Merry Christmas to all ...

and to all a good night ... :-)


Wishing all of you a very joyous holiday ...


Eat lots of goodies (never mind the diet till after the first), hug your kids, if you have them, hug someone else if you don't, put your feet up for a while and relax. Take a nap this afternoon .... you deserve it. All the regular stuff will be still be there waiting for you when you get back.


This year I am in Denver with my children but I will be back to the drawing board on Monday to answer emails, fill orders, etc. Meanwhile ... I'm going to go put on another pot of coffee and warm up some croissants ... waiting for the rest of the crew to get up.


Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noël, Buon Natale, Vrolijk kerstfeest
Cynthia

I am thankful ...

... that the turkey is in the oven. I've already made the cranberry sauce ... the potatoes are boiling ... two bottles of Chianti are sitting on the table, pumpkin pie is baked and cooling on the counter and a big, home made bottle of limoncello :-) is icing up in the freezer for after dinner in front of the fireplace. My two beautiful children and several of their friends will be at the table this year ... though they are all off to the mountain for some skiing right now ... or I should say snowboarding since none of them ski anymore.

Somehow I always end up at home with the cooking but I have never minded that job. Every year it gives me a little quiet time to reflect on the year past and the year to come while I peel potatoes and baste the turkey and sneak in a little stitching time between chores.

This year has been interesting. Full of ups and downs for all of us but for the most part, as I look back, I don't think there is much I would change.

And so I make my traditional mental list of what I am thankful for while I chop and baste (turkey, not linen, for a change :-) and stitch:

I am thankful for healthy, happy children who bring youth and joy and laughter into my life each day I am with them.

I am thankful for kind, supportive friends who lend their ears and hands and hearts to me when I least expect it and need it most.

I am thankful that I have been given a job that I love, that brings me pleasure each time I sit down to do it and that hopefully brings others equal pleasure.

I am thankful for all of you who support me in this endeavor, both my customers for purchasing what I dream up and my suppliers who make those dreams a reality.

I am thankful for my home, for the serenity of the mountains it sits in, for the opportunities I have been given to visit other beautiful places, to experience other cultures, to make new friends far and wide.

I am thankful to have this venue to wish all of you many, many things to be thankful for this coming year. May your days be warm and bright and filled with love, friends and family.

And I am thankful that the kids will be coming home from the mountain in a few hours so I can set the table and we can sit to eat together on this day of Thanksgiving ... for that, I am so very thankful.

Peace and Joy, Paix et Joie, Pace e di giolia, Vrede en Vreugde,

Cynthia

Sleeping Giant ...

... sleeping peacefully in the late afternoon sun. It was a spring-like day here in the Rockies so it seemed like a good idea to get out into it and give the new camera a work out (the old one having finally been retired after many years of diligent service). It's supposed to be just this lovely all week which, when you live in a ski town and it's November 2nd, is NOT a good thing:

No Snow :-(

The ski area opens in just 3 weeks. Doesn't look like the first day is going to be a deep powder day. Then again, you never know. Living in the mountains you learn to expect the unexpected from the weather. So we took a few more photos, just to remind ourselves that it IS early Winter, not early Spring .... and give us hope for a couple of runs on opening day.

No leaves either

Most of the last week was spent updating the website and finishing up our little "Peace and Joy" kits. If you already ordered one, rest assured, it is now on it's way to you. We were only able to make up a limited number of them and have gone through about half that number already, so if you were considering him for your Christmas tree this year, don't delay. When they are gone, they're gone.

Unfortunately, we won't be releasing the large Christmas Sampler, Good Yule, that we were hoping to release for the holidays. The "lost in the mail" debacle in addition to major revisions that need to be made, took it too close to the wire. I would always rather delay a release than release something I'm not happy with. We've decided to keep it until our planned "Christmas in July" when we will release another Limited Edition Ornament and ..... I'm leaning towards a stocking, which I haven't done in many years. Better to start your Christmas stitching in July anyhow, right? At least that way you'll have some hope of getting your projects finished by Christmas Eve.

We are planning on releasing several new things right after the first of the year ... but think "Valentines" and "Spring" as opposed to Christmas. If you're at all like me, you'll be very tired of the decorations by then and ready for a change of pace.

