Post Nashville 2019

It’s long overdue to add the new patterns we released for the Nashville Needlework market 2019. It’s like somehow the blog is not the ‘go to’ it once was. I know myself for one heavily depend on Instagram and the JDD Facebook page for any news and events. It always more of a sit with a cup of tea and write the blog than a quick photo and little blurb about what one is doing at the moment. Have our lives become little moments…..? I hope and pray that stitching helps us be mindful and more lasting than a moment.

I have just returned from a wonderful retreat in Bloomington, Indiana for FancyWorks Needlework shop. Dianna, the owner, held it at Mc Cormick’s State Park, close to the shop and that was wonderful. She had some trunk shows and other vendors which was great and the event had a super nice spot for all stitchers to sit at round tables with friends and enjoy each other, lots of laughter was heard around the room. Kathy Barrick was the other teacher, a good time was had by all.

The new patterns for Nashville release will be posted on the Designs page under 2019. There will also be an updated pdf listing available of the charts in the JDD line. Just 2 things of note - the Spring Posey pattern has some issues with the symbols in the chart, please email me and I will send you a correct jpeg of the chart. For the Stitching by the Sea pattern, Just Another Button Company is making us a Pin Mini for it with the turtle, sand dollar and seagull in it. Just check with them - it will be called “By the Sea”.

We are now in the last days of preparation for the Tulip Time Cruise in Europe. I leave already on the 19th for Holland, to have a little visit with my cousins and other family and prepare a special item for the cruise. We are building the kits this week. Then we will cruise April 28- May 5. On the 5th I fly to Manchester and we will be teaching again at my favourite spot in England, the lovely little Fobbles in Cumbria.

My following 2 teaching gigs are in Calgary - 1) for the Rimon Calgary Celebration 2019 - a fun little Pomegranate project-For more information and registration forms please email RCC2019@shaw.ca and 2) for the Stitching Corner in Cochrane at their retreat - contact Gail or Betty at nygabe@telus.net

Then I have the summer to prepare for our fun 20 year Celebration at JDD with a 3 day Calgary event and a week cruise on the West Coast, this is in conjunction with The Silver Needle and with Judy Bradford of Cruiseship Centers. Please contact jbradford@cruiseshipcenters.com to join us in this fun and relaxing event. We will have a Calgary project for you and a cruise piece sampler piece of the west coast sights.

Before we embark on the cruise I will have a weekend trip to Ohio for the Western Reserve Sampler Guild which has 2 sessions planned in mid September. Please check with the guild for information.

In between all that, we will continue to have new releases and I look forward to sharing them with you.

Please take joy in your stitching, till we see you again soon.

Jeannette

It's been awhile........

This note is so long overdue, I'm embarrassed to say. But as the saying goes life happens.....

To really get at where I am at I must go back to the last post. That post was done the beginning of March. - 5 months later and we are in August. I have never let the blog go that long.... I do believe it is a sign of increased social media time everyday on Facebook and Instagram. I dd do a little interview with Michelle Garrette of bendystitches on You Tube - or rather FlossTube - www.youtube.com/user/michellegarrette  this spring- would have been beginning of April and a podcast with Gary L. Parr called Fiber talk. http://wetalkfiber.com/2018/06/10/fiber-talk-with-jeannette-douglas/- I hope you check them both out, fun to do, no time to get nervous.... it was such a busy spring, I just went from thing to thing and couldn't dwell on anything, just do it, enjoy and go on.

Thank you for embracing the Letters from Mom series. It seems more of you feel the same as I do and I am so glad to hear that stitching it as ever is our solace. We are finding a rhythm with the packing of all the threads and patterns that must go on. And that is good. We are used to the blast of packing at Nashville time but the rest of the year is usually a little quieter, with this project I have run out of bags and run out of time for bagging - hence my whole family was coerced into the project but we  are finding our way. Check Instagram for photos  of people stitching this under the hashtag of #lettersfrommom or #jeannettedouglasdesigns. Some have done the DMC conversion that is in the chart. It looked great too, I was happy to see, as I hadn't seen how those colours panned out.

Many of you have joined both fan groups on Facebook ( just type in the titles and they should come up, request to join) - Jeannette Douglas Stitchers and Jeannette Douglas is our Common Thread - thank you to you and to the girls who admin these groups, it is greatly appreciated. Please do check them out, it is fun to see peoples progress and we would love to see your progress. It is also a great spot to check on a stitch if you need.

