... but the show must go on

And so today I am releasing 8 new designs. I hope you enjoy them. You can click on the photos at right which will take you to their respective pages on our web site.

I did want to note this special release:

The Menagerie

In Sami's memory I am donating profits from the sale of this chart to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. They have a wonderful program where you can sponsor an animal, or many animals, so Sami is going to sponsor as many friends as he can, to make sure they also have a chance for a quality life and a "forever" home.

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary

I thank you so much for your continued support of our efforts and hope to be back here soon ... with happier chit chat and/or better news.

Cynthia

Thank You

I want to thank all of you for expressing your sympathy and support. My Sam was a blessing ... and a gift. He never held a grudge, never regretted the past and did not fear the future. He was never mean or spiteful, never felt sorry for himself and forgave quickly. He never passed judgement. He just noted what worked and what didn't and then moved on. His mind was unencumbered by hate, prejudice or stereotype. His heart was open to the potentials and possibilities of each person, place or thing he encountered (a porcupine encounter comes to mind here :-). Each day was a gift to him. He was just as happy to respond to an invitation to play a bit of catch or take a long hike along Fish Creek as he was to sleep beside my chair for hours while I stitched.


Though I miss his physical presence every day, following his example by living life happily in the moment and loving unconditionally will keep his spirit alive and serve to honor his memory more than tears and grieving. That was my promise to him as we parted and I will do my best to keep it. I'm sure I will never be as good at it as he was.


Thank you all for your beautiful words. Hug your pet today. If you don't have one, think about going out and rescuing one. You'll be amazed at what they bring into your life ... literally and figuratively :-)

Cynthia and Sam

Iamsamiam

1996 - 2011

Loyal friend and faithful companion.

You will be missed.

Thanks and Giving

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. It is one of my favorite holidays ... made up of two of my favorite words. This year I witnessed an amazing demonstration of the second word, "giving", as I watched a young chef spend an entire day in the kitchen making a dinner for a group of us that I won't soon forget. Amazing meal that took weeks to plan and prep and then an entire day to prepare and serve. That was the "giving". Since I have been the "giver" of the meal for more than 20 years, I was grateful to be able to sit back, relax and watch someone else prepare it. That was the "thanks". Watching and feeling grateful for the effort made by our chef was my only job. How nice to be given an opportunity to be truly grateful. Thanks and Giving. Two things we should probably make an effort to practice more than once a year.


And what a year. Rough year ... for many of us. And yet, I find if I take the time and open my eyes and search my heart, I can always find things to be thankful for, even in the toughest times. So after a bad day, or a stressful week, or a few dark hours, I always try to spend a few moments in the evening doing a little gratitude meditation so I don't get carried away by troubles and tribulations and end up going to bed with them (yuck! Who wants to sleep with those guys :-) It's amazing what a little "gratitude" meditation can do for your mood.


Not to mention your sleep :-)


Meanwhile, more thanks are in order. I want to thank my friend Evelyne Kaczmarek for the beautiful job she did stitching the model for "Alphabets" which is due to start shipping .... let's see ... tomorrow! A few new projects to help ring in the New Year. You can see the photos at right and of course, please visit the web site for more details. This was not an easy piece to stitch and Evelyne did an amazing job. I was so impressed that I did as many "close-up" photos as I could but they still don't really do it justice. Thank you my friend for a spectacular job ... on a difficult piece. Your help and support are worth more than you'll ever know.


After running out of wall space, I have been giving a lot of thought to designing things that are a bit more useful ... common, day to day items that can be made beautiful with a touch of embroidery. Why not show off our needlework on the little everyday objects in our lives and make them as "personal" and "special" as we can? The little calendar covers are the first of this group. They are made to cover the small, inexpensive promotional calendars given out by many companies this time of year. I've always carried one in my purse, but never liked the plastic covers that came with them and so, voila, something a little more attractive without too much work involved.