So, now I'm ready to to have a bite to eat and then plan to stitch all evening .... maybe even all night. Who knows. The large doses of oxygen I get from those hikes always seem to give me a second wind (no pun intended :-)

See you soon, ci vediamo a presto, à tout à l'heure, gauw tot ziens,

Cynthia

In keeping with my promise to myself ...

to not work on anything of my own or do anything that "has" to be done on Sunday, this morning I worked on a chart that I received from my friend Karin, via Marie-Thérèse Saint-Aubin, that is so dear to my heart that I am having trouble keeping myself away from it during the week.

L' Adieu by Marie-Thérèse Saint-Aubin

But so far, so good as you can see from what little I've accomplished:

The picture makes it look so small! To give you an idea of the size of the finished design, the fabric I am working it on is cut to 20" x 20" (Natural Undyed Belfast). Stitch count is 208 X 222. I already have a spot picked out for it on the wall of my living room and constantly visualize it framed and hanging there .... simply mounted on another piece of linen with no hemstitching, etc. just raw edges, surrounded by a mat and a simple wood frame. Can you tell how much I dearly love this beautiful design? I wish you could see the flowers. I wish I had a bigger picture, but you can see one here, along with some other exceptional works by this true artist of cross stitch.

The poem, by Guillaume Apollinaire, (my translation unfortunately) reads:

I have picked this sprig of heather

Autumn is dead you must remember

We will not see each other again on earth

Scent of time sprig of heather

Remember that I wait for you

If I have totally mis-translated this poem, please reprimand. But this is how I read it and how I love it. If ever it is finished, and framed, I promise to post a photograph.

Meanwhile, Ms. Hana (or my "slave labor" as she calls herself) is coming home this next weekend to put together all the kits for our special little Christmas ornament kit and I am working on Good Yule, moving some things around and changing some things I was unhappy with on the stitched model. It's very difficult to draw a piece, chart it and then send it off to someone to be stitched. Quite often it comes back looking very different from what you had envisioned. Not the fault of the stitcher. Just the difference between paper and linen, pencil and silk. This one has a few little areas that need tweaked, and so I will spend a good part of next week ripping out and re-stitching things that could use a bit of refinement.

It's cold and wet here today and I have been debating all day if I should go take the normal Sunday hike with the dog. I've been trying to talk myself out of it with various excuses, but I have to remember that the weather is just downhill from here and I have to get used to spending some time getting bundled up and braving less than perfect weather if Sami and myself are to get any exercise this winter. I do have a treadmill, but use it grudgingly, only in the worst sort of weather, simply because it's mind-numbingly boring. I'm not much of a TV watcher and I find it difficult to read on one of those things. I'm an "in bed with a big bowl of popcorn" reader. But I do resort to the treadmill every so often. We have two of them.  Side by side. One for me and one for Sami. Don't ask :-) But my daughter does wonder frequently what I am going to do when that old dog finally has to leave for what ever heaven waits for him. She keeps saying "we have to get mom a new one before he dies" but I don't think so. Not yet. Not yet.

So, down we go to dig out the raincoat and find a hat in the pile stashed away in the "winter" closet. It is a good thing .... to get away from this computer and out into it all.

See you soon, ci vediamo a presto, à tout à l'heure, gauw tot ziens,

Cynthia

Yaaaaahooooo!

It's here! Thanks to the wonderful people at our small town post office and all of your prayers and crossed fingers, Good Yule was retrieved from the people it was delivered to originally (unopened) and re-delivered to my post office box this afternoon. Thank you Teri for the beautiful stitching job .... now if we can just get you out of Le p'tit monde de la blonde, where you live with my friend Evelyne ..... :-) Oh, never mind. You are a beautiful stitcher. Maybe I'll just come to live with you two there :-)


Big sigh of relief and back to work. We need to get it framed and photographed now.


See you soon, ci vediamo a presto, à tout à l'heure, gauw tot ziens,

Cynthia

Steamboat Springs, Colorado • October 5 • 4:45 pm

I haven't been good ...

about keeping up with the blog lately. We've just been too, too busy, busy, busy. I'm always pleasantly surprised and grateful at how well our new releases are received .... and it keeps us running, trying to keep up with orders ... so there has been little time to sit and think and write, but finally I've found a few moments of calm before the On-line Needlework storm on Wednesday and wanted to use it to catch up a bit with friends and followers.


