Monday, 9 Days Till E-Week

This morning on my website I posted the third of three galleries of my work.

My first gallery is of all the mysteries I've designed and stitched over the years.
They aren't mysteries any longer because people can see what they look like, but originally people bought them with little idea what the pattern would be and took me on faith as the pattern unfolded.

I discovered early on that a mystery was a great chance to offer small options to encourage a bit of creativity, and that's what happened. If you look at various examples of my geometric mysteries, they vary greatly, particularly 'Glittering Diamonds'. Over the years I have seen examples I don't recognize because of the way the color interacts with the pattern. It delights me and I am hoping to do more of them.

The second of my galleries features all 10 of the designs I have made incorporating cameos, from a very large sampler to small ornaments and hearts. I think cameos are so pretty and romantic that for a long time I was very caught up in making needlework to display them. Before now I have never gathered together all of them in one place. It was fun to see.

The third of my galleries displays six of the large samplers I have made over time and sold at previous E-Weeks. All of them were projects I taught at National Seminars for EGA and ANG and of course for a favorite job at Callaway School of Needle Arts.
These samplers include some of my most industrious work.

Aside from these three galleries, I have a large gallery displaying my Elizabeth 1 Portrait and the portraits of Elizabeth from my students at Callaway last January. I am amazed at how much each Elizabeth has her own personality, reflecting of course each student who stitched her.

I plan to keep these up for a couple more days as I prepare for E-Week, my annual sale of patterns from my archives.
E-Week begins bright and early this year on October 12.

This year's E-Week is a trifle different. In the past the patterns have always been from my guild days, projects I had taught at past seminars. This year I have stitched 11 new designs just for E-Week, a first for me, but a harbinger of E-Weeks to come, I hope.

I see more samplers in my future, both large and small, lots more sewing cases, some new figures (I still have Bess and Mary to write) and who knows what else. As the spirit moves me. It is the genuinely best part of life right now, that I can stitch as I wish.

Hope you will stop by Queendom Website to see all these galleries:
For quick reference: www.GayAnnRogers.com

Gay Ann

Elizabeth 1, a Portrait: my needlepoint design

This morning Queendom Website came alive with portraits of Elizabeth 1.

On my home page is my own version of Elizabeth 1; 'inside' are portraits worked by Carole Lake's and my students at Callaway School of Needle Arts last January.

When I first thought of making an exhibition of Elizabeth 1 portraits, I worried they might all look the same, but surprisingly (considering they were worked from my pattern) they each have their own personalities. I have had a great time clicking through the exhibition and seeing all the variations of them -- it has been a delight!

To see the Elizabeths, travel to my website:

www.GayAnnRogers.com
and click on 'Elizabeth Exhibition'.
And enjoy!

Gay Ann

A Book for Thimble Collectors: American Silver Thimbles for sale

For a long time I've been promising to post a sale of my book, American Silver Thimbles.

I did so this morning on my website.

Quite often people write to me with all sorts of thimble queries and I try to answer them as time allows. Over the years, at the top of the list has come the question: 'do you have any copies of your book at a reasonable amount of money?' Finally I decided I have read this too often, so I typed 'American Silver Thimbles' into a book query on Amazon.com and had quite a shock.

The cheapest copy I found was $255.00, the most expensive $350.00.

It was then I decided I had better sell some copies, so I posted them at the book's original price of $47.95 plus $6.00 priority shipping. I am hoping that fledgling thimble collectors to whom I have long promised copies will be able to have a copy now.

American Silver Thimbles is valuable in this sense: it is a record of American silver thimbles from 53 collections at what I think of as the height of thimble-collecting frenzy more than 20 years ago. At just about the height of the frenzy, I visited many remarkable collections, shot so many rolls of film, then stood in a dark-room converted from a bathroom and processed and printed all the photos for the book.

So many of the collections have since been broken up that I look back and think to myself it was a great time to shoot so many thimbles. I doubt I could assemble the collection today.

..............

After I wrote American Silver Thimbles, thimbles were at their height. Good ones were scarce and fetching all-the-time higher and higher prices.

I had never been a singularly devoted thimble collector; I had bought them, but only as one of many needlework tools, and when they continued to fetch higher and higher prices, I gave up looking for them.

For the 20 years that followed my book, I transitioned into teaching needlework full time, and I more or less forgot about collecting thimbles.

Then last November, when I was surfing eBay for interesting auctions to post on my website, I came across some remarkably wonderful American thimbles for auction. I followed along through the Christmas season and was amazed to see the high quality and relatively low prices of the thimbles that 20 years ago had been so sky high in price.

And guess what: I became interested in thimbles all over again. I am at heart a contrarian when it comes to shopping for antiques. I don't believe in shopping for things when they are at the height of fashion.

Last Christmas I began looking back through American Silver Thimbles and just for fun, I began ticking off the thimbles I'd found on eBay. I had a great time! It was just like visiting old friends who has slipped out of my life for a while.

Of course I bought a few of them. I think my favorite finds were two: I bought the Liberty Bell thimble at a fraction of its former price and I bought a very rare Untermyer Robbins thimble of two lions. Finding any UR thimble was, in the old days, a happy occasion; finding a highly decorative one a joy indeed.

An old hobby renewed. Now I look every week to see if some interesting thimbles turn up.

And now I am hoping maybe a new generation of thimble collectors will be inspired to enjoy these tiny little treasures.

Gay Ann

Busy Busy Busy

Up front I have kept my website going with eBay listings I like and hope will be of interest to my followers.
I've now stripped down my navigation bar to only 2 lines in preparation for new postings.

Behind the scenes MacSoph (my computer) and I are scrambling scrambling. MacSoph's worn out her keys and I've worn out my fingers typing on those keys. iWeb is now swollen to a dangerously large level and MacSoph crosses her keys and I my fingers that everything won't crash.

Up front it looks like nothing's happening.

But things will start to happen soon.

I have a wonderful exhibition coming soon. I can't wait!
And I have some galleries of my own work coming soon.
And soon, too soon, it will be time for Pre-Week.
And then for E-Week itself.
And then for Early Morning Sales.
And E-Week Annex where people can order supplies from Kate.

Yikes! Come on, MacSoph, we have to go back to work!

But up front it all still looks so leisurely.

Gay Ann

A New Adventure

Here it is, in my busiest season (with E-Week just around the corner) and I've started a new adventure:
I am tackling stitching on linen ground.

I've been at it for about 3 or 4 days now and I've learned a lot, with help from my Shining Needle Society Classroom.

