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