On the stitching/design front ... well ... my big Christmas sampler scheduled to be released next month (Good Yule) is now officially lost in the mail. I am heartbroken. The woman who stitched it is heartbroken. This design is 110 stitches wide by 350 stitches long and was not an easy stitch ... lots of over one, beads, specialty stitches. It was mistakenly sent to the wrong address. We contacted the people at that address and they say they have not received the package. The post office said it was delivered there on September 30th. No one seems to know where it is. It was insured, of course, but no amount of insurance can cover this kind of loss. We haven't given up. We hope it can be found, but it may not be released this year if it is not found soon. It takes quite a while to stitch a piece of that size, as you all know. I'm trying not to think about it and just praying it will turn up. Karma.


We have other things in the works that can be released instead, but we will have to work double time to try to bump them up the schedule. I do truly believe that everything happens for a reason. I live by that philosophy. It will be interesting to see, eventually, what the reason for this glitch is.


Meanwhile, a little sneak peak at our first biannual limited edition Christmas Ornament kit. Luckily I was working on this little guy even before I found out that Good Yule was lost, so he will still be coming to town even if Good Yule doesn't make it. We plan on doing two different ornament kits a year in a limited quantity, one for November release and one for "Christmas in July".  Why limit the quantity of the kits? Everyone is always curious about that. We don't do it to drive up the price. We try to keep the price of our kits as reasonable as possible. Limiting the quantity of kits we manufacture allows us to use unique or "limited availability" supplies in the kits .... things that we love and would like to see on a design but know we can get only get limited quantities of .... i.e. special buttons or ribbons or trims. We buy up what ever quantity is available and make as many kits as we can from that inventory ... and then ... when it's gone, it's gone.


I made a rule for myself, earlier this year, that I would never again use a Sunday to do anything I "had" to do or that "needed" to be done. So, I took Sunday to relax with my daughter who was visiting and to pursue some things I've been wanting to do. I don't have much time to knit anymore. I use most of my crafting time to stitch, but I always like to have a winter knitting project on hand for cold evenings in front of the fireplace (or TV) and I spent a few hours on Sunday going through the yarn stash and planning a project. Over the past few years I seem to have collected a plethora of small balls of hand spun yarn. I love the way it looks, the complex textures and mixtures of colors, but there is never enough to make anything substantial. Still, I buy a few ounces here and a few ounces there because it is impossible to resist. So Sunday I got all the balls of hand spun together, picked a group that would go together and finally found a pattern I thought would work with my potpourri of different yarns.

The pattern is a free pattern and I think I'm in love with it ... it is so adaptable to so many different yarns and sizes. Since you start by making a triangle (increasing each side) until the piece is the width you want, and then continue, on the diagonal with a decrease on one side and an increase on the other, you can make it as wide and as long as you like .... depending on how much yarn you have. You don't even have to worry much about gauge ... perfect for my collection of hand spun since I can just keep knitting until I run out. Of course, you have to make sure you leave enough yarn to finish the corner but I kept track of how much I used to make the beginning corner, so I know exactly how much I need to finish. Now I'm thinking about those 12 balls of a discontinued color of Noro Silk Garden I have stashed away for a shawl/stole out of the same pattern.

Meanwhile, back to the search for Good Yule. I have been calling the post office a few times a day. I will not despair. If it's gone, it was meant to be gone. If it is found, then we will release it on schedule. (sob sob :-( Maybe if everyone out there crosses their fingers for me ... it will turn up.


See you soon, ci vediamo a presto, à tout à l'heure, gauw tot ziens,

Cynthia

He woke up ...

in India I think. Long story. At any rate, the server is back up and running, at least for the time being. Tomorrow ... new web hosting service for sure.

Server still down ...

Sorry folks. The servers are still down. Perhaps the person who maintains the server is having a little nap. Keep trying ... and have a great Sunday evening. I think it's time for Sam and I to take a long walk.

Server issues ...

We are having trouble with our web server. It keeps going up and down and has been doing this since Friday ... so sometimes the links to the new things are working ... and sometimes they are not. I have been told "they are working on it". Hmmmmmm. At any rate, if you can't connect, please try again ... "they are working on it:-)".

She's back .....

... after a brief hiatus to get the new charts printed, the new kits put together and the web site updated. We have added some fun new books ... some new designs and designers, buttons, beads, gemstones, etc. ... so check it out.