Today I had a note from Jane-Ellen Balzuweit offering me a suggestion or two and suddenly into my mind jumped: Idea for an online class at Shining Needle Society, called 'Linen Technique Clinic' and I am hoping Jane-Ellen will lead it.

Jane-Ellen, if you have ever followed her embroidery career, is one of those amazing needlework whizzes who can do anything with a needle and thread and get it to work. She reminds me a little of Carol Algie who has the same talents. They both seem to be able to tackle anything, easy or difficult, and have it come out well.

For those of you who don't know them, you should! Both have taught for EGA for years and years and they are both people I look up to.

Here I am, on a new adventure, and I look forward to help from Jane-Ellen and from other members of the class.

Does this mean I am giving up needlepoint? No, absolutely not. I just have a vision of a sampler I would love to make and it deserves to be on a linen ground. I will write more about it as time permits. For now I am content to doodle on different types of linen and see how I do.

And of course I have too much work to do for E-Week, so I really shouldn't be doing any stitching at all.
But who can live without a needle in her hand at least some time during the day? Not me, that's for sure.

If you'd be interested in taking this class along with me, write to KateGaunt@aol.com. She is the director of Shining Needle Society and she and Jane-Ellen are starting to plan the class.

I can't wait!
Gay Ann

Reflections on Designing and Stitching in 2011

This morning I posted on my website my own personal favorite of the Summer Solstice designs I doodled this summer.

For a long while the Flower was my favorite and I would still like to try and convert it into a thistle. I don't think it would be a difficult conversion and as I love purple, green and white together, I would enjoy working on it. Maybe early next year. Till then I fear my days are filled to capacity and I would like to know, does anybody know how to stretch the days?

Right now an elephant is standing very near me in my work room. The Elephant is E-Week, my yearly sale. A month and a half to go and I am working away every moment at it.

Some time ago an acquaintance remarked quite authoritatively at a meeting that I had stopped stitching entirely and I spent ALL my time on my computer.

I do spend a lot of time on my computer, most of it writing instructions for the nearly 30 pieces of needlepoint that I have designed and stitched since January 1 this year.

5 hearts, the Royal Wedding pieces and the Summer Solstice designs have all turned up on my website so far but they account for only a part of 2011 for me. Most of my new pieces are for E-Week and I have indeed been busy writing instructions on the computer.

I have not given up stitching. I don't think I ever will. Quite simply I love my time with my needle. It feeds my soul.

And besides, I have far too much stash to give up stitching. Far too much!

This brings me back to Summer Solstice and my favorite of the designs in the series. In the end I like my original Sun-like Geometric the best. It looks like the Summer Sun to me and after all, that is the most appropriate of the designs from a Summer of busy stitching time.


Gay Ann

Plans for My Summer Solstice Designs

I had a great weekend, a bit of everything I spend my time doing.

I stitched quite a while on both Saturday and Sunday evenings.
On Saturday I went bead shopping (yes more beads, it seems an endless addiction).
On Sunday I went to the Apple Store for lessons. I face the long task of redoing my website in the next year.
In between I wrote about my plans for Summer Solstice, my designs from a summer of doodle-stitching.

I just posted my plans on my website in Summary 4 of my Summer Solstice experience, but here is a bit more about my plan.

I had not been working for long on Summer Solstice when I noticed that I was using a single center motif and building up patterns around it. It surprised me how much the various patterns changed what was essentially the same design. By the time I started colorizing the parts, I thought all the designs took on such a different appearance, even though as I said they were essentially the same design.

In the Summer Solstice Banner I made up a series of new squares and each could easily function in the role of my original center design. If someone took one of these little center squares, she could gently and non-threateningly build herself a new design.
She could juggle my patterns and add her favorites to them; she could experiment almost endlessly with different colors.

In short, I could turn Summer Solstice into a simple little design experience with anybody willing to try.

Of course anybody who wishes to can stitch any one of the designs just as I did, but I am hoping they will join me in a Study Room at Shining Needle Society and watch what happens. I even have a prize, a yummy cake shipped, for the stitcher who makes the most creative adaptation of Summer Solstice.

I am hoping to start the Study Room for Summer Solstice the first week of the new year and have it up until April 1.

More details on my website, and still more will show up at E-Week, my sale in mid-October.

Gay Ann

Forty-Six Cheers for Adobe!

This summer my life got a lot worse: Apple took away the program I use to create my website. Yes, iWeb is disappearing and MacSoph, Queendom Website and I have become iWeb Orphans.

All summer long my angst has been, what do we do?

Now almost every sophisticated computer person has looked askance at iWeb as 'not sophisticated' 'a very bad web design program' 'not for serious people' 'only for amateurs' etc. OK, I've learned enough to know that some of the complaints are well founded.

Still, iWeb gave me a very simple format and a great deal of freedom to stitch together my bit of magic.

As I've looked around for a program to replace iWeb, I've 'auditioned' several and found that the simple ones slot me in a box and force me to stay in the confines of the box. They may be more sophisticated in terms of web stuff, but for design possibilities they don't live up to iWeb.

The only way around the dilemma was the long arduous task of learning code, so I spent a considerable amount of time learning a bit about html and css. I found I actually enjoy it, but I was not at all certain I wanted to spend each day using it to make daily changes to Queendom Website. I could see my treasured stitching time evaporating in a mist of angle brackets.

Still I soldiered on, each day feeling more and more like sending a stream of darts toward Apple's management for its decision to kill iWeb.

All along DH has told me, there are too many iWeb users and someone will step up to the plate and do something that will help all the iWeb Orphans.

Who knew that the someone stepping up to the plate would be the almighty Adobe itself.

Forty-Six Cheers for Adobe! It is as if they heard my own personal cry and brought me the perfect solution for Queendom Website!

MacSoph, Queendom Website and I will live on for another day after all. Thank you, Adobe! Thank you thank you thank you!

Gay Ann

An Unseasonal Christmas Banner on Queendom Website

Today is the second day I have a Christmas version of Summer Solstice Banner on the homepage of my website. I just finished updating my website for the day and as I clicked on it, all the red and green looks so strange as we wind into the third week of August.

Tomorrow morning the fourth and last design will magically appear on my home page and I will convert back to the sunny summer colors.

I have whiled away my summer doodle-stitching the series and I've had a great time with it. I've enjoyed not having to plan where I am headed, but just kick back and see where my needle leads me. Although I have doodle-stitched many times, this is the first time I've documented and published my day-by-day progress and it has been a journey full of surprises for me.

So what have I learned in this journey? And what have I hoped my followers have learned? And what am I going to do with it all?

