Spring is in...

First a great big thank you to all of you that made the west coast trip to Alameda at Needle in a Haystack for the Mermaid Treasure Box class so awesome! It was delightful from start to finish. And absolutely stunning weather did totally help. We worked on the 'fobulous' mermaid scissor fob on the Friday night and Saturday and Sunday on the shadow box. We had lunch outside and shopping during out breaks, perfect! And so many got so far on their pieces, which was such a treat for me to see. Great going gals. Check in with the yahoo group Cathe Ray posted for this class, it will give you the mermaid fin the bottom part drawn out too for ease of stitching. After the class my husband came down and met me in Alameda and we had 9 lovely days in the Bay area. We rode the cable car, we went down Lombard, we spent the whole day on Alcatraz, did a little hike in Muir Woods, the weather was sunny and warm with no fog! So we did see the Golden Gate bridge with a blue blue sky, which was amazing. We had wine in Napa and delicious meals in  little cafes in downtown San Francisco. Delightful!

Now I am on to the next as they say and I have just sent all the bits to the printer for the new releases in a month at Seminar in Calgary. We will be releasing the next pattern in the Seasonal set that started with -The Spring Bird. The next is The Summer Flower, which we will be shipping the first week in May. I know some of you are doing this is as SAL so the next one is coming soon.... !

We will also be releasing one that is close to my heart.... O Canada True North Strong Sampler. It has been over 15 years ago that I started on my Canadian Journey series and into the cross stitch/ counted thread world and so I am looking forward to sharing this piece with you. If you are lucky enough to be coming to Stampeding Stitches - EAC Seminar in Calgary you will be able to see the piece in real....! I will showcase it - and have patterns and thread packs for sale on the merchant evening night and following that it will be at the Traditional Stitches booth for the remainder of Seminar.

Have you seen the new Facebook page called Stitcher's Escape - it is an awesome resource for all retreat, stitching events across North America. Check it out and the sister page Cross Stitch Road Trip for a listing of shops. It is very exciting to see that we have some fun things to look forward to in our industry.

This is becoming a longer post than I had anticipated but I also wanted to say thanks to my new webgal - Deanna Cupido who is helping me with the website. It was long overdue and I wasn't keeping it up as I should on my own - too many other things to do - so I am very grateful for her help and she is doing an outstanding job. We will continue to clean up and update, it's quite something how quickly a website can get behind when you continue to produce new...!

As ever... and hope to see you soon somewhere.... check out the events page, lots to do... and a few snippets of the new patterns and our SF trip.

Golden Gate Bridge

Alcatraz

Streets of San Francisco via Cable Car

Alamo Square -the Painted Ladies

O Canada True North Strong snippet

The Summer Flower snippet

jeannette

Home from the Needlework Market- JDD new Nashville 2015

In a rather round about way we got home on Tuesday rather than Monday from market. It seems in airports these days one needs a bucket load of patience. So all is well at this end, we have lovely weather, it's sunny and mild and I must admit the Blue Sky Country is living up to it's name this year. Market was no end of fun and laughter and tons of hard work. I need some minions or something..... seriously though, Dale and I enjoyed the visits and the wonderful meals out, I think we ate shrimp everyday for some weird reason.

So that brings us to the pictures of the new products, I will post them here but look for them to come in the main design section of website. We are working on adding them all to the data base.

We had 2 large samplers English Rose Sampler, and while it has some accessories to go with it, I did not release them yet as I am teaching that project at EAC Seminar in Calgary, so if you are interested you may join us and work on this project in class. The other large sampler was the Hollandse Merklap -Dutch Sampler. It does have a set of accessories released with it called the ABC Pyn Pillow and Crown Tulip Thread Keep. These 2 projects have a very Dutch feel to them and I was thrilled to teach this 1 1/2 ago in Holland in Dutch. My immigrant Dutch parents would have been very proud of me, and it has a very special place in my heart.

I had fun with keys and did a piece called Key to Home in the Lone Elm Lane black square box. I put my house number in the piece but of course there is a set of numbers in the chart for you to put your own. In the Lone Elm Lane box is a smaller box that I put a small pincushion in and a key fob. This was a smaller Nashville only kit called Key Keep and Fob.

I did so love the Lone Elm Lane boxes so I also did a piece called Pins & Needles with 2 matching small pincushions also to fit inside the box. I couldn't decide on which colour choice to use so we stitched it up twice in 2 colourways and you can purchase the embellishment kit one colourway or the other. It includes the charms and buttons.

The Spring Bird is the beginning of a new little seasonal series that will continue with the rest of the seasons. I had them stitched and one could see them in the booth so you know what is coming the rest of the year in this set.

Lastly I added 3 new pin pillows (#13,14,15) to the growing Patterned Pretties collection!! How fun is that. Numbers 11 & 12 are in the JCS April issue.

Patterned Pretties #15

ABC Pyn Roll & Crown Tulip Thread Keep

English Rose Sampler

Key to Home

Patterned Pretties #13

Hollandse Merklap

Key Keep & Fob

Patterned Pretties #14

My next event will be in Alameda, CA - the bay area - for Needle in a Haystack with the Mermaid Treasure Box. Look for a fun time on the Friday night when Cathe and I have been scheming to have some interesting sea related items to 'play' with. Then I'm here in Calgary for Seminar in early May - looking forward to seeing you at these events.

Till next time, jeannette

Nashville Preview

I am thrilled I am getting close to my shipping day, then my office might be tidier than the shambles it has become. How can that be in such a short time, I cleaned and purged and sorted and made nice baskets and felt on top of it all but as January rolled along it has steadily gone downhill!  I move one thing to get at another, and then oh gee... where did that other thing go.... it's classic prior to a show. That brings me to show you a few of my things for the Needlework market.

I have 10 new offerings and here is a snippet of some of what is coming up. Pretty excited to share these items; there is something for everyone. There will be 2 fabulous larger-sized samplers, 3 medium- sized smaller designs, several accessories,  a Nashville Special and several new Patterned Pretties pin pillows to collect. Remember my tall jar with the pin pillows in it that I posted on facebook in December?  I will post it here for you to see if you missed it.

Have a check back in a few short weeks and full pictures will be posted.