And check this out:

Anne-Catherine does it again. I've ditched the knock-off Gucci in favor of this wild and wonderful creation and boy am I getting questions and comments everywhere I take it. De nouveau, merci, Anne-Catherine. Did I get that right or was it my usual garbled version of French? I'm studying. I really am ... Est-ce que vous voulez un cafe? Oui, merci, et de l'eau, un verre de vin, un peu de pain et fromage. So, at least I can order a coffee, some water, a glass of wine, bread, cheese ... all of life's little necessities :-) I promise I will soon learn words that don't relate to food or drink :-)

Took last weekend off to drive to Denver and spend some time with my dear daughter. It was lovely to be with my sweet offspring again, who is always entertaining, intelligent and well-informed ... just an all-round great person to hang out with.

Oh, and be sure to visit The On-line Needlework Show October 7-12. Yes, you can "shop", even if you are not a "shop". Just take a look at what is offered and if you find something you like you can "partner" with one of the "buyer" shops and they will purchase your items for you and see that you get them. It should be fun. Lots and lots of designers and manufacturers and new things, plus, there really is nothing like shopping barefoot in your pajamas first thing in the morning .... or last thing at night.

So, now that the three newest designs are "up and running" it's time to get on with the next round. The show must go on!

See you soon, ci vediamo a presto, à tout à l'heure, gauw tot ziens,

Cynthia

A day off

The new web site is finished and uploaded. The new kits are neatly stacked in bins in the shipping room. I'm heading out to the Yampa Core Trail with my best friend for a hike. After that ... a bit of stitching, chicken piccata, I think, with some sliced home grown tomatoes, "Hung" and a tiny glass of Limoncello before bed.

La vita è bella!

Best Friend

See you soon, ci vediamo a presto, à tout à l'heure, gauw tot ziens,

Cynthia

A quiet Sunday

Maybe a little too quiet. My daughter left Friday to move back to Denver. She's a senior at the University of Colorado and starts classes tomorrow.

It has always been our habit to spend at least a part of our Sundays together and this Sunday feels a little empty somehow. Besides being my daughter, she is one of my best friends, a helpful, kind, delightful person and always there for me. Best of all, she keeps me young at heart.

I took her to Italy with me in June and I did things I never would have done if she hadn't been there to make me do them ... including renting a tiny, manual Fiat and driving it all over Tuscany, even on the autostrada which I highly recommend if you're looking for a heart-stopping experience. I hadn't driven a stick in 20 years so she was very understanding when she had to push it out of the parking lot because I was having a little trouble finding reverse. Figured out how to get the Italian GPS lady to speak English and stop screaming "gelati, gelati" at us (which turned out to be girare or "turn"). We thought she wanted us to stop for a gelato, which we were happy to do but it was getting difficult to consume all that gelato and still fit into the Fiat. Talked me into splurging on that Gucci purse I've always wanted and didn't get too embarrassed in Dolce and Gabanna when I bought some totally inappropriate (for someone over 50) lingere. Insisted I drive into Florence and PARK there. If you've ever been to Florence you'll understand the sheer lunacy of that endeavor. I only avoided the disaster of doing the same thing in Rome because an Italian friend advised her that it wasn't such a good idea to drive into Rome. Planned a day trip to the Ligurian sea ... just when we needed a "nature" day. She was never afraid to go anywhere or do anything that seemed like it might be an adventure. I don't think that trip would have been quite the same without her.

At any rate, it is very quiet here today. I think I might have to drive down to Denver one of these weekends very soon.

Julie and Julia was wonderful. Go see it. Funny, upbeat, inspirational. Just the kind of movie we need these days.

Still on target for two new releases at the end of the month.

This week yet another package arrived from France. Thank you, merci, my dear French friend Evelyne. It is lovely and now on my "stitching" table beside my "stitching" chair ... holding my favorite project of the moment. Lovely birthday gifts from lovely friends. La vie est belle. I have corrected the blog reference. I must have been in "le p'tit monde de la blonde". In this country we have the same concept but we call them "blonde moments". Not being blonde, I should have never made this kind of mistake :-)

Off to clean up the studio. Since I can't play with my daughter today, I might as well get some work done. Later, when the house is too clean and too quiet :-( I will probably work on my "Heart Song" ... which seems appropriate ... a good project to lift my mood.

See you soon, ci vediamo a presto, à tout à l'heure, gauw tot ziens,

Cynthia

The dreaded stem stitch ....

finally mastered! All these years designing and stitching and I could never master the stem stitch. A wonderful chart by Un chat dans L'aiguille (Histoire de coeurs), some very nice stitch diagrams and one cool, quiet evening on the front deck and I finally did it. I am quite proud of them:

My stem stitches (I need to get a life. I really do.)

Histoire de coeurs by Un Chat dans L'aiguille. I can't wait to start the next heart!