After I post the fourth design, I will write about my nearly 2 months of Summer Solstice and hopefully answer the above questions.
I didn't start with a plan but gradually one evolved as I stitched the pieces.

Gay Ann

Summer Solstice is Coming to a Close

After a whole summer of doodle-stitching, I am finally to the end of my Summer Solstice Project.
I will reveal the last two designs over the next couple of days.

So what am I going to do with these four designs?
I have a plan and I will write about it very soon.

In fact I wasn't very far along with the first of the designs when the goal occurred to me and I have been stitching with it in mind ever since. The only hint at this point? It involves a bit of creativity, and it involves a Cake.

To read about the Cake (yes, CAKE) check out my website, www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on 'CAKE' on the navigation bar.

I haven't finished the cake yet, but boy is it delicious! I am guessing that the cake will add all 6 lbs I've just lost. What I've never figured out is how a cake that weighs less than 1 pound can add 6 lbs to me. Don't tell me it doesn't happen, because I have countless experiences countering your argument.

Oh well, who can resist a delicious cake.
Gay Ann

On Designing for Needlepoint

Yesterday I received the following post which was the end of a long comment about Summer Solstice, my summer project.
I've posted all comments on my website, but this one seems to ask that I answer it more thoroughly, since it hits squarely on the reason I've been stitching Summer Solstice.


Here’s the end of terryb's long post:
This is a fun exercise, but I hope your intentions were not to convince us that designing is easy. Rather it points out the complicated aspects that are involved and how important it is that they all mesh to create a beautiful and successful end product.


And here's my answer:
No, the purpose of Summer Solstice has not been to convince anyone that designing is easy. I've been designing needlepoint projects for a long time now and I've never found it easy.

My idea was to develop a small design by picking up my needle and starting, without any idea where I was headed. I was hoping to take my followers through the various stages of developing a small design so that they could see the process and begin to evaluate along with me each of the stages Summer Solstice goes through.

Sometimes it is easy to think in black and white and forget about the gray areas between the two extremes. In this case, at one end is a design by someone else and the stitcher simply reproduces what the designer did. At the other end is a blank piece of canvas in need of a design. There are a lot of possibilities between these two extremes, and that's what I am after.

I am not asking everybody to pick up blank canvases and fill them. I am hoping that people will learn to watch more carefully what they are stitching and bring a little of themselves to their needlework by making small personal changes. To make the changes well, someone has to grapple a bit with the design process and think about where she's headed.

When someone stitches a design that is all worked out ahead of time, it is a safe and easy choice. As the stitcher hits the awkward stages that all designs go through, she can overlook them and focus instead on the pretty color photo of the design as it will become. Once she starts to deviate even a little bit from the pattern, she will have to learn to look at what is actually happening on the canvas and evaluate where she is and where she is headed.

With my Summer Solstice project, that's exactly what I am trying to demonstrate. I don't know where I am headed or whether it will work out. What I have to do is stitch a bit, then stop and evaluate where I am and where I want to go, then try out my ideas and see if they work, rip a lot when they don't, evaluate again and stitch again.

So why grapple with these problems at all when the world is full of beautiful designs just waiting to be stitched?

Over my years as a needlework teacher, I have heard so many times the excitement in someone's voice when she takes a small step toward personalizing her needlework by trying a choice of her own and discovering that it works. There is a sense of engagement that doesn't exist with rote reproduction of a design. Yes, it is more difficult, but it is often very rewarding.

I am hoping that Summer Solstice will help people see a myriad of possibilities and the differences that small changes can make; I am hoping people will begin to look at their own needlework projects and say, 'I wonder what would happen if...."

Gay Ann

My Summer Project

On the Summer Solstice I took the whole day and stitched.

I began stitching a project in an unconventional way: I gathered together a variety of threads in colors I like and a square of 18 mesh canvas and I began stitching without a plan or a drawing to guide me.

My idea is to start with one color and one stitch and then make the next decision based on that color and that stitch, then the next decision once I see the first and second choices, and so forth, and watch where it all leads.

I have stitched this way on several occasions In the past, and sometimes the designs work out and sometimes not. Even if the designs don't work out, I always come away with some interesting patterns or color combinations which I have incorporated into other designs. In the best of circumstances, I come up with a design that stands on its own. My past design called 'Twilight Garden Square' was one of these experiments.

This time is a bit different because I decided to document each step and make it a summer project on my website. I have been snapping photos along the way and making notes about the process as I go. This morning I posted the first of the series on my website: a photo of the threads and canvas I started with and some notes about my choices. I plan to write about my decisions along the way, why I did this, why I chose that, etc., as I go.

The thing about this way of working is, I never know where I am headed, so I am hoping it will be lively, a bit of suspense and a bit of living on the edge in terms of needlepoint. We'll see how it turns out.

To follow along:
www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on 'Summer' on my navigation bar.

Gay Ann

Summer Solstice Stitch In

It is the eve of one of my favorite days of the year: tomorrow we have more daylight hours than any other day of the year and that's why it is one of my favorite days.

In my classroom at Shining Needle Society I planned a Summer Solstice Stitch In. My original plan was to start stitching after dinner and stitch till the last light of the day fades.

Now I've revised my plan. I decided I deserve one of my favorite days all to myself, so with notable exceptions for errands and to-do tasks and of course food breaks, I plan to pick up my needle at first light tomorrow morning and stitch all day long till the final bit of light in the evening. I have invited all of Shining Needle Society, at least all of the members I can reach, to e-drop in and join me for whatever time they can, then tell us how much they accomplished.

My idea for myself is to start a new project.

Lately, out in my guest room, I have had squares of 18 mesh canvas in all colors spread out with chunks of favorite threads in favorite colors on top of the canvas squares. Today I plan to choose one of those squares and its colors, mount the square on stretcher bars and set it aside along with two shiny new tapestry needles for tomorrow morning.

So what do I plan to stitch? That's what's unusual about this project of mine: I don't know, I don't have any drawings or any plans. I will just pick up my needle and start, then see what I come up with. I plan to start at the center of the canvas and watch what evolves.

I've done this before and it is great fun. I have to watch what is happening and I often have to rip a lot, but I usually do a lot of ripping anyway. I love not knowing where I am heading, just interacting with the canvas to see what evolves.

This time I plan to take photos each step of the way and post the results on my website, bad or good, through the next month.

We'll see how it all turns out.

Happy Summer Solstice Eve. Enjoy the wonderful long hours of daylight.

Lace: Hand-made vs. Machine-Made

Because of the Royal Wedding and Kate Middleton's dress, I have been featuring examples of Carrickmacross lace on my website. This is the style of lace on Kate Middleton's dress.

