Mid January blues?.....

There are so many things to tell you about!

First will be my events for this year, we will be adding them to the events portion of the website. Check it out for some event in your area, or to a retreat away. http://www.jeannettedouglas.ca/events-2/

Please note that the Florida event weekend still has some openings to stitch that lovely Mermaid Treasure box at Needle Orts in Alamonte Springs. Certainly hope to see you there, we will have the new Nashville goodies with us. shop@needleorts.com

 Our Canadian Patriotic Snippets are doing fabulous and I want to thank you for that. Amazing and wonderful to see so many of us more patriotic than our usual! Love it. Makes one feel proud somehow doesn’t it. When I wasresearching; Vimy Ridge in particular, I was so moved by the statements of Canada’s work on the world stage.

The Just Pin sets are on reorder. We sold out in one day on those….. I’m sorry I can never guess! The needle nannies from Zappy Dots are on their way, coming soon. Zappy Dots and I couldn’t decide which to make into a needle nanny – needle minder. Therefore we will have all of them, as things fall out we will probably just pick one at the end of the year, but I think it is very fun to have a match for each snippet. The first 2 are available now.  Hopefully once our next set comes there will coordination with the release of the patterns.

Wilma, Kathy and I are totally thrilled that in between all the orders we are mostly caught up with inventory! Always a mementos task. If I thought that January was a slow month, I must think again as it is speeding by! I always imagine I will stitch lots and have cozy evenings by the fire etc. but I have been building kits with threads, thread cards, boxes and cutting fabrics! My daughter was a dear and designed the floss cards and the sticker on top. I used ‘Sticker Mule’ an on-line sticker maker service, it was great.

And now on to the next Snippets -#3,4 – they will be shipped the last week of February, just after I ship all the many boxes for the Nashville show but before I leave. I am teaching after in Florida so I won’t be home right after the show to ship the beginning of March.

That brings me to Nashville new! We will have 9 new designs, of varying sizes, from Sampler band style to small hornbook size. In boxes, in frames, on stands, as pincushions! I will be at the photographer next week after I pick up my framed pieces and I will have photos and can share some ‘snippets’ of the new pieces. I look forward to sharing them with you.

I feel like there was other things to tell you about, but it is escaping me now! Feel free as always to contact me via email, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. PS I am a slow learner on the Twitter, I don’t get it sometimes….. so bear with me!

Aha! I just remembered!!! This week I got a call from The Textile Museum of Canada- here is the address: 55 Centre Avenue Toronto, ON     shop@textilemuseum.ca   and they have requested to carry the snippets in their Museum shop, I was very excited, so now we are building those kits! Funnily enough last fall both in the UK and Holland I visited Textile museums and so it is kind of cool to be included in the shop items for sale in this one. If you are in the Toronto area, it would be fun to make a day trip to go and see, because I actually didn’t know we had one!

My photo is of the beautiful snow covered Montana Christmas holiday week we had as a family.

An update on various things.........

It seems like November is flying by and I had all these plans….. as it is usually a quieter month. December always seems to ramp up for the holidays. And now by the time I get this posted it’s December already! But getting our ducks in a row for the Canadian Patriotic Snippets is gobbling up the time. To that a few more details. We have done our photographs for the pieces and decided in the end decided to place them in sets of 2 per chart– rather than singly. It will make shipping simpler I think and keep the charts a little more organized. It was fun to set up the photo shoot. When I was in Ontario visiting family and friends, I spent a day with my childhood friends laughing and giggling like we did so many years ago, but we also went to the thrift store and low and behold we found a Canadian Flag. I was so excited about it that the person minding the shop gave me the flag for free, as he stated it was old and tattered, which suited me just fine. I collected little bits and bobs that made think Canadian, but in the end hardly used any of them, funnily enough. The bowl that holds the pincushions has some great wood maple leaves and a tatted doily that suited the set. The framed piece took up most of the rest of the photo, so items like my cute Flag napkins were not needed!

Canadian 150th Celebration Series

We will be offering the Canadian Patriotic Snippets in 2 ways. 1) to purchase the 6 charts with 2 parts of the sampler or 2 pincushions per chart singly – so 6 charts throughout the year or 2) presented in aKraft box with a patriotic sticker on the front and packaged with the fabric choices of either 32 ct Flax, 36 ct Flax or 36 Ct. Parisian Taupe, a ring of colours of full skeins and colour key card with less used flosses. It is all Gentle Art or Weeks Dye Works threads, a few metallic and Threadworx Peppermint for the border. In addition we will be selling a set of Just Another Button Company Canadian pins. We are also in talk with Zappy Dots that will make a Canadiana Needle Nanny for us. The box will come with #1,2 and the rest of the charts will be shipped every 2 months throughout the year.

