green work very well, A prefers her to the Christmas Elf Fairy so far but I'm torn between the two! :-)

I've also made a start on Shepherd's Bush 2000 Years Ago, a collection of the first ornaments that were published in the Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornaments magazines. I've been getting the magazines for the past couple of years so have the later designs but was very pleased to find the early ones in one leaflet! The delicate, natural tones tie in very nicely with the colours I have round the house at Christmas time and as they're small and straightforward to stitch, are good for travelling or when your brain has decided to take a holiday too... ;-)

Mind you, it could take a few years before I get round to deciding how to finish them...and then another couple years to actually do it...

On a completely different matter, I returned to work to find that we'd blasted our targets for the last two months so we each have £400 in holiday vouchers to spend!! Woohoo!! At the moment I'm thinking about splashing out on a weekend in a really nice country house hotel, complete with spa treatments, sometime in early 2007...but then flights are so cheap, maybe we should go abroad instead...decisions...decisions....

Oops...I've just realised how long this is...well done to all of you who have made it this far! Time for me to vamoose....byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Only Friday to go...

2006-07-12T15:57:00.000Z

...and then I'm officially on holiday!! Woohoo!!

And looking at the state of the garden after recent tropical conditions, I'd say it was about time...I have a feeling I'm going to be begging to return to work after a few days taming the triffids & trying to get things back into some semblance of order. Daisy thinks it's wonderful - the lawn has sprouted several inches in the last few days so she's been busy pretending she's a tiger prowling in the steamy Bengal jungles. Unfortunately, the frogs have also found the overgrown conditions rather interesting so A & I have spent more time than we'd like separating frog and cat...

We've both been very tired recently & really in need of our time off. It's been a really busy few months for us both, at work and home, but there's so much to do & only one lifetime to do it in! The recent hot weather hasn't helped - we're both typically British pink & white so we tend to wilt, and the humidity has been pretty horrible at night. A was considering getting a portable air conditioner for the bedroom and then he saw the prices...doh...think we'll stick with the fan until that lottery win comes round!!

Luckily stitching and designing are best done in the shade and don't require much movement so I'm rather pleased with my progress in the last couple of weeks :-)

The Christmas Elf Fairy is finished, I stitched up the Friendship Sampler from last year's UKSBB get-together in Derbyshire, I've made a little more progress with the Huswif and I'm back to working on the sampler having defeated the over-one frogs! See pics below...

The Christmas Elf Fairy by Mirabilia

Friendship Sampler by Kate of UKSBB

House & Garden Huswif - 2005 TSG Challenge

See previous entries for copyright info!

I had a flash of inspiration the other week for a new Blue Coppice design and I'm keen to get started on this once the sampler's done, so I've had to be pretty strict with my BC goals for the rest of the summer:

1) Finish the sampler!
2) Put a box together (the one I had a Eureka moment with the other week)
3) Finish the people and the winter tree on the huswif - and make a couple of decisions regarding the summer and autumn sections
4) Finalise construction details for the new design and start stitching - this one is going to take a little thought. It's a simple concept but exact measurements are going to be pretty crucial...

I'm sure I've missed out a couple of things but that'll do for the moment :-)

Onto other pieces, I couldn't resist the lure of Mirabilia's new Halloween Fairy but I'm planning to make a couple of changes...I think the fairy is looking at something so I'm going to add a small cat and I think transform the bag into a handful of blue spiders... ;-) I'm not going to be stitching her just yet (too many other things are screaming at me) but she might creep into my winter plans...

This space should contain the picture of the Halloween Fairy but for some reason Blogger's decided to give up on the idea of importing images at the moment, so it'll have to wait!

I've taken to working on smaller things at lunchtimes at work - I don't seem to have enough time to go out but I need a break from the computer so I've found that 30mins stitching really helps me keep going through the afternoon :-) The Christmas Elf Fairy has been ideal for this as it was small enough to be portable and it gave me a break from over-thinking on the BC designs - now she's done, I'm taking the time to work more on the Huswif as the wedding sampler is too big to lug around, definitely a home only project!

Initially, I wasn't too sure how my colleagues would take to my desk being covered with "string", but to my surprise the reactions have been rather positive! Lots of oohing & aahing, even more of the usual "You've got more patience than me", "I could never do that" and "How's your knitting coming along?"...saints preserve us...

My boss has been particularly keen. We were all out at one of the local bars having a couple of drinks in the sunshine on a beautiful Friday evening, and to my surprise, she told A that if she's had a tough, stressful morning and walks into the office to see me happily stitching away, she instantly feels better! Apparently it's very theraputic to watch - everything must be under control or I wouldn't have the mental energy to spare...or something like that...

Speaking of mental energy, mine's running out now! Time to go... :-)

Don't fall off your chair in shock...

2006-06-19T12:17:00.000Z

...but your eyes are not deceiving you, this is my second entry in two weeks! Amazing...it'll never happen again...

I've hit a lunchtime lull as I wait for other people to do things and databases to work, so what better time for a brief update?

The picture upload seems to be working today, so here's the pic I tried to put in my last entry:

"The Christmas Elf Fairy"

Part of a series of limited editions

I've nearly finished the wings now so I only have the fur trim round the hat and dress left to do...it will be my first experience of using Wispa thread which should be fun :-) I've been told the trick is to use very short lengths and to take your time...sounds like some of the IT training I've have to give... ;-)

This weekend was rather disrupted as a new rear windscreen wiper blade ended up costing a few thousand more than it should have done...oops...

On the way to the Parts department, A & I walked past a new Ford Ka priced at a ridiculously low amount...hmmm, I thought, my current Ka is four years old and won't be worth much as a deposit but you never know... So we popped into the showroom, had a chat, noted down some figures and then went to a rather nice country pub to cogitate over a cider for the evening.

Sunday morning arrives and we're off to the local Halfords to stock up on new sponges. My Ka is cleaned inside & out like it's never been cleaned before, and I collect together all my documents. All that is except my driving licence. This is a slight problem. For those outside the UK, the modern licences have two parts, a credit card style photo ID and then a paper form - well, I had the card but could I find the paper? Not a hope.

Now I'm pretty organised when it comes to my paperwork so after hunting in the most likely places, we decide to leave it & hope it won't be needed just yet. Off we go to the garage & I buy my very first brand new car :-) And as you can see, it's lovely!

Ford KA in "Tonic" Blue

Unfortunately, I need to go back to the garage to sign some other bits, and that's when I need to take both parts of the licence...cue a frantic tearing the house apart when we got back home. It was nowhere to be seen. Everywhere had been checked at least three times & I was beginning to get a teensy bit fraught...until A mildly made the suggestion that it might be an idea if I checked my handbag again.

Bah.

Of course, I rather crossly pointed out that I'd already checked it many times...just as I spotted it tucked inside another piece of paper, inside a tiny zipped pocket where I'd put it for safekeeping a few weeks before...doh...

I hate it when he's right.

Sorry...again...

2006-06-13T08:48:00.000Z

Yet again, all my good resolutions have gone to pot as life decided to rudely interrupt my plans...pants...

Anyway, it's been some time so here's a quick update:

April 30th, A took me to Conwy Castle in Wales and officially asked me to marry him :-D We were in the lovely chapel when he got down on bended knee & presented me with the most beautiful ring...of course I said yes - we've been discussing it for a while but I wasn't expecting a ring so soon!! (Bling details: Platinum with diamond solitare in tension setting)

We've set the date for late October 2007 which seems ages away but we wanted to save up as much money as possible. The reception's going to be at Manchester Art Gallery with the ceremony at Manchester Registry Office - very small, just immediate family and close friends - and I can't wait! I'm sure there'll be a few more details closer to the time, but at the moment A & I are organising the official invitations. Luckily, as it's going to be a small "do", we can afford to spend the time making them ourselves - it's very handy being engaged to a Graphic Designer!!

It's all very exciting...