This morning I began a journey of study when I posted closeups of hand-made Carrickmacross and machine-made Carrickmacross. I have posted arrows noting certain areas where the stitches are easier to see and If you look carefully at them you will begin to recognize stitches made by hand vs. stitches made by machine.

To see the closeups go to www.GayAnnRogers.com, click on Lace Box, then on Lace Box 8.


Why learn about this? If you like to shop in flea markets and you go armed with a bit of knowledge, you are likely to find some real treasures for a few pennies. Many dealers buy quantity of laces, but many of them don't know the difference between hand and machine.

For example, at Covent Garden market in London, I once bought 3 strips of lace for the equivalent of $2.50 for the three. I bought them as samples to illustrate hand vs. machine in my needlework classes and they were great for that. Two were machine-made, but the third one was a great little strip of hand-made Venetian lace.

Besides studying them, what else can you do with these things? In the next couple of years I hope to figure out ways to incorporate bits of lace into some needlepoint patterns. In the meantime I am hoping my followers will learn a tad bit about the lace they may one day incorporate into their needlework,

Gay Ann

Frustration on a Sunday Afternoon

This past week I started a new program for myself and for members of my Shining Needle Society Class. Last Sunday I looked ahead at the week to be and I set up some stitching goals for myself.

Happily I kept to my goals all week long. I even started a new design and spent several days consumed by it, but in the end, sadly it didn't work and I just tossed it.

I don't mind the time I spent on it -- it is a part of any creative work. I got myself backed into a place I couldn't deal with. The part I mind is, I've been there a dozen times before and I forget about it.

It all has to do with Zweigart and the colors of congress cloth.

I find Zweigart congress cloth colors too strong and too true to their colors. Even the ecru (I always forget the real name of the color), the light blue and the gray. The ecru is too yellow for my tastes, the light blue is so light blue and the gray to my eye is more like a middle gray.

I would prefer a series of grounds with 'barely there' colors, with just enough color to take the Scream out of Screaming White. I have wished for this as long as I have used congress cloth which is a long long time.

Last year I rejoiced when Zweigart announced 4 new congress cloth colors and I ordered them sight unseen. Then they arrived on my doorstep. All four were strong strong colors. Couldn't just one of them be a soft barely-there ground? I'm not asking for all four, just one. Ahh, my soul for an antique white (a genuine antique white), or a pale (I do mean pale) gray or probably what would be my favorite choice: a barely-there gray blue. Or how about a barely there gray green. Actually the color doesn't matter, just an almost-neutral color to take the Scream out of Screaming White.

I live with Screaming White. I have adjusted my whole career to Screaming White: I use pale colors so that the contrast keeps the Scream at bay.

From time to time I forget and I start a design calling for strong colors, and that's what I did last week.

I got part way into it, liked very much what I had done, then I started choosing more colors and stopped cold. The Screaming White was screaming overtime. Knowing the lessons from the past I simply bundled it all up and tossed it -- and wished for the umpteenth time for a barely there color.

The frustration leads me to write about it every once in a while and the frustration is looming large this afternoon. Very large. So I am writing about it on my blog. Writing about it makes me feel better, I guess. Gets it off my chest.

So now I've written about it again.

Back to the drawing board. Hmmm, let's see what design of mine will harmonize with the soft colors necessary to keep the scream in white down to a dull roar. The wish list tabled for yet another year or two.

Gay Ann

Carrickmacross Lace

After my Royal Wedding Extravaganza on Queendom Website, I decided to dig into my Lace Box and find samples of Carrickmacross Lace, primarily because that was the lace on Kate Middleton's wedding dress.

I found several pieces and have displayed them on my website. I began with such a poor example of the craft, a sad hankie with amateur appliques. Carrickmacross is a lace made of applying fabric bits onto net. Whereas the more difficult laces have solid areas created by Buttonhole Stitch, Carrickmacross solid areas are applied fabric. The best part of my coarsely made hankie is that it is easy to understand the technique.

This morning I posted my favorite piece of Carrickmacross, a beautiful 19th century handkerchief of Carrickmacross Guipure. All Guipure indicates is that there's no net. This hankie is such a beautiful example and I have always loved it. I found it years and years ago in a basket on the rainy ground of a large flea market outside London. I had gone there with an antiques dealer friend of mine who was shopping for her own stock.

In future days I am hoping people will find hankies from their moms and aunts and grandmothers and we will look at photos and see what people have. Tomorrow morning or Sunday morning, I am not sure which, I will post a couple of 1950's machine-made lace hankies that borrow patterns from the handmade Carrickmacross Lace.

Gay Ann Rogers
www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on 'Lace Box' on the yellow navigation bar

A Small Slice of London from Betty Chen Louis

The best part of my Springtime Extravaganza is its end: a new and small piece, a slice of London's skyline, from Betty Chen Louis. I have posted the piece on my website's home page: www.GayAnnRogers.com.

For so long now I have been writing about restraint from gooping up pieces of needlepoint and here is a prime example of how restraint has paid off big time. Betty hasn't used many stitches or threads to stitch her small skyline; her skill is the manipulation of color and scale to show the construction of the buildings and the lights and shadows across them. To my way of thinking Betty is the master of manipulating color and scale.

The piece is brand new. Betty finished stitching it less than a month ago. Because it makes so many of the points I would love to see reinforced, I am hoping it will become an online class sometime early next year through Shining Needle Society. For interest in the class, contact KateGaunt@aol.com. For now she is compiling an interest room.

For my own part, I am delighted to see Betty stitching again and it is lovely to see a new piece of her elegant work.

Gay Ann

Royal Wedding Eve and My Celebrations

All month long on my website I've been celebrating the Royal Wedding with the best tidbits I can think of, and today I posted my latest: Needlework Royalty and a beautiful wedding dress worn by one of Needlework's Royal Princesses.

My Needlework Posting is the latest of my attempts to move into the future and to date I think it is my tutors' favorite. It is probably a toss up between me rising up out of the back of my personal e-Rolls and this one. In time I am hoping I can do even more with this one, but for now it makes me smile. I enjoyed making it to celebrate my Queenship and the Royal Status of a few of my friends.

So it is the Eve of the Royal Wedding and tomorrow is the Big Day. I suspect many of us will have a great day-long or, depending on how industrious you are, an all-night stitch in in front of the television. I suspect, because of a very bad cold, that I will sleep tonight and Tivo it for tomorrow, so now my final decision: which station do I want to record?

