Angel Moon in Magazine

On friday I received my copy of Embroidery and Cross Stitch Vol 19 No.3, which has my design Angel Moon in it.

The phototpgrapher for the magazine presentation did a wonderful job. I'm sure it was hard to tilt the book to the right angel to make the shine of the metallic thread obvious.

I really like this design and the finished project. It has a blank notebook inside which I plan to write my prayers inside, or my wishes and dreams.

The magazine will be on sale soon.

Maybe Not so Long

I've started the butterfly fairy and it might not take as long as I originally thought. I've nearly finished a bottom portion of one wing and it only took a few hours. I'm guessing it will be a 50 hour jobby.

This morning I have to go and buy some threads for her. There are 15 colours that I don't currently have. Usually I only have to buy 8 or 10. She has 47 colours, which is quite unusual for one of my designs. I like to keep the number of colours down so that stitchers (and myself) don't need to buy so many. But I'll just have to wear the expense this time as the colours are part of what makes this design work.

Happy stitching everyone.

October Sneak Peak

While 'sun' is still on hold (I'm just not sure it's right for the target audience yet), I've started work on another large project ... Butterfly Princess. I know she is the sort of thing the editors want.

This is just a quick peek at the design in progress. I'll probably stitch her on a green toned hand dyed fabric from stitches and spice that I bought for something special years ago. She has bead work and the fabric has a sparkle to it, so I think she will be lovely.

I think she may take up to 3 months to stitch (though I'm hoping only two), with my current teaching schedule. And I know I will be spending way too much time on her comapred to the amount I will be paid for publication ... however I figured this is a good time to do it, while I have another income and I can still consider my designing as a side line. Next year I won't have the time to indulge myself with this kind of project unless I can sell the pattern online as well as publishing. So I might as well enjoy the process of this one.

Bit of a boring day

I spent the day writing up instructions for magazines. It's not my favourite thing to do, but it's necessary if I want to continue publishing designs.

Well, it's done now.

The 'Best Friend' sampler is all finished.
Tonight I think I'll draw up a design for a butterfly quilt. The editor of Australian Patchwork and Quilting is keen to see more of my work.
And then there is the Butterfly Queen ... a fairy I'm working on designing. I hope to finish designing it in the next week so I can start stitching the week after that.

Hard At it

Hi all,
sorry I've been a bit lax posting lately ... I've been too busy stitching you see!
Here is the last progress shot I took of my latest work. I won't be able to post a finished pic for about 6 months when it's published in ECS though.

It's all finished now apart from the backstitching on the rose and the saying reads 'Be your own best Friend'.

There is a little sotry behind that saying.
I tend to beat myself up a lot with destructive thoughts. And someone told me 'you wouldn't talk to a friend like that, so why do you let yourself say those things to yourself? You should be your own best friend and be kind to yourself.'

I liked what he said so much that I've taken this part as a sort of motto. And now when I start thinking 'Oh I'm so fat' or 'I'm no good' I remember this saying and think about what a friend would tell me if I said those things and I make those comments aloud to myself. Like; 'Well, you are quite curvy, but you have really nice legs' ... or something similar.

So, next time you are beating yourself up - Be your own best friend and say something nice to yourself.

Rhona's Design

I had a little break form stitching m y major project to do a little card for a swap I'm in. It seemed the perfect opportunity to try my new design from Tangled Threads.

Sorry Rhona, I made a mistake in the blue oval and couldn't be bothered unpicking, so the flowers went a bit wonky, but I still think it looks lovely.
I think it took me about 5 hours in total.
I hope the recipient likes it too.