Am working on a cover for my large weekly desk calendar, for my journal, for note pads, shopping lists, coupon organizers, etc. etc. We also have another large sampler stitched (thank you Anne-Catherine) and almost ready to go and many other little objects and projects in the works. Some being stitched, some still on the drawing board and some still in my head. So, keep watching to see what turns up.


Meanwhile, it's late. Been a very long day. I need to go do some of that "gratitude" meditation so I can fall into bed and sleep like a grateful baby.

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

Cynthia

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!

After my last post ... about crossing my fingers and hoping everything kept working ....


More bad juju. All programs crashed again. Computer wouldn't recognize printers. Talked to Adobe (for hours). Talked to Apple (for hours). I seemed to be spending most of my time making new friends in technical support everywhere in the world ... but getting little or no other work done. I love making new friends but my career was starting to suffer ...


So, the decision was made. Return the new computer with the new operating system to Apple. Try to replicate my old computer and system by buying a used one. Wait a week for new computer to arrive. Wait a week for new software to arrive then start over again from scratch. Load all new software, print drivers, etc. etc. and pray that it all works.


Prayers answered. All working. Big sigh.


This week, I re-built the web-site using the new program. Got the web-site uploaded and the email program working. Now, the last on the list "update blog".


It's been a heck of a month ... so far one that I never want to repeat. But I'm grateful to be back up and operating ... grateful to be once again functioning in cyberspace ... and able to update this blog and


MOVE ON!!!


You can see photos of the new releases for September on the right side. I am too tired and too brain dead to try to get the "slide show" working and besides, I've lost all my passwords for almost every on-line service I use so it would be just too stressful to attempt that this morning. Please visit the website where you can see large photos and get all the information.


Some major "thanks" are in order here. First to my daughter for putting up with a very hysterical and depressed mother for the past 3 weeks. No excuses but it has not been easy to deal with disaster after disaster while trying to keep the house clean and be "out of it" for 2 hours at a time roughly 15 times this month. Without your support through the computer crisis, I think I would have given up.


Thanks to my dear friend Anne-Catherine Seres for stitching our beautiful model of "To Everything A Season". Perfectly executed in an amazingly short time and delivered to into my hands way before deadline. Thanks in advance to Evelyne Kaczmarek .... for the soon to be released "Alphabets". These two friends have given me so much of their time ... time that I didn't foresee that I would desperately need once the computer crashed. They made it possible for me to focus on the computer issues I needed to focus on ... and still get design ideas onto linen and into chart form. Thank you both for your love, generosity, friendship and support. There is no one else quite like you two!


And to all others who lent their ears and sympathy when I thought I really wanted to give up. Thanks for not allowing me to!


Now ... onward ... to the next challenge ... or maybe a reward? I could use a little reward :-)

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

Cynthia

What a month ....

so far :-(


Last Friday my entire hard drive crashed. I couldn't believe it.


My daughter raced over to the Apple Store in Denver and brought a new one up on Wednesday. Meanwhile I took the old one in to a place here in Steamboat called "MacRanch" and a very patient, persistent and bright young man named Chris retrieved all my files from the hard drive ... and we thought all was well.


We got the accounting program and all its data back up and running on the new computer... retrieved the software for the mailing list, though I had to rebuild most of the data files ... and we thought all was well. All the data files for the new and archived charts, as well as the web site were rescued and in their proper places and I breathed a big sigh of relief.


Unfortunately, none of my Adobe application files would load on the new computer. So, though I had retrieved all my data, I couldn't access any of it :-(


Apparently the new computer also has a new operating system that the Adobe programs haven't quite caught up with. After a very, very long, stressful week and many hours on the phone with Adobe Support, it still wasn't working. I had really pretty much given up. Went to bed last night saying to myself, I'll just deal with it tomorrow.


This morning I got up and gave it one last try. Inserted the Adobe CS4 disk in the new computer's drive and tried loading a few programs. They loaded!!! Then a few more ... and they loaded too! And now, knock on wood, they all seem to be functioning and stable.


Whewwwwwww.