For the past year I have been fascinated with free-style (sometimes known as "traditional") embroidery. Some of it has been quite a challenge since I'm used to all those little "squares" to keep my stitches in line. But I've fallen in love with the "look" of it and with the teeny tiny linen you use. You can't count those threads. Forget it. No magnifier in the world is going to make it possible to count those threads. Really sets you free in a needlewonky kind of way.

And these lovelies just arrived today in the mail. A birthday gift from my friend Anne-Catherine. Je les aime, Anne Catherine! Merci!

I met Anne-Catherine and her friend (and now also mine) Evelyne when I traveled to France for the first time. Since many of you have asked about the lovely "sewing dish" that is on my website on the "events" page, and some of you even wanted to purchase the pattern, I can now blog that it was made by these two talented ladies and, no, you can't buy the pattern from me but perhaps Anne-Catherine and Evelyne would be willing to share it. Their creativity and finishing skills never cease to amaze me. For those of you who missed it on the site:

Gift made by Anne-Catherine Seres and Evelyne Kaczmarek

You can visit their blogs to see more of the lovely stitching and finishing they do and a few photos of a delightful afternoon that I will never forget spent stitching, eating and drinking in a little apartment in the Monmartre.

Why are we not smiling? This was before we opened the wine.

BTW, Anne-Catherine, Lavender DOES grow in Colorado. I have tons of it in my garden sooooooo, I'm going to need directions for making those lavender reels. In English :-)

I stand corrected by Mathilda, who stitched Toccata Number Five. She is NOT from Arnhem, Netherlands. She is from Zevenhuizen. Perhaps she will forgive me for not knowing this city. I now remember it by thinking "Mathilda is from seventh heaven". Certainly her stitching speed and skills make me think she is from "seventh heaven". My apologies Mathilda. You are one of my favorite people right now. You and Karin (Kersten, my dear friend and hard working distributor in Europe) for introducing us. Beautiful job on Toccata Number Five.

This week, in the kitchen ... yes we are now moving into the kitchen. Sorry. I warned you:-) Since I turned my first hobby (needlework) into a profession, I've had to find something without a deadline to keep me entertained. This is "the month of the lemon" around here. Last week it was homemade lemon chocolate chip biscotti and lemon sorbet. And now, Limoncello! My daughter's comment: "God help us. She's distilling liquor!" The zest of 25 lemons are steeping in 90 proof alcohol on the back shelf of my pantry and will be for another week .... or 40 days. I'm not sure which. No one seems to agree on that part. What they do agree on is that later, after you add some sugar, water, bottle it, and put it away again for a while, you drink it very, very cold, in very, very small glasses con molto ghiaccio ... I'm thinking maybe with a little cream floating on top? It's a wonderful thing. I'll keep you posted ... or maybe you'll just be able to figure out, by the free-spirited tone of my blogs, when the Limoncello is finished:-)

I'm growing tomatoes on my front deck this summer. After noticing that every spare speck of dirt anyone could rake up is used to grow "il pomodoro" (or olives, or grapes) in Italy, I thought, why not? I was having a heck of a time getting them to turn red but someone finally told me to STOP watering them and they will turn. Now there is one rather enormous, organic, homegrown, very RED tomato on the vine that I'm looking forward to doing "something" with this weekend, though I don't know how much can be done with one tomato no matter how enormous it is.

In the meantime, I'm having much fun working on my "Pumpkin Pocket" and "Heart Song". They are supposed to ship out to Europe for the fall shows next month and it's going to be hard to say goodbye. I'm not good at goodbyes. Dear little heart song. Sweet pumpkin pocket. I guess I'll have to stitch another one ... and another ... and another, just so I can always have one around to keep me company. Heart pocket? Button pocket? Pocket full of stitches? Swan song? :-) I could keep going but ....

It's getting late and I must be really tired. How can I tell? I'm not one of those people who gets grumpy when they're tired .... just really silly and stupid. Time to sign off.

See you soon, ci vediamo a presto, à tout à l'heure, gauw tot ziens,

Cynthia

Another day, another ....

... twenty-five cents according to my retirement account statement that arrived this week. Yikes! Going to have to work a little harder the next 20 years if I want to retire by 85.

We are moving right along on the stitching and photography of the new designs. The Carnelian Rose Biscornu and Cottage Garden Scissors case have now passed through photography and we will start printing next week. We're hoping for a late August release for these two designs. I decided I finally had to try the Biscornu thing. Better late than never. I think it turned out pretty well.