Enjoy the eve and the day.
Gay Ann

A Week till the Royal Wedding

All month long on my website I have been celebrating the upcoming Royal Wedding.
I confess, it isn't so much for the 'royal' part as it is for the wacky commemoratives and souvenirs that everybody comes up with on such occasions and I have been posting links and photos of them on my website since last January. What people can come up with! Now I see that Dunkin' Donuts has a Royal Wedding Donut in the shape of a heart.

I even made up my own Royal Commemoratives, a sewing case, a geometric, a heart and a series of fobs potentially with 'Diana Rings' at the end of the fobs. The rings are available at very reasonable prices on eBay, but I don't think they are real sapphires and diamonds. At first I was disappointed I didn't get a multi-carat sapphire for $17.95 including postage. Then I thought, mnever mind, as the beads I used in the fobs weren't real sapphires and diamonds either.

During the month I have had three quizzes, one on Famous Wedding Dresses, one on Famous Brides and one on Famous Couples and people have been guessing the answers. An amazing number have guessed most of them. The least known of the celebrities was Couple #1 in the 'Famous Couples' quiz; as an aside, everybody knew Couple #3.

Now I have started gathering Favorite Wedding Dresses. I actually think this exercise has some worth as a design exercise. This morning I started writing a tiny bit about Style. Not High Style or Fashionista Style but a bit of Vintage/Historical Style. Along with others I have been surfing Wedding Dresses for the one I like best. After viewing everybody's selections so far, I must say that my choices aren't very conventional, but that's fine. I will post my choices at the very end.

I still want to do a feature on 'Royal Commemoratives' from the past. I don't have a huge collection of them but as a long time collector of sewing tools, I do have a few and I think they are great fun. I will start posting photos early next week.

In a windup to the wedding, I've saved my favorite bit for the last. MacSoph and I just finished it (it was a joint effort), with much help from my favorite kids at Apple. They all liked it and laughed pretty hard, so I have high hopes it will amuse my website followers. I will post it sometime toward the end of next next week, likely on Wednesday or Thursday.

So there's still a busy time ahead on Queendom Website, followed by an all-nighter. Perhaps. I am thinking, should I stay up all night, or get lots of zzz's and use Tivo. I keep telling myself that's why they invented Tivo.

But then there's the lure of seeing it all in 'Real Time'.

Which? Don't know yet.

Gay Ann

In the Springtime: an Extravaganza.

I have been looking forward to a Springtime Extravaganza on my website since last November. Through the doldrums of winter and into my favorite time of year.

Why my favorite time of year? Because the days grow longer and it is time for strawberries and asparagus. Yummy foods to eat that aren't even bad for you, and longer times to stitch in the natural daylight. Two good reasons, don't you think?

I began my Springtime Extravaganza with a quote: In the Springtime, the only pretty ring time, the birds do sing, hey ding a ding ding, sweet lovers love the spring.

The quote was full of hints about my Springtime Extravaganza, and now the cat is out of the bag.
Yes, the Lord Chamberlain himself has invited Queendom Website and its followers to put on our best tiaras and spiffy pyjamas, set our alarm clocks and watch the Royal Wedding together. If you travel to my website you will find a replica of the actual invitation, just a little reworked for all of us, and a page of crowns, coronets and tiaras appropriate for the occasion, even if the bride herself decides to wear flowers, not a tiara.

The only thing missing from our Extravaganza so far: some special mementos to stitch through the night and into the day as we celebrate with a night-and-day stitch-in on Shining Needle Society. So, behind the scenes I have been stitching stitching away small patterns to commemorate the day. Now it is the eve of my posting them for the first time and I am anxious to see how Queendom Website looks when it all goes live tomorrow morning.

I have been stitching and MacSoph and I have been working away, and I have a couple of proud moments to crow about:
I have a little geometric and guess what: it sparkles! And when it stops sparkling, the viewer can click on it and it will sparkle again.

I have a little sewing case that opens and closes, and on demand opens and closes again.
And my best effort so far: a little heart that revolves and does a bit of magic.

Last month I celebrated my third anniversary of life with both MacSophs (Little MacSoph and MacP.Soph), my two computers. I didn't have time then to celebrate (toooo many deadlines!) but I will take time this month to reflect on how far I've come and how far I still have to go.

Springtime. The season of growth. Time for me to grow and grow. Now, on the eve of my Springtime Extravaganza, I look forward to taking the next step. All day Sunday I go to school again at the Apple Store and I hope to do a bit more. Building blocks they are, one step more toward my fantasy.

So I hope you will visit Queendom Website and see my new building blocks: the geometric that twinkles, the sewing case that opens and closes and the heart that revolves.
They will be up tomorrow morning first thing.

And I hope too that you will join Queendom Website for the Royal Wedding and the celebration in general of the spring.

Gay Ann

Wrapping Up My Month-Long Series, 'For Beginners'

As March comes to a close, I am wrapping up my month-long series of suggestions for beginners. A number of people have written asking if I would leave up the series on my website. I will leave it up for a while, but ultimately I will take it down because of Website Real Estate. Not enough to keep up everything.

However, the month doesn't mark the end of the series, and I will, from time to time revisit the themes, particularly the themes of the last three posts which weren't truly beginner subjects. They apply to all of us in needlework. The themes of a little restraint, of judicious choices in thread and stitch to enhance the design, that sort of topic.

My big needlepoint Springtime Extravaganza started today with a sort of 'Pre-Start' which will tide me over till I am back from teaching and I have a chance to start in earnest. This Springtime Extravaganza will last for the whole of April and when it finishes, I have a genuine treat, a photo of a new piece from one of the iconic needlework teachers who has indeed taken up her needle again.

Surely as soon as I post the photo of her newest piece, I will have to revisit the themes I mention above, for she is a master of choice of thread and stitch to service the design. So soon as I take down my series for beginners, I will have to re-post some of it all over again.

See what I mean, it may not be there all the time, but it will definitely return, time and again, as the occasion suits.

Meanwhile, I planned to write a wrap-up for the month and I ran out of time.
I will write it when I am home again.

Gay Ann

www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on 'For Beginners' to visit my series.

Compensation: not in money but in needlepoint

For all of March I have been writing posts on my website for beginners. Day before yesterday I tackled the basics of compensation, then decided I couldn't stop with only a definition. Yesterday I wrote more on compensation and touched on the subject of how compensation and stitch choice are inextricably bound together.

Compensation is basically using parts of a stitch to fill in a design element when the whole stitch unit won't fit. Stitchers get all caught up in the art of compensation and sometimes it seems to me, one compensates just for the sake of making it difficult.