On the stitching front, I've been mainly working on a wedding piece for my sister and future BIL (I've got till the end of September...aargh!) but have taken a break recently - the frogs came visiting and decided to settle on a large section of over-one...on 32ct linen, this is not my idea of fun!! So before I threw the whole wretched thing in the pond, I decided to take a break and work on something a little less demanding.

So, I'm now not far off finishing Mirabilia's Christmas Elf Fairy and I think might even get it done at the weekend :-) Pictures will be posted shortly...(well, maybe in a few months!)...but in the meantime, this is approximately how it will look:

(well, it would if I could get the $%*$%*£* picture upload to work!)

This break has done my creative juices the world of good. I've been a little stuck with the construction of a box, but thanks to taking a total break from Blue Coppice work for a couple of weeks, have had a Eureka moment! Daisy (the cat) woke me up at a ridiculous hour on Sunday morning, wailing that she'd not been fed in weeks, nobody loved her, she was totally alone and starving...etc...etc...as only a rather rotund and totally spoilt ginger madam can.

So climbing back into bed, muttering about the impatience of cats that can't wait till a reasonable time of day to howl, I was wide awake and for the first time since...well...the dawn of civilisation, I had the luxury of not having to get up just then to do chores or go out somewhere. My brain immediately woke up and after a brief spurt of activity, I'd solved my tricky situation and scribbled down a few other ideas. An hour later, I was fast asleep again...(I said it was a brief spurt)...

I've got two weeks booked off in July (hurrah and huzzah!) and since A & I have decided to save money & stay at home, I'll have a few days to concentrate on making the box and further progress with my sister's piece. I can't wait...

It's been a while...

2006-02-13T21:40:00.000Z

I admit it. I'm embarrassed.

It's been many, many months since my last update, and I'd been doing so well...kind of...

A lot has happened since my last entry so here's a brief run-down on the personal life:

1) I was made redundant on a Monday
2) I found a new job by the Friday
3) My rather gorgeous boyfriend asked me to marry him
4) I accepted

Ummm...that's pretty much it...as you can see, it's been a quiet few months... ;-)

Past readers may remember that when last I wrote, I was seeing a graphic designer - and yes, he is the very same that wants to make an honest woman of me :-) I am sickeningly happy and insufferably smug, but my friends assure me that it is allowed for the moment...(I plan to make the moment last a long long time... A.)

Other highlights have been the news that my sister is due to be married this September (which has led to a request for a wedding sampler) together with the realisation that the golf club job is not exactly compatible with the other things I want to do! The money will be sadly missed but it will give me a lot more time to concentrate on my stitching and designing, which sad to say has been a little neglected recently.

Following my redundancy, I am now the Operations Manager for a recruitment agency - it's a very busy and enjoyable position covering everything from finance to marketing, but combined with the golf club, has left me little brain power for working on my designs in the evening. I handed my notice into the club last week and I'm looking forward to reclaiming my evenings! Obviously my sister's wedding sampler takes precedence for the time being, but it is a variation on a theme so I am hoping to complete it well before the event...it will take me quite a while to decide how to frame it... ;-)

I have been busy working on a couple of projects over the past few months so here are a few pictures to entertain the masses!

The Sampler Guild Challenge 2005

House & Garden Huswif
Copyright 2005 - Katie Trendall, Charlotte Smyth, Vanita Roberts, Barbara Jackson, Bethany Woods, Laura Meir.
All rights reserved.

This is a collaboration project between me and four other designers for The Sampler Guild:

Border & Layout - Katie Trendall (from "an Elne of Lynnyn...")
House (centre panel) - Charlotte Smyth
Summer (left of centre) - Vanita Roberts
Autumn (right of centre) - Barbara Jackson
Spring (far left) - Me! (as "Blue Coppice")
Winter (far right) - Laura Meir

As you can see, I've not got very far! Autumn has been released but I've not started that section yet, and there's still a lot of work to do on the other sections...Winter is the only one left to arrive, and I expect to receive that in the next couple of weeks.

I've been working on my favourite material (Antique White 32ct Belfast linen) using a combination of floss: mostly DMC cotton, but the house has been worked in DMC linen, the door in GAST, the water in Rajmahal vicose and the tiny goldfish which are hiding in the pond have been worked in DMC rayon. The rabbit has been cut from wool felt and stitched in place. The picture below shows a little more detail and some of the stitches I've used - as you can see, I've not just been using cross-stitch!

Angel of Love
Copyright Lavender & Lace (Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum)
All rights reserved

The angel was my January project - she gave me a break from my own designs and I really enjoyed working with the rich wintery colours as a change from the pinks, blues and greens of Honeyapple Meadow. She's now been tucked away ready for next January but I'm pleased with the progress I made - only another couple of years before she's done!!

At the moment, I'm working on the sampler for my sister's wedding - I'm hoping to finish it by early summer to give me time to make a decision on the frame...and that may take some time...

Grovel, grovel, grovel...

2005-05-13T07:43:00.000Z

I admit it, I've been very lax for the past few weeks. "Where have you been?", I hear you cry! Well, maybe not that exactly, but I'd like to think some of you have at least a vague curiosity...

It's been nearly six weeks since my last entry and life's been pretty hectic so this could be a long one...

To start with the stitching, April proved to be a particularly unproductive month in terms of finishing items. Unfortunately I came down with a nasty virus that turned into pharyngitis - most unpleasant, and resulting in the disappearance of virtually all my remaining brain cells. So the construction of the latest box design is still in progress, I've not yet finished a second model of the workshop piece, made any headway on Angel of Love or taken the birth sampler much further....very poor show.....

However, I did shoot up to Cumbria for a couple of days to join lots of other Sampler Guild members on the stitching retreat. Sadly, I couldn't make the full week but was able to make it up for a couple of fascinating talks, one given by Elizabeth Pritchard about the history of Ruskin Lace - very informative and inspirational, those who went may well spot elements in future designs! The second was an entertaining history of American quilt techniques by Barbara Slee who brought with her a huge number of incredible examples.

It was wonderful to meet so many fellow stitchers in such beautiful surroundings - the base for the week was Muncaster Castle, near Ravenglass on the Cumbrian coast, and I only wish I had been able to spend longer with everyone. I never did have time to explore the castle! Linda, Bev and Katie did a fantastic job in organising the event, including a chance to mingle quilters, embroiderers and patchworkers from the local area on the final night amongst a display of work that had a contribution from almost everyone present.

Everywhere I went, I heard people saying what a lovely time they were having and how everything was running so smoothly - although I'm not sure it felt like that to Linda at the time! The staff at the castle were exemplery, obvious even from the short time that I was there, and I hope to be able to join everyone for the full week next year.

After a hectic couple of days dashing up & down the M6 and gossiping with fellow stitchers, I was back on the motorway heading south to see my parents - I saw far too much tarmac that week...

My visit home included another trip to France, and yet another outstanding meal. Snails cooked in garlic butter and parsley followed by the largest platter of Fruits des Mer I've ever seen! Admittedly, this was divided between the three of us, but there were many, many winkles and shrimps left behind. To complete the feast, a large slab of tarte tatin with creme anglais...a small slice of heaven on a plate....

Other stitching news...I've been invited to design a piece for Glastonbury Abbey - a chart to go on sale in their gift shop that will encapsulate the essence of the Abbey and its environs! I'm unbelievably excited about this, it's a fantastic opportunity and it looks like it's going to be really fun to do. It's all thanks to FionaB, as it was her suggestion to the Friends of the Abbey that prompted them to contact me, and I can't begin to say how much I appreciate her putting my name forward!! Thank you! :-D

This not only means another design is in the pipeline, but also a weekend away exploring the Abbey and the local area which I'm really looking forward to. Things are still going very well with A, so I will have an escort and partial chauffeur for the weekend!

To finish off for today, as this entry's far too long as it is, here are the results of being tagged by Julie! I have to pick five of the following, complete the sentences, and then tag another 3 people...

