Having a great big gaping hole in my pants meant that my original plan to go to the grocery store and pick up dinner was out, so DH and I decided to order pizza. I got home and changed and then tried to order pizza. Usually I like to order over the internet so nothing gets misunderstood, however, my computer was at work, so I had to call in the order. It takes several minutes to get through my order (a single large pizza and breadsticks) because I had a coupon and the girl taking my order was a driver and only manning the phone because they were short-staffed. When the pizza arrived there were no breadsticks. Turns out something had gone wrong, they hadn’t put in the coupon and somehow left the breadsticks off the order. Had they missed the coupon and added the breadsticks, I would’ve picked up on the mistake because of the price difference. Anyway, I wasn’t too happy about all this, especially considering my earlier problem with the pants. I called the store back after dinner and they did rectify the situation by putting a credit on our account.

I did get some stitching done last night after all of this. I finished what I could on the green dragon; now I am waiting on some beads. I also still have to do the tree border on all three new dragons. Today I drew up plans for integrating them into a complete set. There will have to be a few tweaks, and I’ll add in an extra goody or two when I do get around to releasing them all together (they’ll come out individually first). Since I didn’t have the beads, I got back to my now week-long neglected second design in my new series.

Finally, here’s a picture of the ATC I received in the class exchange:

I only used my camera phone, so the picture doesn’t quite do justice to the stitching.

I’ll try to remeber to take a picture of the back as well – I ended up stitching part of my Cross Eyed Kat business card on the back. This has the advantage of keeping all my contact information on the ATC, as well as providing some space to name the card and date it. Stitching through paper is hard, especially since I didn’t do it until the card was all put together.

Thursday at the stitch-in, we held the trading session of the ATC class. I received a lovely atumnal blackwork ATC done on perforated paper. That’s another thing I need to take a picture of! I think we’re going to start an ATC exchange club at the shop to see if we can build any interest. The next exchange will be sometime in February with a Valentine’s theme. Email me if you would like information on how to participate.

While driving around last week, I spotted this:

It’s an Autobot! And yes, I was stopped when taking this picture. I was driving around like crazy because I had run out of Miss Mocha’s food. She eats a special limited ingredient cat food after some stomach problems several years ago. Unfortunately, the vet’s office was out of her food! So I went over to PetSmart, since they have a vet’s office attached and carry her special food. They were out of her flavor and the other flavor they did have was all expired! I looked at the ingredients on the expired, and it didn’t look as limited as the name suggested, so I looked around the other “fancy” cat foods. I finally settled on Healthful Life (R) from Cat Chow (R). Mocha loves it! She scarf it down. Now I have to worry about her eating too much. She’s also still adjusting to the time change, so she meows at the door way too early in the morning because her bowl is empty. I’m hoping that I can keep her on this food.

Really, who can resist this look?

I feel like I have been very busy in the stitching department. This week, I went to both of my LNS stitch-ins, which was fun, although attendance at both was light. I recently got charts made for three new snowfight dragons, so I abandoned my bigger projects for a little instant gratification. I got the first stitched except for the knotwork border (and I’m waiting for the Dinky Dyes for that to arrive – it should be here soon) in less than three nights of stitching. I started the second one last night, but I’ll try to get back to my bigger projects before stitching the third.

I’m also working on a new series that be more Christmas ornaments. These will be a little bit more traditional, though. I’m starting to feel the time pressure to get things done before Nashville in February!

Here is something else I worked on:

This is an original design as an ATC. It may make its way into a dragon Design Element chart. The weird thing is that it should have theoretically been smaller than the ATC size of 2.5″x3.5″, but was almost too big. Maybe my fabric was slightly off on the stitch count – I just don’t know.

I also started stitching on the second design of a new series – always very exciting. The only bad thing was that I couldn’t find the piece of fabric I had set aside for it, so I had to use a new piece of fabric. Somewhere in my house, half of a fat quarter of Picture This Plus Legacy is hiding!

Even without the stitching, we had a fairly busy weekend. Our neighbors run a haunted house in their garage for the week before Halloween and we helped them with setup (well, DH did most of the helping). Also, we finally decided on some new bedroom furniture, so we bought it and most of it is coming this weekend. Which means we have some cleaning and straightening to do before it arrives. I’m wondering if it is worth it to get those disks to put under the furniture legs so that it can theoretically slide around if we ever want to rearrange. Anyone have experience with those?