Alas, I have seen bad stitch choices where 50% of the stitches are compensating stitches. I know many stitchers think this is a sign of expertise, but all it does essentially is goop up the piece.

I was pleased with my post yesterday because I used illustrations to define compensation, then I changed the compensation and eventually I changed the stitch choice. In the illustration of my final stitch choice, there was hardly any compensation, mainly because the stitch fit the shape so well.

Stitch selection is all important in all ways including compensation. If you have to do too much rigorous compensation, my guess is you are using the wrong stitch. Start working on another choice.

When you look at a design, look at the shapes involved and try to figure out stitch patterns that reflect the shapes. A shape isn't something to be filled with any old stitch pattern just because you like the stitch pattern. The stitch choice should play into the shape and enhance its line. More often than not, if you find a stitch that mirrors the shape in scale and in line, you will find you don't have to struggle much with compensation.

Gay Ann

For my articles on compensation: www.GayAnnRogers and click on "For Beginners".

About My Series of Posts for Needlepoint Beginners

On the first of March I began writing a series I have always meant to write: my own guidelines for beginners.
This morning I just posted my fifth post.

I knew it would be difficult to do, in a large part because I haven't taught beginners for at least 30 years.
Whenever we are in a field for a long time, we use too much jargon, so one of the jobs of writing for beginners becomes the definition of terms we avid stitchers take for granted. It isn't difficult to define the terms; it is just surprisingly difficult to recognize that they are indeed the jargon of needlework.

I have had a good time thinking about beginners and how I would advise them to start. I am hoping, as I continue writing posts, that I am able to incorporate the elements of design and color right from the start. Even though people always say 'learn the rules' then you can break the rules. I am not certain that I agree with this; in a creative field I am not certain that 'the rules' are a good thing.

Recently friends came to visit and we spent a considerable amount of time stitching. My own personal style of stitching is very idiosyncratic, and for the umpteenth time in my long needlework tenure, my friends called my attention to several of my idiosyncrasies. I look on my idiosyncrasies as a part of my style, a part that evolves hand in hand with my sense of what to stitch and how to stitch. Take away those idiosyncrasies and I will not be the same stitcher at all.

This week I feel the issue even more strongly, as I learned about the death of Judy Harper. I never met Judy in person, but I 'met' her online and we had some wonderful conversations. When I wrote a post about 'Goop' on painted canvases, Judy wrote to me and cheered me on. When I first started exchanging emails with her I didn't realize she was an iconic canvas painter from my youth: she did a painting line called 'Creative Needle' and I remember in particular her beautiful Imari plates.

As I have been writing posts for beginners, I have been thinking about Judy and all that she wrote to me about design in needlepoint. I am trying to find a way to incorporate the ideas we discussed into my series, so that fledgling needlepointers learn there is more to needlepoint than the sum of a stitch library.

It isn't how many stitches you know how to do; it is all about what you do with the stitches that really matters. So the most important challenge in a series for beginners becomes, how do I incorporate the importance of personal choices right from the start? How do I explain the basics to beginners, yet reserve and preserve the importance of developing a personal style? How do I hit a balance between technical skill and artistic judgments?

So far I am five posts into the series; it remains to be seen if I can indeed do the job.

Gay Ann

Collecting Thimbles

On my website I have a page where I post eBay listings for thimbles. I started this page right after Thanksgiving because I watched some of the best examples of American thimbles come up for sale and I was enjoying following the auctions. I have no financial interest in the listings I post, but I love to collect and like most collectors, I love a bargain.

There was a time when I spent untold hours shooting photos and writing about thimbles and the effort resulted in my book, American Silver Thimbles. At the time the book was published, thimbles were substantially more expensive than they are today. Thimble collecting reached a feverish pitch for some of the iconic American silver thimbles and prices then were sometimes more than 4-6 times what I saw them fetch this past Christmas season (with some notable exceptions of course).

Yesterday I saw a prime example of fallen glory: a little Columbian Exposition thimble sold for $89.89. Under $100.00. An unheard of low price back in the 1980's-1990'a.

I also remember well the days the Simons Bros. 'Stitch in Time' thimble fetched over $700.00; this past Christmas one went for $128.00.

Why have thimble prices fallen? I would guess a series of reasons.

Several substantial thimble collections have come back on the market and eBay has made comparisons more efficient; we know, for example that 3 or 4 Stitch in Time thimbles came on the market all in a month's time and we could compare the prices they fetched. We also found out there were likely more of them than we thought.

At the height of a collector fad, the prices soar beyond expectation, then when the fad dies off, the prices fall lower than we might imagine.

Sometimes a poorly photographed and written eBay listing results in a bargain price. I took advantage of this factor within the last month: I found a thimble I have always wanted, at a bargain price because the photo was terrible and the write up very vague. I almost missed the listing altogether, clicked my heels when I found it and it is proudly sitting in my thimble case now.

For years after I wrote American Silver Thimbles I didn't pursue thimbles. I don't like to search for collectibles in the midst of a fad; I would rather look for something not in favor. So when, quite by accident I rediscovered thimbles at much more reasonable prices all these years later, I thought the time had come to see if I could fill in some holes in my collection.

I have had a great time posting thimble auctions on my website and indulging in a few of the thimbles for myself.

Will thimbles ever reach their highest prices again? I have no way of knowing and I don't think it matters. I am not buying these thimbles as an investment, just for the pleasure they bring. Thimbles have a rich and interesting history and the workmanship and quality of the designs are often wonderful. I marvel at how much the thimble-makers managed to fit on the band of a thimble. I have always loved needlework tools in general because they are working tools, often with beautiful designs.

And right now another attractive feature about a thimble collection: it doesn't take much room.

Gay Ann

P.S. On my website I have kept photos of past thimble auctions and the prices they fetched as a record of comparison. I will continue to add to the photos as the auctions finish.

February continues....

February, one of my favorite months, continues, and I am celebrating this evening! I am celebrating because I just finished writing the last of the instructions for my hearts sale which will start as soon as I get it all together.

I usually post everything at one time, but this year I've been doing it differently. For several days I have been posting a heart or two from my past. I have been stitching lots of hearts for a long time now, and tomorrow morning the 9th and 10th will find their ways to my website.

This year I succeeded in stitching 5 new hearts and those are the instructions I have been working on since I returned from Callaway School of Needlearts on January 19. Finally (FINALLY!) I just put the last of the graphs into place and the last heart is set to go.