If I could be a scientist . . .
If I could be a farmer . . .
If I could be a musician . . .
If I could be a doctor . . .
If I could be a painter . . .
If I could be a gardener . . .
If I could be a missionary . . .
If I could be a chef . . .
If I could be an architect . . .
If I could be a linguist . . .
If I could be a psychologist . . .
If I could be a librarian . . .
If I could be an athlete . . .
If I could be a lawyer . . .
If I could be an inn-keeper . . .
If I could be a professor . . .
If I could be a writer . . .
If I could be a llama-rider . . .
If I could be a bonnie pirate . . .
If I could be an astronaut . . .
If I could be a world famous blogger . . .
If I could be a justice on any one court in the world . . .
If I could be married to any current famous political figure ...
If I could be a goat...
If I could be a time-traveller...
If I could be a vineyard...

My responses?

If I could be a llama-rider, I'd probably smell but be extremely happy.
If I could be a librarian, I still wouldn't have time to read all the books I want to before I die.
If I could be a chef, I'd insist that someone else did the washing up!
If I could be a farmer, I'd do my bit to revive rare breeds of sheep & keep an ancient 2CV in the yard for the chickens to roost in.
If I could be a writer, I'd re-work my old stories into bodice-ripping blockbusters, make a fortune & use the money to support me while I designed full-time. And in my final novel, the house would burn down... ;-)

Jen, Stacey and Thutmosis - consider yourselves tagged...

Springtime in Manchester...

2005-03-31T11:14:00.000Z

...and it's raining.

Still, the weather was pretty good over the Easter weekend, which meant that my friend B was unable to complain over-much about it being "grim up north"! Add a healthy dose of gossip, some fantastic meals (not sure if that includes when I cooked, but there were contented sighs when we'd finished!), slumping in front of the TV suffering from the night before, shopping & taking in the sights of Manchester city centre and I think it's safe to say that a fun time was had by all...including Daisy, who has taken quite a fancy to B - mainly because he really hates getting covered in cat hair! ;-)

Speaking of my cooking, I managed to avoid poisoning A last week, in fact he even returned for more on Monday evening! He seems to be able to cope with my various eccentricities and hasn't yet admitted that he thinks the stitching is strange - there is still time. I'm hoping that his rather twisted sense of humour will enable him to laugh and understand the peculiarities of WIPs, UFOs, SEX, SABLE and other codewords incomprehensible to the uninitiated - at least he's also a designer so is used to slightly obsessive behaviour...

We discovered that we share a passion for ruined castles and other ancient sites (i.e. stones in the middle of fields full of cows!) so we'll be exploring the depths of north Wales this weekend, hopefully including a picnic on the beach but I have alternative plans if the clouds decide to have a party overhead!

With all the recent socialising, I had a brief moment of panic when I realised how many designs I've been blithely noting down as "later in the year" projects, and the fact that tomorrow is April 1st. It's time to readjust my goals for the year, taking into account essential projects such as the workshops and the new website design. The biggest problem I seem to have is the sheer number of designs that are screaming at me to push them to the front of the queue for release! There are a couple which are going to take a lot of time and work, which will alter my ideal of releasing one new design every 2-3 months, but I think it will be worth a delay as they are major pieces and I hope will prove to be customer favourites.

Over the next couple of weeks, the tiny, shrivelled pea that rattles between my ears will keep contemplating the likely timetable for the remainder of the year - it's all very flexible and at the end of the day will come down to which design howls loudest and longest! Now, where can I find some spare hours...?

Bouncing like the Easter Bunny!

2005-03-24T10:09:00.000Z

It's Maundy Thursday, the sun's shining and after 1pm, I'm not back at work until next Wednesday! I'm a simple creature & life can't get much better than the prospect of a lovely long weekend...

As usual, my life has been a combination of frantic activity when socialising & working and deathly silence as I try to catch up on the never-ending housework...

To start with the social life, after a very pleasant lunch a couple of weeks ago, M appears to have vanished off the face of the earth. The last contact I had was a brief message to say that his father was very ill in hospital & I've heard nothing since. The nice side of me hopes that everything's okay but assumes that the worst happened & M's been up to his eyes in arrangements. The rather more cynical side assumes that for some unknown reason he's decided not to be friends and has used it as an excuse not to be in touch - most peculiar!

However, after having been in touch with another guy (henceforth known as A!) for few weeks & finding out that he's got a suitably dark sense of humour combined with a healthy amount of intelligence, we met for the first time recently. A pub lunch turned into talking all afternoon & a trip to the cinema to see "Hitch" (v funny!) that evening. Which turned into an extremely good Italian meal last week and him taking his life in his hands when I cook for him this evening - is he brave or stupid? Only time will tell...

Last weekend was an ideal opportunity to catch up with essential chores so on the first warm, sunny & dry day of the year, my filthy car was washed, laundry was hung outside & I even braved the fresh air to stitch outside in the sun. :-) Ex-OH volunteered to come round to do essential jobs like mowing the lawn and changing the pond filter (nasty job - luckily only an annual event) - at the moment he's not got his own garden so I'm more than happy for him to still be chief gardener!

My old friend B is coming up for the Easter weekend so I'm hoping for good weather - he has this unreasonable view that the north of England is permanently cold, wet and grey - and expect that the next few days will centre around food, drink & gossip... I will, of course, be introducing him to the best that Manchester has to offer & proving to him that those of us in the north manage to survive perfectly well without the so-called benefits of living in the south-east!

As for my design work, the stitching for latest release is now virtually complete and the perils of construction await...gulp....... The Sampler Guild retreat in Cumbria is fast approaching & I would like the piece to be completed so I can give the members a sneak preview! Linda Hadden (TSG High Priestess!) is currently looking into workshop provision in Cheshire for later in the year and I'm looking forward to chatting to her about her ideas - there could well be a Blue Coppice original as one of the pieces offered... ;-)

That's all for today - I've got a lot to do before I shoot off for the weekend! Happy Easter everyone - I hope the rabbits are plentiful and the chocolate even more so!

Where did February go exactly?

2005-03-08T10:00:00.000Z

Where do I start? Just when I think I've got a spare second to write, something else crops up & another day has passed...

Two busy weekends have gone by since my last blog entry and I can hardly believe how the time has flown! J, my old uni friend, visited from Cardiff during the first weekend - much talking, shopping and dancing was done and we even managed to squeeze in a visit to the cinema to see "Hide & Seek" (Robert de Niro et al)! Well, we're both too old to go dancing till the early hours for two nights in a row... ;-)

We don't see each other very often and our schedules often clash so we count ourselves lucky to organise a weekend together every 6 months! It invariably means that we don't get much sleep as we're too busy catching up on the gossip...and reliving student days by dancing until our ageing knees give out. Ouch.

For the following week, I caught up on the housework and worked on my latest piece for the next weekend while meeting M (intelligent, witty guy from the last entry!) for a very enjoyable lunch. I had a call out of the blue mid-week from another old friend (he of the amazing cheesecake) inviting me out to dinner on Thursday as he was in the area on business. A couple of bottles of wine and a couple of delicious Pad Thai later, we giggle our way back to the station only to find that he's completely mistaken the time of his last train home...oops....

However, it meant that I had the pleasure of his company on Friday as he stayed over with me and hitched a lift back to London! I had already planned to visit my parents so it only involved a short detour off the motorway, and it was a much more enjoyable journey for me - although I had to save the singing very badly at the top of my voice for the return trip on Sunday. All together now "...Honky Tonk WOMAN...Honky Tonk Bluuuuuueeeeeeesssssssssssss..."

Dropping B off wasn't the only detour - before then, we drove via Woburn to visit Rosemary Sharman of The Country Cross Stitcher who has been supplying my designs for the past few months. Sadly, Rosemary was feeling a little under the weather thanks to one of the many bugs around at the moment, and not looking forward to the annual stock-taking! However we had a good chat and it gave her the opportunity to see my latest pieces in person, including a sneak preview of my next release which features Rajmahal floss - a beautiful viscose mix with the most fabulous sheen that Rosemary introduced me to last year.

From Woburn to London, and from there onto my parents in time for the 6pm aperitifs...