Mocha also had a busy weekend chasing and killing some string:

I had an almost traumatic experience. When I got home from work Friday, I thought I had left the book that I’m currently reading Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams at work! The horror! Then I remembered many years ago that Tad Williams came to Aggiecon as a Guest of Honor, and since he is one of my favorite authors, I decided to buy hardcover copies of the books I only had in paperback. And he was kind enough to sign all nine of the books I brought! In my defense, it wasn’t my fault that the paperback version of To Green Angel Tower came out in two volumes! And now I’m glad I did that because it meant I didn’t have to put my reading on hold for the weekend (or start into something else as a last resort).

I went through the model stack last night and found three models that are most in need of re-matting (how I frame for shows). Two are more likely to be done, as the third needs a circular cut in the matt and it is a pain to do. I also put my cross stitch Sample It! packages together last night, just some fluff to add to them. I have to print a catalogue sheet of the canvases before packing those up.

Other than that, the most important thing to get done is to get everything ready for the class I’m teaching. I’m teaching a class on Artist Trading Cards, which I’d heard of and seen at Quilt Market, but hadn’t turned my brain to until Jen suggested the class. Guess what I discovered? Making ATC’s is totally fun! Imagine stitching within a size of 2.5×3.5 inches! To me, this means free reign for experimentation with a small stitching investment. I’ll post my ATC gallery when I get back, so stay tuned!

I am going crazy getting ready – although it isn’t half as bad as last year! I’m actually ahead of where I usually am. I have four new charts ready for the Sample It! event, and I hope to actually be showing five new designs. I now have seven (!) different handpainted canvas designs, so I hope to meet some needlepoint shops and expand in that direction. I have half of my catalogues ready, although I need to pick up my price lists from Kinko’s. I still have to wrap up my class information, though. I’m teaching the same thing that I taught at the January tradeshow – a class on Artist Trading Cards and how to do them with cross stitch/embroidery. However, I’m the only teacher this time instead of teaching the class with four other designers. And I need to re-mat several of the models – guess I’ll be busy this weekend!

I’m getting excited about the show, too. It will be exciting to debut the HPC (Hand Painted Canvas) line as well as network with other designers and shop owners. We’re having some great online debates right now about how to bring more stitchers to stitching.

Pictures of the new designs will be shown sometime after June 5th. As a courtesy to shopowners who take the time to visit the tradeshow, I let them get first peek.

I hope to post about our visit to Georgia sometime soon. I finally got the pictures prepped that I want to show, and it was such an awesome trip, I want to share it. Plus, a new design went on the trip (the same one that went to Germany), so that design has been to some interesting places!

I still need to finalize my “booth” for the online show.

I’m working on some new designs, but not quite on the roll that I was earlier. I don’t know if it is a creative slump or a lull. Hopefully I’ll get back in the swing soon. I did get a new canvas painted over the weekend, and I really like it. This one already has a cross-stitch version in progress, so that is good as well.

It is time to start really crunching down for the June trade show. Any “extras” I need for the show have to be ordered soon, so I better make a list. I can tell I’m about to get really busy!

On a good note, the azalea I planted is still doing well!

I was quite busy yesterday – I dropped off the new charts at UPS for shipment to the distributor. Sixteen pounds of charts! So that was good. I also started stitching on my “January” personal challenge design. Here’s a look at the fabric and some threads that I think are going into this:

I didn’t get too much stitched since I had to cut fabric. I also had a toss up on the fabric. The one in the picture is 32 ct Crystal Fog from Picture this Plus. I really though it was 28 count, which is my preferred count, so I contemplated starting this on 28 ct. Forget me not blue jobelan. Finally I decided I wanted the look of the linen (and this linen is gorgeous!), although I may change my mind (or stitch it twice). I only got a little bit of stitching done because I found it was hard to stitch during “Lost”. I kept having to rewind the DVR to see things I missed. We’ll see if I get any stitching during “Lost” next week.

When “Lost” was over, I went back to the craft office and worked on this:

Yay! I got some painting done! Can anyone guess the design? Hint: it is one of the current counted thread designs.

Finally, I wrapped up the night by playing some Rock Band. I tried out the singing, and I’ll just say that if I can get 98% on “Dani California”, then the easy setting is pretty darned easy.

I found out today that March is National Craft Month. Hmmmm…it seems to me that we need some promotion to tie into that. I’ve also been thinking of organizing some Artist Trading Card swaps. Anyone interested? Here’s a picture of some cards I made from the new designs for the FATC class at TNNA:

I traded a couple of cards to Jen at Funk-Weber Designs and got some cool ones in return. I’ll try to get a picture of those this weekend. So, a trade would work the following way, I’ll set a date and anyone who has an ATC card done by that date lets me know. I’ll draw names for exchanging pairs, and let everyone know where to send their card. Anyone interested? How about the Ides of March as a deadline for the first exchange? Puns intended.