The last heart, which is really the first heart, was a bit of an adventure. I intended it to be one sort of heart and it just cried out to be another sort of heart. One cannot deny its place, so I let this heart follow its bliss (thank you, Joseph Campbell, even when it comes to needlepoint hearts).

So the heart won, and I am thinking of breaking tradition and posting it all on its own so that I can write about it. I am considering giving it pride of place for a couple of days before I introduce the other four new hearts. The odd thing is, for years I intended to make the heart that this one turned into, I just didn't intend this heart to become the one it did. Convoluted, isn't it, and I am not sure I am making good sense.

What does make sense to me is the idea that a design tells me where it wants to go. I have said for so long: the skill doesn't come in predicting what will work, which thread will work or which stitch will work. The skill comes in learning to watch a design and see where it wants to take me. I say this all the time and that's why the little heart won.

I've snapped a few photos; I just haven't had time to stuff them into MacSoph and have a look at them. If they turned out well, watch for my first new heart in a couple of days. After I finish posting my old hearts.

I guess the frames on my home page have been empty long enough now.
It is almost time to fill them.

Gay Ann

February 2011

I hadn't realized how much time had passed since I last posted on my blog: the whole month of January has gone by and here it is, nearly the end of the first week in February 2011. As I have said many times, I am still back in 1999 afraid about Y2K. Do you know there are 10-year-olds who weren't born yet in Y2K? Oh my, old age has set in....

I love February. I love it because it is the most GirlieGirl month on the calendar. In addition to being a GirlieGirl month, I see the days are getting a bit longer now and by the end of February they will be that much longer and spring is just around the corner. I know, I know, the country is freezing cold, but hope of spring is just awakening.

Back to GirlieGirl. What is more GirlieGirl than lace and hearts and a yummy box of chocolates and a bouquet of favorite flowers.
When I think of these things, I think of February and Valentine's Day.

I hadn't realized how many hearts I have stitched until I started looking for them and through them on February 1. I have a drawer full of them, and all intentions of making more of them. In fact, I have made 5 new ones for my Hearts Sale on my website and I am scurrying now to finish the instructions for them. In addition I am just starting a gallery of 10 of my hearts from the past.

MacSoph (my computer) and I have been pounding away, building the gallery and the first of My Hearts from the Past will show up on my website tomorrow morning.

I will start my sale as soon as I have finished writing instructions. I do have one small problem: I didn't finish in time to have Ann&Co proof the instructions, so I had a choice: cancel the sale or ask people to report mistakes as they find them and I'll post them on my website. I put the choice to several of my friends and 100% they voted to have the sale and report mistakes.

So I am game to try this, albeit with some hesitations. I will have an extra go through the instructions but I am not good at proofing my own work. I learned this years ago when I was writing books. I'd pour over and over the ts but not find anything.
I never could believe what the copyeditor found!

We'll see how it goes.

In any event, I am pleased with the new crop of hearts, in fact I am ready for more! I want to take the opportunity to start the first one for next year's hearts sale tonight at Date Night.

Yes, Saturday Night is Date Night: a Date with my Needle. Perfect time in this GirlieGirl month to start something over the top Girlie Girl. I think something with pulled thread would be just the ticket!

Gay Ann

Iron Wrought in Silk

Thank you, Pierrette, for such a nice comment about Iron Wrought in Silk.

As I wrote in Part 1 of my commentary on Iron, I had started and abandoned the sampler a couple of years ago. Only when I wanted a sampler with a gate did I start to work again on it. All the way through this sampler I struggled, all the way through had my doubts. Only when I took the last dozen stitches did I decide it was perfect for my purposes and now I confess, I am so happy that I decided to continue with it and I love the way it came out.

This morning on my website, I posted Part 2 of its story and a photo of it just after I began work on it again. When I look at the photo of it part way and the photo of the finished sampler, I think indeed, sometimes there is a bit of magic in how these pieces sort themselves out.

As I said earlier, it will become such an important part of my website if I can learn how to do all I wish to do. It is always a struggle, but therein lies much of the reward.

Gay Ann

Looking forward to 2011

It's the day after Christmas, Boxing Day if you've ever spent a Christmas in the U.K. It's also Sunday, and cold across the U.S. Perfect time to snuggle up and stitch, which is exactly what I plan to do today.

I am finishing a little scissors case to commemorate Callaway's Needle Arts School's 40th anniversary. With any luck I should finish today; I don't have far to go.

I had a lovely time stitching yesterday, didn't even have to feel guilty about running away from Kit Hell and Mail Jail.
Yesterday also I posted on my website three new projects I finished this year: Mary Queen of Scots, Bess of Hardwick -- and a sampler called 'Iron Wrought in Silk'.

Iron Wrought in Silk is so important for my website, for it leads the way to The Future for me and yesterday I started telling its story. So far Part 1. With all this in mind I look forward to the New Year and all it holds. I have so much stitching to do and so much to learn about MacSoph, my computer, and I so greatly look forward to it all!

Time to start planning to 2011. 2011: I hope it is a lucky number.

Gay Ann

Christmas Story on my Website this morning

It has been a sad year in one respect: we have lost too many friends in our stitching world. This year, in January we lost Linda Wilken who had bravely battled cancer for 5 years. My Christmas Story is a tiny vignette of her last Christmas. It is such a small bit of Christmas Magic, but really about the power of a special friendship through our needles.

I just posted "The Twelve Santas" on my website earlier in the morning.

Gay Ann

It's Snowing on My Website!

This afternoon, with lots of help, I finished decorating Queendom Website for the holidays, and it's snowing on my home page!
Like my first adventure in animation, I got so excited with the first flakes fell across my sewing case.

I look forward to the holidays this year but with some degree of sadness too. We lost too many people this year -- my friend, Linda Wilken, lost her battle to cancer in January. Then Kathleen Rake, such a gentle soul. And a very big part of my life for a while, Ben Grundfast, who was such a seminar and Callaway fixture for many years. And Molly Holt such a short time ago. I will miss them all and I realize only too keenly something I didn't understand when I was young: the ghosts of Christmases past.

All year long I have kept one story about Linda and some Santa Clauses. I saved it for Christmas, and I will publish it sometime within the next week.

In Queendom Website's Chrismtases past, I have always saved a special piece I've stitched and I post it as a small treat on Christmas morning. This year's is framed and waiting, and it is the first piece I have made entirely for my website. When I have learned much more than I know now, this sampler will play a very large role in the future of Queendom Website. But more about that on Christmas Morning.

For now, I have spent some time reorganizing my thimble pages. I now have a page for thimbles for sale now and a page for ended auctions with prices the thimbles fetched. If one looks at auction prices, one can learn a lot about pricing a collectible. As it is the shopping season, I will keep the thimbles, sewing tools and cameos on Queendom Website through the holidays.