In Portland for the Acorns and Threads event

Blossoms in spring in Oregon

My events this spring were back to back with very little time in between to do all that needs to be done. I have spent much of the summer trying to play catch up. 

 Firstly to Acorns and Threads in the beginning of April, the sun was shining and the trees and flowers were blooming, it was lovely after the super long winter here. It was good for my soul. We had a wonderful event with My Stitching Box being the piece - made me very happy everyone loved it.... and quite a few have finished or are close. Then it was fun to be on Michelle Garrette's floss tube channel and talk there. Thanks Michelle for making it fun! As ever Jeannine the owner of Acorns and Threads and I had some great laughs! It was also great to see Liz from Stitchy Box https://www.stitchybox.com/ who has taken charge of The Gifting Basket series that I designed for her. Please check them out, they are sweet little stitches with a meaningful saying that you can gift to someone when they are in need. I imagined stitchers having stitched a few and having them sit by your desk and even just remind us to be mindful and grateful always.

Stitchville USA

Secondly, I was home but 2 days and I flew off to Minneapolis to Stitchville USA in Minnetonka and if you have always wanted to go to a shop and be overwhelmed, this would be it. It is amazing! Just can't think that they wouldn't have what you might want! So neat to see! The class was wonderful, Debbie always does such a good retreat, our only negative was that it snowed miserably on the Saturday- it came down all day -18" or something and that meant a Sunday 7 hour wait at the airport for me to get home. Guess what, I stitched! It does pass the time nicely, I must say.

Boston

Thirdly, I think I had 10 days to get all my boxes packed for the Celebration of Needlework show in Nashua, NH. I also had 2 classes there, so it was getting those things ready so I could have a booth and have stuff for teaching. I think Canada Post may have really liked me these past months! Again if you ever get the chance to do Celebration of Needlework put on by Pam Reed of Olde Colonial Designs, please do, it is a great event. So much work goes into making it  a place where you can learn some new stitching techniques and a place to go shopping with many varying vendors. It was great to visit with Pam from Olde Colonial and Linda Stolz from Erica Michaels, her 'berries' are amazing!  Post doing the show, Dale and I go to spend a few days in Boston, we walked everywhere and what a delight- a new historical item on every corner, I loved it, and Dale loved it because he got to see the Boston Gardens- we did a tour - he is a big Boston Bruins fan.

Amish Country Ohio

We left Boston and in Toronto my sister came to pick me up and Dale went on to Calgary. I spent some days with family in the Niagara area and with my childhood dear friends went to Amish country in Ohio. Well, I should have bought a second suitcase, oh my gosh, so much to see and the shopping.....!!! so very fun. I then went on to Atlanta Georgia to the 2 Georgia Guilds and did a weekend event there. What a great group of ladies, they were wonderful stitchers and we just had the best discussions on stitching. The time went so very quickly. Thanks to my host Linda Telling for great hospitality and calmness when the whole suitcase issue could have dissolved into worse.

By the time I got home, Wilma and Kathy had lots done for our shipments of the first 3 monthly letter charts in the Letters from Mom Series- but so much more to do, so we all buckled down and got that ready so we could spend the next week shipping it all out!

And so that brings us to June already...... can you believe how fast it goes. After a year of planning my cousin and her husband came from Holland to spend 8 days with us, what a great visit- I was so happy to be able to entertain her as she always has me either before or after when I am in Holland teaching. I totally enjoyed seeing my own part of the country here and realized the mountains truly are magnificent. And I do hope that you take the chance to come and see them next fall for the JDD 20th Anniversary Celebration. Check events page for dates. We have 3 days in Calgary planned and then on to Vancouver to catch a ship and sail down to Los Angles.  Check with Judy of Cambridge Cruise ship centers for availability. Judy Bradford <jbradford@cruiseshipcenters.com>

Beautiful Lake Louise

Then July was teaching in Charlottetown, PEI for EAC Seminar. It was fantastic. I enjoyed it very much. I had a 4 day slot to teach -Learning Stitches and we used every minute, I had a booklet made, which turned out good, and did a power point to help visualize the stitches better. It was a very warm week and at times I thought I might expire! but it went very well. Unfortunately I must tell you my first ablation went on the fritz on May 1 - so all this busyiness was now being done with my being quite compromised.  But I do have a new date for the second one -Sept 14 - and I hope that this one will hold! Because I felt so great with those 5 months free of A fib.