...where I discovered that in the chaos of leaving in the morning, I'd left behind the pieces I wanted to work on. I had the floss, the scissors, the patterns, and even spare linen - but not WIPs and no needles!! So it was a bit of enforced stitch-rest until I made it back on Sunday evening :-( Despite this traumatic event, I had a fantastic weekend, rounded off with my first piece of barbequed steak of the year - snow was still on the ground but my father was undeterred and excelled himself by producing ribeye steak cooked to perfection!

Last night saw the return of the housework fairy - and an early night. I'm off for lunch with M today (just need to decide where to go) and might be seeing him again later in the week...but all things can change!

Change is good...

2005-02-22T09:34:00.000Z

In just over three weeks time, I have a free weekend. No bar work or social events have been planned and I hope to spend the majority of it working on the birth sampler. Sheer bliss. Not that I don't enjoy having friends to visit or places to go, but I really need a weekend off! I'm planning to venture out to Manchester City Art Gallery for one of the afternoons so I can drool over the Pre-Raphaelites but I think that will be the extent of my contact with other humans - well, that's the plan anyway, and we all know how quickly things can change!

Speaking of change, in a mad moment a couple of weeks ago, I put my details onto an online dating site to see who was out there. Now I know these sites don't always have the best of reputations, but it suddenly struck me that I'm not the only reasonably intelligent person who doesn't just want to meet people in a bar or club. I'm also not the only one with a busy life with no time to take evening classes! Anyway, I was quite surprised by the responses I received, especially as I didn't put a photograph up to start with, and after weeding out the obviously strange, potentially weird and definitely creepy, struck up e-mail conversation with a couple of guys.

I've since met both and had a couple of really good nights. One I hope to stay in touch with as a friend - a truly lovely man who was incredibly easy to talk to and will make someone very happy, so if you're female, single, based in the North-West, enjoy decent conversation and want to meet one of the few good men in the world, let me know... ;-) (N - if you're reading this, any other requests?)

The other is intelligent, confident, witty & does so much himself that he seems to understand my time constraints! We're going out for lunch on Thursday & I'm really looking forward to it - the venue has been carefully chosen to avoid my colleagues who have been following my singleton adventures with far too much interest...there's not been much other gossip so until the next work night out, I think I'm the current entertainment!

In between all this, I've been busy working away on the next piece which is turing out rather well! I've not got much more stitching to do and then I'll be working on the construction. As usual, this is the most nerve-wracking part...the stitching is linked to the construction so much that if I've badly miscalculated, the whole design might have to change. To give my brain a rest from this on Saturday, I did a little more on the Angel of Love. She's coming along very nicely and is alarmingly addictive so I am having to be pretty strict about the time I spend on her!

After a late night working behind the bar on Saturday night, I struggled out of bed on Sunday morning & headed to the NEC in Birmingham for the International Craft & Hobby Fair. This is one of the largest trade shows and they let me in because I'm a designer - there are some perks! It was a really good day & I met some very good contacts who will be very helpful for some future projects, including Zweigart and the South African floss company House of Embroidery - they produce the most beautiful subtle shades for multicoloured silk & cotton floss and ribbon, some of which are extremely likely to be included in one of the designs to be released later this year.

That's it to be going on with - as usual, all comments gratefully received!

Busy, busy, busy...

2005-02-07T15:12:00.000Z

Hurrah! I've finally got a spare couple of minutes to catch up...

Well, the Beehive Trinket Box was launched on Monday 31st as planned but as soon as I thought I'd be able to breathe, the day job suddenly got busy & I seem to have been chasing my tail for the past few days! The slight interruption of yet another nasty cold (which left me sounding as though I had a 40-a-day habit until my voice gave out entirely - much to my colleagues' amusement until the boss sent me home before I infected everyone else) resulted in an in-tray heaving with work and I'm only just beginning to see light at the bottom...

This weekend was pretty quiet so it was a good opportunity to catch up on housework & stitching, although I was working on Saturday so I was a little short on sleep that night. One of the bars at the golf club can be hired out by members for parties which gives me a few extra shifts, but it can mean working until the early hours! This particular party was extremely lucrative as most of the male guests were very generous with the tips, and thankfully all the guests were well-mannered when it came to last orders so a good night was had by both guests and staff! The bar manager treated us to pizza when we'd cleared up so it was 3am by the time I got home clutching half a pepperoni pizza......yawn........

As for stitching, well, the next piece is coming along nicely and I'm just finalising the design for a piece that will be out later in the year. I'm going to be designing a band for The Sampler Guild's Challenge 2005 and am keen to keep everything else on schedule so I can squeeze the band in!

I joined The Sampler Guild a few months ago on the advice of one of my customers and can highly recommend it to everyone interested in both the historical background of samplers and modern designs around the world. Linda produces a fascinating newsletter to which members contribute lots of articles on topics such as recent visits to collections, museums or houses, the history of a particular sampler or element of design and who's been meeting whom! I've not yet had time to participate in the exchanges but I've already been to one get-together which I hope will be the first of many. A stitching retreat has been organised for April in Cumbria, and although I won't be able to go for the full week, I've booked a place for one of the day events and I'm thoroughly looking forward to it. :-)

Before I go, this might make you stitchers chuckle - my ex-OH came round yesterday to collect his post & have a chat (yes, we are still being very adult and friendly about everything!). So as I was telling him about the latest designs, I mentioned I was playing around with a few ideas for an afghan but wasn't sure about the size or type to use. Cue blank look from ex-OH.

"An afghan?"
"Yes. It's something I'm thinking about for a winter release."
"But won't Daisy mind?" Daisy being the cat.
"I wouldn't have thought so, I'll just have to be careful about the fringe."
"The fringe?"
"Yes, the fringe would be knotted so it would be pretty tempting to eat."
"But won't the afghan mind? And won't it be a bit big for the house?"
"I'm not sure the afghan will have many feelings! The size is something I'm working on at the moment..."

Can you see where this is heading? Yes, that's right - he was talking about an afghan dog, I was talking about an afghan throw. Deep sigh. I'd forgotten that some things really need to be spelt out to non-stitchers....

Ho hum...back to the salt mines......

I'm sooooooooo tired...

2005-01-24T16:44:00.000Z

It's been a busy few weeks so I've been a little lax with blog entries, however I've got a spare few minutes so I thought I'd better catch up!

First things first, I'm on target for the next release. The Beehive Trinket Box chart pack is currently being proofed & having last-minute decisions made on it ready for Monday 31st Jan, so remember to send payments ASAP to take advantage of the 10% advance order discount!

The next design is going to be an introduction to the Water Garden. It's a small design but there's a lot packed into a tiny space! It will feature some different techniques and textures which will be expanded upon later in the year. There is a large Water Garden piece to follow which I have been contemplating releasing in installments however on further reflection this could create prohibitive printing costs, so there may well just be a longer break between releases...

I had some very good news from the US the other day - I've been invited to do a workshop in Pennsylvania in March 2007! I don't have any more details at the moment, and a lot can happen in two years, but I was delighted to accept and look forward to receiving further details. Now I need to work out exactly how much linen, DMC floss, silk floss and ribbon I can fit into one suitcase - I think my mother's going to stowaway in the other, but I might have to leave her behind when I start shopping. I don't think she'd mind too much as long as she had her pillow, bobbins and silks!

L&L's Angel of Love is working up steadily and has been a good break between my own pieces. My needle organiser has come into its own with this project - the skirt of the Angel is designed as a series of small Klimt-style geometric shapes, each one requiring a small amount of different coloured floss to the next. I have used nearly my entire collection of needles in the organiser to make sure the trailing threads are kept to a minimum! I will have reached her face soon and am currently trying to decide whether to stitch it as charted (over 2 threads) or whether to go with the over-one option.....decisions....decisions......

As for the social life, well, I have found out that I can no longer go out on a Monday night & expect to function normally for the rest of the week. Especially not when I work behind the bar at a golf club on Wednesday night, catch up on the housework on Thursday, have a friend to visit till the early hours on Friday night and work at the golf club again on Saturday! I could sleep for a week at the moment, but I'll settle for a couple of early nights!! Luckily things are a little quieter this week so I should be able to catch up before visiting my parents at the weekend.