It has been a year since we set sail on the Ama Prima in Nuremburg, Germany after spending some fast-paced days in Prague. The Christmas Markets Cruise with Mona and Lindy of The Silver Needle and Judy Bradford of Cruise Ship Centers Cambridge and all of you, was out of this world. Hanging my purchases this past weekend, made me even more grateful for the absolutely lovely time and the great memories it has created. Those markets were all somewhat different, the sights of each town or city unique and the evenings on the ship so very fun. Our ornament exchange and ugly sweater night gave us some good laughs. Thank you for spending the Christmas time with me and I will surely miss it this year. But I did go with my daughter to several markets here in Calgary on the weekend and it was so enjoyable too, interesting though how the memories of last year just leak through….. amazing.

It is now a few months since my whirlwind of Sept. and Oct. I want to thank so many of you for the lovely gifts that I have received. My shelf with fun things on my wall above my computer is getting pretty full, but I love the bits and bobs that you have made and shared with me. Some I am using some like the pincushions make such a nice addition to the office. Thank you for your kind and thoughtful gifts, love them all!!!

Thank you to Fobbles for having me and  to those who made my stay in England so FUN! You are amazing and you have made my life the richer for knowing you and sharing your view of England with me. A more personal look than a tourist and filled with laughter and enjoying the visits.

Thank you to my cousins for making the first few days in Holland so comfortable despite the heat and sleeping up above in the thatched roof part of the house. Charming house, love the renos, but my it is hot in that space. <grin> Unusually warm it was, but oh so lovely to walk the dyke and see the windmills on the horizon. Thank you to De Handwerk Boetiek who again despite the heat, and we were amazed at the repeat of the heat from 3 years ago, Holland never really gets that hot!!! persevered and made our days of stitching so very enjoyable.  Coffee in cup and saucers served to you with cake on arrival and tea in the afternoon with more cookies or cake, love Dutch pastries and baked goods! so special.

Then on return I did the Shepherd’s Bush retreat and how fun it is that Tina and Teri let me help in the shop at the till to see and visit with you all before all the craziness starts. It is such a treat to see repeat faces and meet new ones. Apparently, I take the job too seriously!! I hope that you stitched a couple of the fun travelling pincushions to put in your very neat tray.

Then lastly Vermont, what a difference, I had snow on the way to the airport for Calgary, no doubt getting me ready for what was to come at home. But what a pleasure Stowe was – the apple cider doughnuts and the delightful little shops just made the stay there special.

Thank you all for your gifts again and for your gifts of friendship, it has been an amazing few months.

Vimy Ridge Sampler

As I get ready to embark on the celebration of Canada’s 150th year – I look forward to sharing the Vimy Ridge Sampler and the 12 pincushions or the 12 pieces made into a sampler with you. And if you are from another country I would be thrilled if you stitch one or two for fun!

Remembrance Week

As many of you know because I’ve seen you………. It’s been a fall like no other. What with the release of Seasons by the Sea- a pattern that had the My Stitching Treasures problems of never being ahead on the thread packs and reprinting….. and then all the fall classes, I am finally home and can think and write a blog post, without feeling like there are a hundred things to do NOW – there are a hundred things but not all right NOW. I appreciate all your patience with my busy year and I have kept it to 4 classes next year, for 2 reasons, one I cannot keep that pace for so many years in a row and my daughter is getting married. Even more reason to keep the teaching reasonable. But I do hope that I will get to see you somewhere in the mix.

We will add events to that tab as quickly as we can.

It seems like I have been beset by little things that just needed doing, my computer needed an overhaul and I didn’t get to it before it crashed. I have most things in a crash plan, but nevertheless a little untimely and left me scrambling, as if I wasn’t over the top busy enough.

Finally we got my A-Fib under control it had been in a rapid state for a year, daily I felt compromised. We couldn’t seem to get the right meds but with a couple of cardioversions -restarts, and another try it has been under control since June, what a relief.

Both the girls that work for me Kathy and Wilma have been despite working so hard at the thread packs and doing a great job, busy with their aging mom’s and difficulties. All 3 of us were feeling the stress most of the year. It is a relief to know that I will be not as busy next year. While I love it, and you all know it, it is always a lovely time everywhere I go….. it does break into blocks of time to get things done. One loses time there and back; and then the readjustment of getting back and clearing things away that have piled up. I’m going to be sentimental and want you to know that despite the challenges this year brought, it is you the stitchers that make it so worth it. Thank you for attending events to inspire your stitching and connecting with others.

As I review the year, as it seems I am doing that…. I also look forward to the next, it will be a year of new commitments and new designs, remember it is not where you go but who you are with.

That brings me to next year. We have several plans and hope to discuss them further in another blog post and look for a Facebook post to come also. But I can tell you now that I have a special little celebration set for next year for Canada’s 150th birthday. I will tell more next time. As it is Remembrance week – I wanted to let you know about the Vimy Ridge Sampler – a sampler commemorating the battle in France that has become the symbol of Canadian national achievement and sacrifice. A 100 hectare portion of the former battleground serves a memorial part and is the site of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial. When I got to see it 10 years ago…. We all cried, my daughters, husband and I, we stood on the ridge overlooking the French countryside and could not fathom the gift of those Canadians.

May we all remember the sacrifices that soldiers across the world give to their countries this Remembrance week. The sampler will be available January 3, 2017. It is stitched in silk, but I will have an overdyed cotton and DMC floss change for it.

Look for more details to come.