Wishing you a breath of fresh air!

We are leaving today, driving up to a house we rented in the Catskills, to spend Passover with our family. 

I wish you all a beautiful season of Spring Holidays.  Passover symbolizing freedom, Easter symbolizing rebirth, both give a feeling of a deep breath of freshness. I love this time. 

We'll meet here again soon...

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Needlepoint Now and other stuff

I'm still in boxes, only this time in our temp housing. It's actually not that bad of a place and being that it's smaller, less housekeeping to do, big plus!  Our internet connections, have been a nightmare. Just can't get my two computers to talk and since I have all my design instructions on one and my PDF files on another, I can't keep my precious cyber students happy. However, I'm staying positive and working on getting things up and running!

FIERCE, my new design for Needlepoint Now, is out!  Thank you all for the lovely comments you send me everyday. It means so much to hear from you and know you are enjoying my work. 

If you'd like to try the design with a different color scheme, we can try something fun... send me a photo of an overdye you love and would like to use as a base for your colorway, (it will be stitched in the center box and the boxes in the two bottom corners). Your overdye should be a stranded fiber such as Watercolours, or Silk n' Colors, or any other similar fiber. Based on your photo I will send you recommendations for the other fibers you may want to use for the other elements of the design. You can also send me the name and number of the overdye, however, bear in mind, dye lots change, sometimes a new dye lot can make a fiber look completely different! At times it may clash with the same fiber of a different dye lot, therefore my recommendation may be off if I can't see your actual choice.

We will be offering a second Cirque de Fleur Cyberclass beginning May 12th. You can sign up here.

We will be taking sign ups until April 26th. We are in the midst of the first session of this piece and it's been so much fun!

Many of you have asked about stitch guides for Painted Birds. I hope to complete my dear quail friend very soon and write up the guide for this proud little one. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Have you checked out the listing for future ANG Cyberworkshops lately? You will find SQUARE DANCE on that list. Class starts January 2011 and sign up is September-October 2010. Put it on your calendar, it will be a fantastic class!

Today I'm waiting for a visit from my friend and student, Diane. She has been asking to learn how to needlepoint and after a one on one lesson, a few tips along the way, and lots of enthusiasm, this is what she has done so far! 

First project after one lesson. Isn't she amazing? It's students like Diane that make me look good!

Off to get some work done.

Have a wonderful day!!

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This is why...

 

Tomorrow we will be moving into a one bedroom apartment, for three months, (famous last words?), so that the contractor can lead his people in the creation of a new studio, a new music room, a separate family area and a new kitchen. The photos you see here were taken a week ago.  Today I can't even find the camera to take a photo. 

I have tried to think of everything I may need for the next 90 days, packed those separately  and labeled them as best I can. Seasons will change meaning more clothing, books and toys for Nina, food and toys for Lola, pots and pans and food and coffee maker and toaster, it goes on and on. 

And my studio! How do I begin to prepare for three months away? The hundreds and hundreds of threads, beads, frames, instruction books. It's a nightmare! One day I decide that I can't possibly offer my designs for sale during these months, I can't possibly move all the inventory I need to a one bedroom apartment, but the next day my heart breaks thinking I want to stay in touch with you all, I want to continue supplying you with all the new designs I'm working on, I don't want to turn anyone away. So I've been agonizing over this, tomorrow morning we move, and I still don't know what to do!

 

Anyway, that's why I've been away, and it may take a few more days to resume a normal pattern of life. I do look forward to having much more time to stitch. There should be much less to do in a small space, therefore much more stitching. Less cleaning, therefore much more blogging, less entertaining, therefore much more designing. That's the positive side of this situation, and I will continue to remind myself of this. Also of the new studio I will move into when all this is over.

The weather is finally gorgeous and I'm trying to work hard at staying upbeat. I think it will be OK. I think.

SO enjoy the rest of your weekend and I'll be back when I plug my dear Mac back in.

All my best for now,

Me

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