My friends seem to be determined to keep me occupied and are currently in the throes of frenzied match-making with any suitable single men. I have been invited to become a cricket-groupie (or whatever the correct term may be - possibly Pavillion Crumpet?) as one of the guys at work plays for a local team, and he has single teammates. The season starts in April and I have been reliably informed that it is an ideal sport at which to stitch - so I can combine a pleasant day's stitching in the sun with a view of toned, male bodies in crisp whites. A few of the other girls at work may well be joining me...

Add to that a visit from one of my old girl-friends in February, a couple of girls nights out, another friend visiting over Easter, more weekend working at the golf club, a Sampler Guild stitching retreat in April, more weekend visits to friends & family, and my social diary's looking pretty full. In fact, I'm surprised I've time for a relationship over the past few years!

Somewhere in there I need to fit in stitching, and funds are pretty low at the moment, so I'm desperately trying to spread social occasions out! As of yesterday, I have officially closed my diary to all future social occasions until June. Well, maybe. I might be too busy for Brad Pitt (never been keen on those cheeks) but if Sean Connery invited me out for dinner I think I could squeeze him in. As long as he paid.

Heigh ho, back to the grindstone. Don't forget to e-mail those orders to me by 31st Jan!!

Happy New Year!

2005-01-07T17:11:00.000Z

Well thankfully, 2005 is finally here. Christmas had its ups and downs, and certainly didn't go quite as planned.

My sister and her boyfriend are currently in India and we had an anxious time waiting for news of them following the disastrous earthquake and tsunami. Luckily they escaped unscathed, despite their hotel room being flooded, and they seem to have been very much on the edge of the affected area. Apparently their only losses were a few pairs of shoes & a bikini - they were unbelievably fortunate and only realised the scale of the destruction days later. If you haven't already, please, please donate to the appeal - contact The Disasters Emergency Committee for further information. Also see the BBC website for additional information.

OH and I split up on Boxing Day after over 9 years together so things are a little strange at home without him. It's all very amicable but we both need some space at the moment - and while I hope we can sort things out & get back together, I'm determined not to mope about it. Luckily my friends and family have been incredibly supportive, keeping me focussed on the positive sides and in the case of my parents, totally pampering me!

I went back to my parents for a few days over the holiday for a bit of breathing space and am so pleased I did. It was a really good opportunity to recharge my batteries and take a step back from all the pressure whilst being kept very busy - even fitting in a day-trip to France! We went on a glorious day - it was so clear that the famous White Cliffs of Dover could be seen in incredible detail from the coastal road between Calais and Boulogne - had far too much to eat for lunch (snails, duck & sorbet - I was still full the next morning!) and returned home with lots of goodies from Carrefour.

The friend I recently visited in London was also back visiting parents and so came round to offer sympathy and a large slice of a gorgeous cheesecake - he claimed all the credit should go to Nigella Lawson, but I think he was just being modest! Apparently blood was nearly spilled when my friend reserved the last piece of cake for me, so I must also thank his father - I would never knowingly have deprived him of his second (or would it have been third?) piece, but rest assured it went to a very good home... ;-)

Despite all the upheaval, I managed to finish the long-awaited Beehive Trinket Box and am currently working on the chart pack. Barring any more incidents, the pack will be ready for release on 31st January 2005. If you would like to place a direct advance order, please let me know - you will receive a 10% discount as long as your e-mail/letter/phone call reaches me by 31st Jan!

"Beehive Trinket Box"
Release Date: 31st January 2005
Chart Pack: £9.50 (less 10% discount if ordered by 31st Jan!)
UK: All postage costs included in price
International: Price of postage available upon request
Copyright 2004 Bethany Woods. All rights reserved.
No reproduction without consent from the author.

Now the Trinket Box is finished, it's back to the birth sampler which is coming along very nicely. I've also put a few stitches into L&L's Angel of Love as my first new start for 2005 - I already have a space reserved for it on the living room wall! As with Greek Steps, this is my "downtime" piece, when I feel the need to be stitching but haven't got the brain left to work on one of my own pieces, so it's going to take a while to finish...

Hmm....I think that's it for the moment. Hopefully the next few weeks will be rather less dramatic!

Have a good weekend!!

Merry Christmas!!

2004-12-24T11:33:00.000Z

This is my last entry of the year (unless I manage to find a computer over the holidays) & what a year it's been!! It's traditional to write a round-up of the year, but that could take pages so I'll just say that it's had its ups and downs & concentrate on the past week instead!

Last Friday's Christmas party was thoroughly enjoyable, the food was a cut above the average mass catering, the wine was flowing freely and my colleauges and I boogied the night away! There are rumours that I was spotted dancing on a chair, however I would like to point out that it was on the strict instructions of the boss who wanted to win a bottle of champagne. Sadly, the table of beautiful girls next to us had already caught the DJ's eye so my boss didn't stand a chance...

After a pitiful amount of sleep, my OH very kindly picked me up from the hotel before driving us both south to see his sister and her OH. We spent the afternoon walking their dogs in the local woods until it was too dark to see and then cleaned off the mud before heading into the local town for a few drinks and a gorgeous Indian meal. As usual, we all ate far too much and waddled out of the restaurant!

I came down with another flu-bug so I spent most of Monday & Tuesday curled up on the sofa with Daisy and a huge duvet feeling very sorry for myself. Luckily I seem to have shaken it off in time to enjoy my Christmas dinner but I'm really looking forward to a nice lie-in tomorrow morning before cracking open a bottle of pink sparkly and eating warm croissants...

As for the stitching, well I managed to finish the stitching for the trinket box so I'm on target still - but it could all change...

I hope everyone has a fantastic holiday and I look forward to the first blog entry of the new year!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

One week to Christmas!!

2004-12-17T10:59:00.000Z

And I can't wait. I love Christmas - the tree, the food, the extra sleep....

I still need to wrap OH's presents but that's traditionally done on the 23rd when he goes off to his annual work party, so I know I have the whole evening to make all the parcels look nice - whilst trying to detach the tape from Daisy's fur! The cards have been bought & will be written on Sunday, I still need to get a small something for the office Secret Santa and I've got one more parcel to post. Not quite as organised as I'd like, but not bad considering the time I've had!

Jane Dickinson posted a small bundle of 2005 Great Escapes brochures to me this week so I can offically so the workshop piece that I'll be teaching in November 2005:

This is only Part 1 - I think Part 2 may remain a surprise until the workshop...

I've had positive responses on the pieces so far and I'm really looking forward to the weekend. The venue, Hengrave Hall in Suffolk, is a beautiful place so I'm hoping I'll have time for a wander around as well as teaching, but I'm not counting on it!

This week I finished one of the panels for the next box & made a good start on the next. They're working up quite quickly so I'm nicely on target for constructing the box over the Christmas break. I'm working on the front panel at the moment & as long as there are no disasters, should have it finished for the end of next week. OH & I are going to his sister's this weekend so it's very unlikely I'll get much done - we'll be too busy talking!

There's not much other news - OH & I saw The Incredibles at the cinema at the weekend (highly recommended, very funny!), I met up with a couple of friends for dinner mid-week and I'm off to my office party tonight. I work with a really nice bunch of people so I'm looking forward to tonight - it's at a hotel that has a cheesy club attached so after dinner we're all going to go for a bit of a boogie! It's not that far from home, but I decided to take advantage of the subsidised rooms rather than try to get a taxi at 2am - I've been there before & know from experience that that's virtually impossible, and not exactly cheap either...

That's all for today. I hope everyone has a good weekend & thank you again for the sympathy - I'm feeling more like myself again!!

Finally a productive week...

2004-12-10T10:14:00.000Z

First of all, I'd like to say thank you so much for the good wishes! I'm feeling much better today, still sniffly & feeling the need to sleep for a week but a big improvement on last week...

