A wee bit of a holiday before the busy fall

Just a quick note before I leave for the long voyage across to the UK and Holland. We just got back from a wee little week away in Montana - one of my favourite places. Charland made me go to this great breakfast place in West Glacier and it was so good we went twice! Hope you all had a great time in St. Charles and hopefully my schedule will let me do it next year. I do have new patterns, but I am slow..... I have the covers done and of course the pieces stitched but not the instructions done, between all the classes it has been an almost insurmountable feat. I love the teaching and enjoy that so much, enjoy the design and stitching part..... but the writing of the instructions...... not so..... so of course I leave it way too long and now I am out of time. I do hope that I can get some of these things between places but I am pretty sure my releases will not be till late Sept.  I have a new little series....which is just so darn cute. It is just cross stitch and called  - A most suitable Name- look for it's debut soon! The first 3 will appear end of Sept.

I do have some additions to the Stitches series in the mini stitches - Mini Vintage Stitches - the mini of the grape themed stitches and the Mini Pumpkin Stitches a mini mate to Pumpkin Stitches of last year. I also have Numero Vintage Pillows - had a blast with these- I made all new designs with numbers - stitched it on Antique White linen verus the natural that  I did it on in the spring and made them into 7 pillows, loved it. Put different backing on each one and little buttons or charms and used silk thread...... we will have an embellishment pkg. for this one. I still have a few button packs from Numero in the spring.

Now if you were looking for bigger samplers - they were done for teaching this year and we have 2 awesome pieces - 'English Beauty' which I will be teaching this coming weekend at Fobbles in Cumbria, UK and the following weekend I will be in Holland with the 'Hollandse Merklap' at De Handwerk Boetiek in Roden, The Netherlands. I am totally looking forward to returning to that lovely piece of heaven called the Lake District in northern England to see familiar faces from being there previously - thank you ladies, see you soon! And of course going to Holland where my roots lie is just a treat. It was funny when I was designing and working on this piece I muttered to myself in dutch no less.... well it seemed fitting while designing tulips and such!  My mother would be proud.

Ladies as they say in Dutch- Tot ziens! and to all of you 'Groeten van Canada'

Jeannette

PS the picture is from our peaceful fun filled week with family in Montana.

A most patriotic week!

As you know I was out New England way teaching the Patriotic Sampler. Oh my gosh, what a lovely little mid week retreat. The weather was hot, and airconditioning worked.... and coming from a rather wet June here in Calgary that was lovely. The Needleworking ladies who attended were awesome and got so much done on their Samplers it was amazing. I posted a picture on the Jeannette Douglas Designs Facebook page to show you the fun few days. It is always too short. Thank you ladies for coming, thank you Sue from Stitcher's Hideaway for doing a great job as usual. I did get to spend a day with Sue and we went  on a Connecticut River cruise on RiverQuest for a little tour down the River, what a scenic ride, lovely. Then I got to spend a couple of days with Pam and Bob Reed of Olde Colonial Designs and I have to show you a picture of the barn and one of the levels in it and the stack of MST boxes and JDD Acorn boxes! Awesome isn't it. I was thrilled to see the factory! <grin> I think that has been the most charming fact of being in this business is that there are people - real people behind the names of the companies that you know. It isn't a true factory in the sense that we think but rather a  home business that with dedication and hard work has flourished and created these wonderful things that our shared love of Needlework has generated. We did visit Plymouth and spent a day taking the 'fast ferry' to Nantucket which I thoroughly enjoyed. I think they were tired of me stopping at every Hydrangea bush to take a picture!!

It was a lovely early July getaway and I thank everyone for their hospitality and gifts, it was a treasure and I have lots of flower pictures!! my fave.

So what next you ask? Well I am knee deep in my pieces for both the UK and Holland - and for Crafty Ewe and Dyeing to Stitch..... it is all happening at once plus trying to do some releases. oh boy. But the cooler weather we've been having here what with the rainy June, what can I say but it is easier to work when the weather isn't calling one outside.

Happy summer stitching, warmly jeannette

July already!

How did it get to be July already! With the full travel year I have I knew I had to 'hunker' down and get things done in June and I did, yay! The weather helped, it rained alot in June and so then you end by default not really wanting to be outside except to walk the dog etc.... But those mighty rains combined with snow pack melt, made for a very messy disaster here in Calgary  and thankfully we live on higher ground and don't work downtown! But so sad to see the devastation but so heartening to see the community working for each other. I am adding into the Gallery some new finishes by Barbara Thomas, she did the Isle of Hope Sampler with some wonderful additions - like adding the names  her ancestors who immigrated - love that idea and where they came from. Fabulous! She also did the Accessories for Isle of Hope and beyond belief delightful little sweet suitcase she did find!! It is such a joy to see the fun she had in putting this together, it looks terrific, the keys and everything! And lastly she also did an amazing job on the Four Seasons Smalls and did some little changes there also which look great. Thank you so very much for sharing Barbara! and after meeting you at Needle In a Haystack in CA this spring, it means even more to me, thank you.

I am working on some new things - hopefully we'll have some to release in Sept. but mostly I have to admit I have been working madly on all the class stuff for this year.... going to be fun to share those wonderful new patterns with you, that's the exciting part for me, love the events where we meet and share. In a week I am off to Sturbridge, MA  already, it has come up so quick. Looking forward to our patriotic sampler and a few little patriotic surprises!! Should be fun.

Warmly, jeannette