August and it is time to gear up to ship the next set of Letters form Mom- monthly Letters- December January, February. I also have some new releases in the Patterned Pretties series- some Christmas pin pillows.I working on finishing the last one of 3 pillows.

Make sure you scroll through the several photos here of PEI and Nova Scotia. The photo on the header is Peggy's Cover Harbour

Nashville Needlework Market New 2018

Although this is written before I leave for market, I did want to share with you the new pattern releases. The challenge in getting everything ready is always there, but this year my added challenge was my 5 classes in the next few months! All places have different projects, although Acorns & Threads in Portland, OR and Stitchville USA share parts of a bigger project! I started in November and feel like I didn’t come up for air till now! And now is the market! Do check on the classes I am teaching this year, it is an array of different places, but the last for this year will be in Calgary, the beginning of November! Thrilled to be the teacher for the Deerly Wrought Sampler Guild. Next year brings another wonderful cruise ‘Tulip Time’, teaching in Cumbria, UK for Fobbles and a surprise!

Many of you have enjoyed the Shadow Box series and I am so happy to bring you the news that the “shadow box turntable, lazy Susan thingy” is available! The Shadow Box Stand will hold 5 shadow boxes. Room for 4 as drawers and one on top. Mermaid Box and Journey Box are being released now to add to Pumpkin Patch Box and Bird Box. There for sure is one more and hopefully one after that yet! This turntable will be available from your LNS who will order it from Cabranmary Woods.

I know you’ve enjoyed Vintage Stars, Vintage Flowers and Vintage Birds. It is a treat to give you Vintage Animals. It is the same size as the others, has an alphabet also. I always wanted to design a little fox!

My mother and now my sister were and are great quilters and so I am always inspired by quilts. I love the way the fabric has patterns, colour and dimension, and in the Star Center Quilt piece I tried to show this. Because I couldn’t decide what colour palette to choose, my stitcher Flo Osborne did both colourways for me! I am sure there could be many more and I hope that you will try a combination of your own.

I am a big lover of pincushions and this lead me to continue with the Shaker Box and Pincushion rounds from Lone Elm Lane that suite them perfectly. Acorn Shaker Box has a nice match in Tulip Shaker Box.

Wool Pincushion and Fob in autumn colours has a match in spring colours. I love the way the Wool stitches and covers the fabric and it is fun to stitch the little center on 40ct for a sweet fob to match.

A happy little addition to any desk or Corner is Sunflowers, done on a great blue fabric that show cases them well.

Tiny Treasure is design stitched over 1 on 40ct fabric, I used Gloriana Threads Luminescence but Tudor Silk would be great too. The kit includes the fabric, thread, quilt batting to poof it bit, wool felt backing and the mini hoop.

Lastly, to share with you is the beginning of a new series called ‘Letters from Mom’ or Oma, Aunt, Grandma, Friend etc. (there is an alphabet to change it)

Quaker inspired; these 12 - 3 x 5 ½” charts will be released singly accompanied by the one over dyed CGT thread for each month, but shipped 3 at a time. It uses 12 different colours from Cottage Garden Threads. Each chart will be packaged with the overdyed floss from CGT. They will not include the GAST, WDW or CC floss colours. These charts may be finished as a big sampler framed and it will be 16 ¼” x 16 ¼” or single charts and placed in a letter bag that has been made especially for this project by Carolina Stitcher (Faye Riggsbee), they will be 3 x 5 ½”. Letters from Mom is the cover of the letter bag or can be the middle insert of the monthly charts on the sampler style finish. The letter bag will hold your little monthly ‘notes’ and can be made with a pocket on the back for a true written note from you or to add a little candy etc. The messages are all set in the Quaker style of writing/speaking and bordered by a Quaker style stitch. Some were traditionally used ones and matched a certain month and some I fashioned when I needed the words to reflect a month.  These are little personal notes to remind us to be ever grateful and mindful.

To order letter bag please contact: Faye Riggsbee, Carolina Stitcher, fayeriggsbee@gmail.com or check out her BlogSpot- carolinastitcher.blogspot.com