Then, moving into late September, we will be releasing Toccata Number Five, which you might guess from the little sneak peak on the right-hand side of this blog, is a darning sampler. I need to thank the model stitcher, Mathilda Liebregt in Arnhem, Netherlands, who did a spectacular job of whipping out that piece in just a few weeks. Amazing really and a lovely job. My thanks to Mathilda. If she hadn't been available, Toccata Five could have sat on the back burner a lot longer than it did.

Along with Toccata Five will come two smaller and less serious designs (since we've been getting many request to do a few smaller, quicker items), "The Pumpkin Pocket" and "Heart Song". And that's all I'll commit to at this point. We have many, many things in the works and on the drawing board but the release dates always depend on stitching time and printing time and finishing time and all the other little things that need to be tied up before they can actually be put on the schedule. When it looks like a project is ready to be printed, I'll move it from the "Under the Needle" column to the "On the Press" column and give it a release date.

It's official. I will be teaching at Celebration of Needlework again this year in the Spring. I'm very pleased since the Celebration is always just that .... a celebration. I look forward to seeing old friends and, of course, making some new ones and I'm very excited about the projects I have on the drawing board. I have decided to focus on specific techniques since, truth be told, I really loath finishing little "smalls" and am not exceptionally good at it. My passion has always been learning new stitches and new techniques so I have decided on reticello lace, pulled thread work and hemstitching as the focus for this year. Three separate classes, three little learning samplers, but have some ideas about mounting them all on one piece of linen with decorative motifs to showcase them (see sidebar drawing at right).

Meanwhile, back to work. Shoulder to the plow. I need to build up that retirement fund :-) Today was my birthday. I won't mention how old I am, but it's getting to be a pretty big number. Older than my dog, younger than the Parthenon. Bigger than a breadbox, smaller than a planet.

Till next time, ci vediamo a presto, à tout à l'heure, gauw tot ziens,

Cynthia

Buzzy, buzzy, buzzy ...

I've given this blog thing a lot of thought. At first I was against having one. For one thing, I always seem to bite off more than I can chew and I was worried that it would be another one of those things I struggle to keep up with ... which may prove to be the case. We'll have to wait and see. For another, the whole concept of a blog seemed a bit weird to me. Posting a journal on the internet for everyone to read? What a concept. I couldn't quite get past feeling that it was a bit egocentric to make the assumption that people would be interested in the minute details of my life. But after following many of your blogs for some time I realized that blogs really aren't just another "virtual" self-promotional tool. They are actually a very nice, efficient and fun, albeit a bit impersonal, way to keep in touch. They are a 21st century letter to a friend ... a way to connect with those you know ... and some you don't.

So this blog will be my attempt to "keep in touch" with you, keep you up to date on what is going on at The Drawn Thread, get your feedback and input and exchange ideas and thoughts about this fine craft we all love so much. I promise I'll try not to bore you with my day-to-day stuff. I won't discuss what I had for dinner last night or analyze what's happening on "Hung", though my passion for food, wine and cooking (and "Hung") may make that promise difficult to keep. Okay, okay so I WILL discuss food and wine and cooking and "Julia and Julia" (but not "Hung") and our new farmer's market and sustainable eating and Italian pizza and gelato and the locally made sheep cheese every once in a while along with stitching and design. I love to eat, I love to cook and I love to drink almost as much as I love designing and stitching. These things are not the minute details of my life. They are my life.

(And BTW, don't you just LOVE that guy on "Hung"? :-)

The past four months have been an amazing source of inspiration for me. A delightful week in May at the Celebration of Needlework in New Hampshire (thank you "sisters"), an amazing trip to Italy for Casa Cenina's annual "Festa del Ricamo" (mille grazie Casa Cenina) and the incredible enthusiasm, passion and talent of the people I encountered (not to mention the all beautiful things I got to see and touch .... and purchase :-) really fired up the old creative furnace.

So, stay tuned. Right now we are doing a major overhaul of the web site while still finding time to stitch all the new things we are planning to release in the next quarter. The site should be ready to upload about the same time the new designs are ready to be released. At least that's the plan. It has been a very busy Spring and Summer and it looks like we're going to have a very ambitious new release schedule starting in late August and continuing through the new year and into next Spring. We're going to be buzzy, buzzy, buzzy. I love it.

See you soon, ci vediamo a presto, à tout à l'heure, gauw tot ziens,

Cynthia