The only glitch ... the old program I used to build and upload my website will not function on the new operating system, so I need to convert the web site into a new program this weekend and I will be back to normal. It will be a long weekend. It was a long week.


So, if your orders were a little slower going out than usual, you will know that we were struggling to salvage a whole computer system and all the data that accompanies a small company at the same time we were trying to keep up with orders, keep inventory stocked and keep kit manufacturing on target.


I think we did an okay job of getting through this. I have a great big hard drive sitting on my desk and an automatic backup program is doing its thing every hour on the hour. I have learned what is critical to back up and what is not. I have learned more than I ever wanted to know about computer operating systems and programs and how and where data is stored.


I want to thank my daughter for her help and support while all this was going on. She went above and beyond ... traveling to Steamboat from Denver with a new computer, sitting for hours on hold with Adobe Support systems ... filling orders and cutting fabric and making runs to the post office while I struggled with programs that wouldn't load and data I couldn't find. Without her, I would have been inclined to give up the ship ... but she kept it steadily moving forward in very turbulent waters. Thank you Hana. 


Wish me luck this weekend getting that website converted! It's the last thing that needs to be done to get us back up to "pre-crash" speed.


Cynthia

I hope everyone ....

had a fun and festive fourth! It was cool and rainy here but that didn't stop us from celebrating with our annual Steamboat Springs 4th of July parade and, of course, a giant fireworks display. Was it my imagination or was it just a bit shorter than last year ... the parade and the display?


Still, it was lovely with lots of sparkly explosions and a massive finale. We watched from high up on a hill at the Colorado Mountain College, which was a bit of a change for us. Usually we're down in the park with a picnic and wine, looking up at all the lights. This year it was just too rainy to do the picnic thing, so we had the fried chicken and salad and strawberries at home and then, just as we knew they were about to begin (almost missed the "begin") we made our way up the hill to see the display.


And now, finally, no more snow. I need to replace that dreary May picture with a lovelier view ... of my Siberian Iris blooming in the garden:

Much nicer than snow, don't you think? I've always planted these beauties in every garden I've owned for the past 30 years and, though I now live in a Townhome and have few formal gardening areas, I still found a space for them. I can't imagine a summer without the pleasure of watching them bloom so I was thinking ... when and if this place ever sells, perhaps I should dig up a few bulbs and carry them with me to the next nesting place.


And, just in case I don't, or can't or for some reason never plant another garden (god forbid) I was happy to find a chart of these same treasured blooms by one of my favorite designers:

Iris de Siberie by Marie Thérèse Saint-Aubin

and decided I had to add it to my stash ... and so I did, along with a few other designs ... and now I've also added them to the web site so you can enjoy them too. If you love stitching flowers as much as I do, check out the new ones by Marie Thérèse that we've just added to her page:

http://www.drawnthread.com/chartsandkitsmtsa.html

We've also added some new designs by Sampler Cove:

http://www.drawnthread.com/chartsandkitssc.html

and some "new to us" Beardie Designs charts:

http://www.drawnthread.com/chartsandkitsbrd.html

and I bet you think I've forgotten all about our "Christmas in July" ornament, but I haven't. It is sitting right here on my desk just waiting for it's final photograph. The kits are almost ready to go, the chart is just waiting for the photograph and then we can print it. Unfortunately, we have been backordered on the beautiful bell pull hardware that we ordered for it and need to put those in the kits before we can begin shipping. No word from Germany yet on their status but we will keep you updated. Hopefully we will still be able to do this "Christmas" thing in July. If not, think Christmas in August. Christmas in September? We've got our fingers crossed.

In the meantime I am honored to be the "featured" designer in the "Gift of Stitching" in August and I can't wait to see how they photograph the project we sent. We are also moving along on new releases for September. Two nice samplers and a small calendar cover to go along with one of them ... and who knows what else we might come up with by then. I'm getting some very strong "Halloween" vibes right now so perhaps I should say adieu and get back to the drawing board.

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

Cynthia