In-between bouts of sneezing, I've managed to finish the construction of the second part to the workshop piece, send it down to my photographer (aka my mother!) and tick it off my to-do list for the moment. It'll return to the list once I have both pieces back as then I need to produce the chart packs. As soon as the pieces have made their way to Jane Dickinson (who's organising the workshop) & the brochures are produced, I'll be able to post some pictures - until then it's under wraps!

As my brain still wasn't functioning properly, I decided to concentrate on finishing Greek Steps with the hope that I might get it finished before Christmas. Well, I'm delighted to announce that not only is it finished, but if I can work out how to post a picture, you might be lucky enough to see it! If (as I suspect) all you see is the dreaded red x, glance over to the left-hand side where you'll see the link to my albums, and click...

Greek Steps - John Clayton (Heritage Stitchcraft)
I apologise for the slightly wonky edge - it was a little too long to fit on the scanner in one go, so the images had to be spliced together!

I'm taking it to the framers on Saturday & I think I'm going to go with a silver frame. It's going to go in the hallway at the top of the stairs and as the other two frames on the stairs are silver, it would make sense to have a similar look for this one. The house is a little too small for different frames to look particularly good & luckily I think silver will work with the design.

Last night I started working on the final two panels of the Trinket Box which I was hoping to release before the end of the year. It's definitely not going to be ready by then, but I'm hopeful of a January launch. The last stitched sections should be pretty quick (famous last words...) and with a bit of luck I'll be able to set aside a couple of days at Christmas to construct the box. I'm planning something a little different for this box so I need to make sure I've got enough time to redo it if it all goes horribly wrong, but I'm hoping that I've thought of all the possible pitfalls.

My parents came up to visit at the weekend, delivering lots of mysterious packages on behalf of the Christmas Fairy and her goblin assistant and taking my mind off the nasty germs I was harbouring. As usual, my OH and my father spent the majority of the time rolling their eyes as my mother & I gorged ourselves on "string talk" but I think a good time was had by all! My mother has recently published her second book (cue shamelss plug: "Alphabet Inspirations in Coloured Bobbin Lace" by Sandi Woods, published by Batsford & now available at all good bookshops!) and is working on material for the next so as you can imagine, we always have plenty of "string things" to talk about...

Sadly they could only stay for the one night as they also have a very demanding cat who wouldn't hesitate to make his displeasure known in various ways! Being a Havana Brown, Fidel (full name Fidel Castrato) has the personality of a Siamese and knows himself to be not only human but also the being around whom the world rotates. He's wrong of course. That would be Daisy.

I think that's all for this week - all comments are greatly appreciated!

Any sympathy out there?

2004-12-02T15:12:00.000Z

It's official. After fighting off all germs for the past few weeks, I've finally succumbed to a rotten stinking cold. I'm going through tissues like OH goes through cookies & am generally feeling very sorry for myself.

I hate colds. I hate the fact that they turn me into a pathetic whining, drippy wet fish with no backbone. I hate not being able to sleep because you can't breathe, the sore nose, the streaming eyes, the miserable little cough that can't even bring itself to sound like anything more than an apology, the complete lack of brain cells, and the fact that although you feel like death vaguely warmed up, it's not a good enough excuse to stay at home & curl under the duvet!

Bah.

Yes I know, things could be worse but I'm just having a brief wallow in self-pity. OH just laughed at me this morning & refused to come anywhere near me. Even the cat was wary - probably because as soon as she got within a 2 yard radius of me I'd sneeze. A lot.

Anyway, onto happier things! I visited the Knitting & Stitching Show in Harrogate on Sunday 28th & thoroughly enjoyed myself. I stocked up on more linen, treated myself to the Angel of Spring chart (a Lavender & Lace design) & its beads with some birthday money, picked up a couple of interesting books (one on Medieval tiles and one on the history of writing - good pictures!) and attended an afternoon workshop. We were shown how to make a "flip-flop" tassel by the Braidmakers Workshop which was an excuse to meet new people & generally have a good time!

OH looked a little nonplussed when I returned home with all my goodies & nodded blankly when I told him that my slinky tassel would look lovely on the Christmas tree, but then there's a limit as to what I can say when he's discussing the latest Ipswich Town game (football/soccer!) so I do understand. I've learnt that as long as I can say reasonably intelligable things like "They have to use three strikers, they haven't got a defense" and avoid my immediate response of "For heavens sake, it's just a game", he resists pointing out how strange it is to play with string.

As for stitching, I finally finished the stitching on the second part of the workshop piece & now just have to do the finishing & construction, which will be started as soon as I have a spare moment tonight.

I do need the challenge of working on my own pieces but for a change, I've been doing some work on another designer's piece which has been nice, especially recently when I've been so tired (probably due this cold lurking & turning my brains to mush!). I've been doing a little of John Clayton's Greek Steps every night & it's coming along nicely. I'm about 85% done now & with a bit of a blast over Christmas I should get it finished soon.

Greek Steps is really a holiday piece - so until recently I've only worked on it when I've been sitting on a balcony on a small Greek island with a glass of something nice next to me enjoying the sunshine & the view... However, this does mean that it's been hanging around for a while so I decided it was time to finish it off before we go away again in May/June. Once it's done, I can start Angel of Love (another L&L design) which has got a spot reserved for it in the lounge. That's going to take a couple of years as a holiday piece as well!

Back to my own work, unfortunately, the trinket box which I had planned to release before Christmas is not going to be ready in time. I'm sure I could get it done but I'd have to rush, which could easily compromise the proofing process! I'd rather publish a chart that I'm confident is right than find out I've made a fundamental error after it's gone to the printers...

So once the workshop piece is completed, I'll be finishing off the trinket box and then going back to the birth sampler. The birth sampler is quite a large project so I'm planning to do another small piece before it's finished - possibly an introduction to the Water Garden? Too many ideas, too little time...

Oh, and keep the comments coming - all views, criticism & nonsense welcome!

Friday again...

2004-11-19T12:34:00.000Z

I do apologise for being pretty lax with this blog over the last couple of weeks - just been too busy &/or too tired!

Hi to my Dutch reader!! *waves madly* It's nice to know there's someone out there & I'm not totally talking to myself! In response to your question, I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of my stitching corner, but I'm expecting a visit from my parents in a couple of weeks so I'll see if I can borrow my mother's camera & take a couple of pics. If Daisy sits still for long enough, I might even post one of her as well!

So how's everyone been? As usual, things have been very hectic here. I've been fighting off all the germs that my colleagues keep bringing into the office - how kind of them to want to share - so I've not been at my perkiest recently.

I went to visit an old friend of mine in London last weekend, and despite the pair of us being more tired & wiped out than a very tired & wiped out thing that's been up all night & run 2 marathons, we managed to stay up far too late drinking some particularly nice wine & talking about life, the universe and relationships. He's my closest male friend (apart from OH!) so it's always good to get the male perspective on things - and as we've known each other for about 20 years (yes, it's official, I'm old) we tend to converse in a series of insults and abuse. I say he's a geek, according to him I'm a short weirdo with a string obsession, and it amazes both of us when other people manage to put up with our strangeness long enough for either of us to have a relationship with the opposite sex!

Oh, and let's not forget the fact that by virtue of me being a year older, I can always look forward to ageist comments when he runs out of short, weird jokes. But then he's an IT geek. Okay, okay, "Management Consultant". But once a computer geek, always a computer geek. He can cook a mean tuna steak though...

And I do like his car. Heated leather seats - what more can a girl ask for?

While I was there, we went for a walk round the grounds of Hampton Court Palace - in my opinion, one of the most beautiful of the royal palaces. The weather was gorgeous - a perfect crisp, clear autumn day - and the light filtering through the trees and hitting the walls in the setting sun, bringing out the warmth of the old bricks, may well be something that pops up in a future design...

Sunday was another clear, sunny day so we went to Richmond Park to walk off the previous night's fantastic meal. I've always loved autumn and after the unrelenting greyness that Manchester had been experiencing, it was a reminder of how beautiful this season can be. It was also a reminder of how many people there are living in south-east England and why I decided to leave! It was lovely to visit but I was glad to get home to the relative sanity of Manchester...

So not much stitching got done at the weekend. I took some with me with intention of doing some on the train but I fell asleep virtually as soon as I sat down on the Friday night, and as I missed my train back on Sunday (which had my seat reservation) I had to get the next one. Being more crowded than an overpacked tin of sardines, I had sit on the floor in the corridor for 4½hours - not exactly conducive to relaxed stitching!

One evening a week, I work behind the bar at a local golf club and as the manager was on holiday, I had to cover for a colleague and work an extra night. I've always enjoyed bar work, and this time of year the club is virtually deserted except for a few dedicated bridge players which makes for a very quiet night! This gives me virtually uninterrupted time to catch up on reading and sketching out design ideas, without the interruptions and distractions of home. Obviously I can't stitch at the club (far too smoky & grimy!) so it forces me to spend time finalising tricky problems and making construction decisions and I really like the fact I'm getting paid to do it!

Still, after the late nights at the weekend, a full week of the day job (8.30am-6pm) followed by two nights of working 6.30pm-11pm can make one rather tired! Not to mention the "drinks & nibbles" organised by my boss of my day job last night. Luckily I was sensible & left at 9pm (unlike a considerable group who rolled in late this morning looking very pale and swearing never to drink again), but I have got the distinct impression that my OH and Daisy the cat are forgetting what I look like...

Tonight, I have no plans other than to make blueberry muffins for a Sampler Guild get-together in Lancashire on Saturday and I can't wait! A couple of hours stitching....cuddling up with OH & Daisy on the sofa....an early night....salmon fillets for dinner....oven-warm muffins for supper....utter bliss......

Much as I enjoy visiting & going out with friends, I do love quiet nights at home - it's just that sometimes, getting the balance right can be tricky! Age also has something to do with it. Gone are the days when I could go out clubbing till 4am twice a week & still have the energy to go away at the weekend, and work a full week complete with 20 hours overtime... I feel exhausted just thinking about what I used to do...

I hope everyone has a good weekend! Let me know what you've been up to - all comments are welcome!! :)

Where did the weekend go?

2004-11-08T14:36:00.000Z

Well, Monday's rolled around again and I'm still behind with the stitching...

Last Friday night, we went to the dreaded IKEA and tried to get a few bits for the newly painted living room. For once, we actually came out with more than half of the things we wanted and managed to arrange for some to be delivered on Saturday - there's a limit as to how much will fit in a Mini!

So, while OH was at college on Saturday, I was waiting in for the men from IKEA to turn up. This of course means that you can't go out, hoover, do anything that involves noise or even visit the bathroom - you just know they'll ring the doorbell at the most inconvenient moment. But it did give me a fabulous excuse to sit & stitch all morning which helped me catch up a little!

Eventually, the van turns up in the early afternoon and I then spend the rest of the day putting a set of bookshelves and a chest of drawers together - possibly my favourite household chore! With OH out of the way at college and then off to watch the football, and Daisy busy chasing squirrels and frogs in the garden, I managed to build everything & make a really good start on organising everything. I do have a vested interest in these items of furniture particularly - they're both for all of my stash!!

Now I have a perfect stitching corner in the living room, complete with a dinky little halogen light that swivels & twists in every imaginable way. My essential reference books, the folders with all my designs & notes in and a few of my stitched pieces are carefully arranged so I can reach everything! The chest of drawers now contains all the chart packs that have been languishing in an extremely large cardboard box, in the middle of the floor, together with the odd bits and pieces like pens, pencils, a cutting board, tape, string, oddments of card...etc...etc....etc.....

After going to a party on Saturday night, Sunday seemed to zoom by! By the time the housework had been done (including the inordinately large pile of ironing - I didn't realise OH had so many shirts & I have no idea how he's managed to wear them all in such a short space of time!), and I'd finished tidying the house after all the recent commotion, I didn't seem to have long to sit and stitch at all.

So the workshop piece is further along than it was but still not finished yet. Deep sigh.

I must admit that I wasn't exclusively working on it last night - I spent about 30mins on John Clayton's Greek Steps which hasn't been touched since we were on holiday in May. I really want to get this one finished and framed - I have the perfect spot in the hallway reserved for it. It's been a WIP for 2½ years as I've just been doing it when we've been away, but I want to make a start on L&L's Angel of Love soon as it is the perfect colour for the newly painted living room.....

Greek Steps is about 65% done so I think if I can squeeze an odd 30mins in here & there I can finish it fairly soon. I know, I know, I could just start Angel of Love as I've got all the bits ready to go, but I'm determined to finish Greek Steps first, otherwise I can see it languishing in the corner for another couple of years! And after that, there's the Ann Medd Sampler......then the L&L Seasonal Angels................Mirabilia's Cinderella & Sleeping Beauty...............

Let's face it, with my designs plus my full wish list, I've got enough to do until at least 2024..........can I retire yet?

Total chaos...

2004-11-01T13:43:00.000Z

OH and I spent yesterday afternoon up to our elbows in emulsion and newspapers as we finally got round to decorating our living room - to be fair, I was up to my elbows while he managed to keep himself remarkably clean and tidy. If I hadn't seen him up a ladder with my own eyes, I'd swear he hadn't even touched a paintbrush! We've got one more wall and a small patch of ceiling to do this evening but the worst has been done.

Most of the contents of the room have taken up temporary residence in the very small hallway and my stitching has been removed to the bedroom for safety, well away from any stray splats... Daisy, the cat, thinks it's all a game that we're playing for her benefit and was particularly delighted when we had a picnic of pizza and chicken wings on the floor for dinner, the dining table & chairs being completely inaccessible.

All this commotion has meant that I'm a little behind with the planned stitching, but I think I needed a break from this piece. It's a very straightforward design & in a way, that's caused me more problems than one of my more complex pieces. Normally I'd be constantly making decisions on the details of the design, but with this one there were no problems to be solved and it's turning out just as I'd planned so it's not really holding my interest!!

Of course once I'm working on the birth sampler again, I'll be dreaming of a nice, easy project where all the decisions have been made, but at the moment I can't wait to finish & get back to the problems..... As my father would say, it's just because I'm "bleedin' awkward". OH just rolls his eyes & thinks I'm completely insane for wanting things to be more complicated, but then neither of them really understand the "string" thing!

Still, there's not much more stitching to do on this one so I should get it finished this week. The construction for this piece is very straightforward as well and I'm hoping to finish it completely this weekend. Of course, this is all assuming I can find all the essential bits & pieces that are currently stashed away for safe-keeping. Luckily we only have a small house so the hiding places are limited, aren't they...?

Moan, moan, moan....

2004-10-25T15:35:00.000Z

I apologise in advance for this posting, but I want to whinge.

Why do we have wisdom teeth? They don't seem to provide me with extra wisdom, all they do is cause me pain and anguish! What is the point of them?

At the moment, the bottom two are growing at an acute angle towards the back of my mouth and towards my cheeks. For several years, I've had the usual intermittent aching jaw and this hasn't caused me too many problems, howeverI've really been suffering over the past week. Both teeth are digging sharply into my cheeks, meaning that I'm having problems eating anything that requires me to chew unless I want to eat my own cheeks as well.

So, I phone the dentist only to find that he's decided not to have appointments on Saturdays anymore, and the next appointment that's only mildly inconvenient, rather than completely impossible to make, is on the 16th November. Bah, humbug.

Mutter.....mutter.......mutter............whinge..............moan...........................

On the bright side, I managed to get quite a lot of stitching done this weekend so Part 2 of the workshop piece should be finished this week. :) No pictures yet though - it's being kept under wraps until Jane published her 2005 brochure! I'm probably going to be teaching the pieces at Hengrave Hall, near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk - the provisional dates are 11th-13th November 2005, but it could all change....

If you are interested in this workshop, please contact Jane Dickinson of Great Escapes on jane.dickinson@talk21.com - I'll look forward to seeing you there!

Friday ramblings...

2004-10-22T17:40:00.000Z

It's my birthday today & I'd like to publically thank my friends & family for their good wishes & presents!

OH gave me the most beautiful handbag in the softest dusky pink leather imaginable - I keep fondling it in the office & making excuses to find things in the pockets... My friends have either been colluding with OH or have psychic abilities as they gave me a gorgeous suede covered notebook for sketching & doodling in - and it fits into the bag as if they were made to be together! There was also a suede frame in my parcel which would look perfect with a small piece of stitching inside, I've got a few ideas already for that one but it might be empty until next year when I can slot another project into my timetable!

Thanks to my very generous family, I have just treated myself to a new pair of scissors - 4" embroidery scissors from the new "Olivia" range from Gingher. They have a very pretty floral pattern on the handles which I think will look rather good with the scissor keep & scissor holder designs I've got in the pipeline.

I think scissors are probably my greatest stitching weakness. Some people collect the full range of DMC or AVAS etc, some collect yards of linen; well I'm susceptible to scissors. My mother was recently at the IOLI 2004 convention in Pennsylvania & picked up a very sweet pair for me with transluscent blue handles. I have a similar pair but with pale pink handles and a stainless steel pair of Ginghers (both of which modelled in the picture for the Beehive Scissor Keep!), so I don't really need another pair at all, but what the hell? That's what birthdays are for!

Have a good weekend, everyone! :)

Progress at last...

2004-10-18T17:20:00.000Z

Hurrah! After a reasonably productive weekend, I managed to finish the first part of a workshop piece!

Time's been conspiring against me for this one - everytime I tried to sit down to it in the evening, there would be some kind of crisis or problem. By the time the problem was solved & the chores were finished, I'd be left with less than an hour to stitch - not really long enough to complete anything...

To start at the beginning, I've been asked to run a weekend workshop in late summer/autumn 2005 by Jane Dickinson of Great Escapes. Initially, I thought that would leave me plenty of time to prepare the piece and the packs, but of course I'd forgotten that Jane would need a picture of the completed piece to go into the 2005 brochure - by November. Ho hum!

So for the past couple of weeks, I've been designing & stitching a little something that will offer enough challenges to the more experienced stitchers, whilst not frightening beginners and demonstrates some of the key elements for working my designs. The main piece is now completed (all descriptions have to be kept under wraps until the brochure is produced!) and now I'm working on the extra piece for the really speedy stitchers who finish the other piece ahead of time.

As usual, I'm counting down the minutes at work until I can shoot home and get back to stitching. I'm really pleased with the way this one has turned out, and the second part will just be the finishing touch. Once the pieces are finished, they'll be rushed down to my mother ready to be photographed. Luckily, my mother is an excellent photographer who is extremely experienced at photographing textiles so I know the pictures will show the pieces at their best - it's just a wrench to part with them! And I can never quite trust Royal Mail, even with Special Guaranteed Extortionate Price Delivery....

Time flies....

2004-10-14T16:57:00.000Z

Well, hello again!

This is going to be a common complaint throughout this blog - the problem of time. Or lack of it.

As I have previously mentioned, I work full-time to pay the mortgage & bills which leaves evenings & weekends for designing & stitching. Hmmm. Take out the time needed for housework (sorry, I do apologise for swearing), eating, sleeping and talking to my neglected OH, friends & cat - and you're left with a couple of hours on a good night & maybe 2-4 hours at a weekend....

That's not long.

I can design at work during quiet times & lunch-hours, but at the moment I have loads of designs & no time to stitch them all! Now it has been suggested to me that I employ a model stitcher - sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? After all, that's what most designers do!

Unfortunately, for me it's just not going to work for various reasons:

1. One of the problems I find is that a design can work beautifully on paper while losing its impact in three-dimensions when worked on fabric. If I am stitching the piece, I can see this & make the necessary adjustments or scrap the design entirely. The key elements to my designs are the textures that you can create with different stitching - how can you duplicate this on a two-dimensional piece of paper?

2. My paper designs are merely a sketch of the finished item. They allow me to organise spacing, calculate size and ensure the colours work. The choice of stitches, the backstitch detailing and the design specifics stay in my head until it comes to putting them onto the fabric. This means that I can allow the design to grow naturally without becoming blinkered by a piece of paper - I have found that I can become almost hypnotised by a detailed plan & not see the inherent problems in the piece.

3. Why should someone else have all the fun?!! I love to stitch & embroider - that's why I started to design - so why should I give the enjoyment to someone else? They'll get their chance when the design is published!

4. How can I write stitching & finishing instructions when I've not made the piece? Each box, notebook or needlecase comes with its own set of challenges. The card backing needs to be measured to the exact millimetre in some cases and I would not understand this unless I had constructed the piece myself. I do research finishing methods, but for example, what works for a Miladys Needle design won't necessarily work for one of my Blue Coppice designs! One of the key points with the designs for me is that each piece is treated as a whole. I don't design the stitching & then think "What shall I make this into?", the final shape of the piece is fundamental to the design.

Okay, you might say, well what about the Floral Sampler? That was a picture so didn't need construction diagrams - why didn't that go to a model stitcher? Well, it certainly had a lot of changes in it! The woodland trees that are now worked over one thread? They were originally intended to be worked in french knots. The colonial knots for the forget-me-knots were originally cross-stitches. The tulips had been planned to be worked in satin-stitch - they are now worked in cross-stitch.

None of these decisions could have been made if someone else had worked the piece for me!

5. Money! The profits to be made from designing are pretty minimal! The majority of the money from sales goes directly to pay printing bills, the rest goes towards supplies of fabric & threads. How could I afford to pay a model stitcher the rate they'd deserve?

Yes, I could cut corners by producing the charts without the instructions or colour highlights. I could produce them on a low-grade paper. I could find a cheaper printer. Well, sorry, I'm not going to. I took the decision when I started to produce the charts on good quality paper & card stock that would stand up to the rigours of stitching! Flimsy paper, blurred images, illegible charts, poor instructions - these are all problems that myself & many stitchers have experienced, and we vote with our feet. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard stitchers say "I loved that design but I'd never buy another chart from that company." It is a competitive market & I want my customers to come back to me!

So, my high printing charges will stand, my profits will be minimal & I will never be able to afford to pay for a model stitcher - but I am proud of the quality of my charts & that feeling inside when someone says "What a beautifully presented pack" is worth more than an extra couple of pennies profit! :D

Hmm. Ended up getting a little side-tracked there!

Anyway, it looks like I'm going to have to carry on squeezing in odd bits of stitching here & there, dreaming of the day when I can stop working in the corporate jungle & run Blue Coppice as a full-time business from home....

Oh, and if there are any millionaires out there with some spare cash that's just hanging around in the bank? How about subsidising the arts? I've heard it's a good way to get a peerage....

Welcome to my world....

2004-10-12T15:35:00.000Z

Well, here I am. Rather bored at work & wishing I could go home to do something rather more constructive than writing blurb for a corporate brochure.

I suppose I'd better introduce myself for the benefit of those poor lost souls trapped in the wilderness that is the internet...

During the day, I'm part of the cut & thrust of corporate life as I work as a Design/Graphics Manager. However, my alter-ego surfaces at night & weekends (and well, let's face it, any chance I get during working hours as well...) & I moonlight as an Embroidery Designer.

Yes, I know, not the coolest, hippest of occupations, but it's something that I have a passion for & have been doing in some form for many years. So less of the sarky comments thank you!

I've been self-publishing my designs for the last 6 months or so, & much to my surprise they've been getting a good reception. From it being a germ of an idea this time last year, I'm now supplying one of the best embroidery shops in the UK - The Country Cross Stitcher in Woburn, Bedfordshire - and have an ever-growing list of new customers, many of whom based in the USA. The internet is a wonderful thing...

I would love to give up my job & design my pieces full-time, particularly because I have over 150 ideas begging to be stitched, however due to the usual dull practicalities of life (mortgage, bills, mortgage, bills, mortgage, bills....you get the picture?) it looks like I'll be here for a long time yet.

Unless I win the lottery.

Although it might help if I actually bought the odd ticket......