Yes, cameos too. At E-Week I had several requests from people for cameos. I am out of the cameo business now -- I bought them only when I was actively teaching my cameo pieces. Instead, I would like to help people find suitable cameos for all my cameo samplers, then next summer I hope to bring the cameo pieces back for a little Cameo Extravaganza.

I had a good time decorating Queendom Website this year. I headed into it without many ideas, then it just came to me as I was searching through my files for a wallpaper. So I hope you will have time to stop by and watch it snow, check out thimble prices and needlework tool prices, and cameo prices as well, stay for my story of Linda Wilken and the Twelve Santas. And if I have a chance, a new Techniques Column too.

Happy Holidays!
Gay Ann

Thimbles and More Thimbles!

Like most collectors I enjoy surfing on eBay. Some time ago I started a page on my website where I mention eBay listings I find and like and think might interest Queendom Website's followers. To date I have posted mostly scissors. I have a true scissors fetish, no doubt at all.

A couple of days ago I found an unusually long list of America's noteworthy thimbles for sale. I haven't seen this many of the famous thimbles for sale for a long while, so I wrote on my website a feature about thimbles. I put them on my home page, I've now done 2 pages of thimble listings from eBay, and I've written a long long column of comments on the vagaries of thimble prices. It was like a stroll down memory lane for me, as I spent the better part of 3 years writing about American Silver Thimbles.

Back in the relative dark ages when I was writing American Silver Thimbles, I knew each one of the thimbles and could tell you who made it. Now? Well, I confess I remember a surprising number of them and who made them, but I don't remember how to spell the names any longer. I had to check my book to see how to spell one of the most noteworthy of the American thimble makers, Ketcham & McDougall. The spelling of their names aside, wow, what great thimbles they made!

If the thimbles now for sale on eBay don't encourage a thimble collecting fetish amongst my followers, I give up, can't be done.
Whether you want to collect thimbles or not, do take a few minutes to look at them and enjoy one of America's smallest art forms. www.GayAnnRogers.com

Enough chatting here about them. I will leave the details to my website, save for one last comment: will I indulge in one or two of the thimbles for sale? Most definitely! I bought my first one tonight. I thought it was a terrific buy and I will likely be back for a second one and perhaps a third. Which ones? Hmmm, let's see how the auction goes for now....

Fun and games in the thimble world, that's for sure.
Gay Ann

Remembering Molly Holt

On Thursday evening our needlework world lost one of the bravest people I have known. Molly Holt died peacefully after a near 25-year-long battle with cancer.

I don't remember when I first met Molly but I would guess that Betty Chen Louis introduced us. I don't remember largely because Molly has always been such a big a part of the needlework world as I've known it. She was a regular at most guild seminars and I cannot remember a time I didn't see her at Callaway.

Molly was one of those students who made needlework a better, livelier and more inventive place. Not content to work on designs from others, Molly was a leader in studying design and color and the application of both to needlework. She studied memorably with Wilcke Smith, Jan Beaney, Jean Littlejohn, Pam Godderis and Charlotte Miller. Last year at EGA she applied and was accepted as a member of Fiber Forum, EGA's more experimental group.

Last January at Callaway I saw what I thought was such a worthwhile culmination of Molly's expression in a piece she displayed in the Callaway exhibit. It was her artistic look at her battle with cancer and it so impressed me that I posted a photo and her artist's statement on my website homepage. In honor of Molly I have re-posted the photo of her piece (above) along with her artist's statement (below).

We who knew Molly will greatly miss her and her influence on our embroidery world, although I suspect her spirit will remain close to many of us, urging us to try harder, be more experimental, look at alternatives and stray from the easy. So I won't say good bye to Molly. She will stay and help us all in memory and in spirit.

Gay Ann

Molly's artist's statement follows, below. The photo of Molly sipping coffee was from Callaway last January; the photo of Kate, Rivers, Lee and Molly was from our day at 'The Birth of Impressionism' at the DeYoung in San Francisco when we were all together for the EGA Seminar in September.


From Molly Holt:

In September 2009 my breast cancer was found to have suddenly metastasized into my liver. This piece was begun in early July of that year, a time when the cancer was actively moving, but I was not yet conscious of its presence. However, I believe my inner artist WAS very aware of what was happening in my body and that this piece came out of that awareness.

The first layer of the piece uses plain sheer fabrics to create a geometric design of recto-linear shapes. These represent the underlying strength of my overall health, although if you look closely, some of the edges are beginning to fray here and there. The second, top layer of fabric is created using both plain and printed sheers and some solid cottons as well. These very organic, slightly sinister shapes writhe and mover over the geometric surface beneath and represent the cancer cells. The machine stitching moving around the organic shapes is the chemotherapy I'm currently undergoing engulfing and attacking the cancer cells.

There are two border areas made up of black areas machine-stitched and design without the machine stitching surrounding them. Are the borders prologue, representing the time before I began treatment, the chemotherapy "lurking" and waiting at the edges, the cancer cells not yet as large or full of movement, the underlying health fraying further? Or are they the epilogue, what remains when the chemotherapy is withdrawn? That remains to be seen, but I believe my inner artist knows.

This piece was begun in a class with Maggie Weiss. She challenged us to work in black and white, although in the end I chose to add a bit of color for emphasis -- and perhaps hope. Maggie further "assigned" us to do our underlying layer as a geometric structure and the top layer in organic shapes. The shapes were to be in three sizes and have cut out areas. The design itself was left entirely up to each student.

Post-E-Week

I have been absent from writing on my blog because I have been steeped in Mail Jail for E-Week's sales.
Now, after a month in Mail Jail, I have reached my last dozen orders and this morning I put out an official call for mistakes in the orders I have filled. Time to start mopping up and soon time to move on.

Next come the kits for my final travel-teaching job at Callaway in January and for my job with Pat Correz in the spring.
And after that? The beginning of my small dream for Queendom Website.

Actually my small dream begins this weekend for I am driving on Saturday morning up to my framer (the noteworthy New Creations Framing in Pasadena) to pick up a sampler called 'Iron Wrought in Silk'. Iron Wrought in Silk marks the beginning of the dream, let's say Part 1, so needless to say I am excited to see how the sampler looks and to begin work on a bit of magic for it.

So when will my followers catch a glimpse of Iron Wrought in Silk?
On Christmas morning, of course. A fitting time for the start of a dream, don't you think?

And when will the dream begin to happen? Well, not tomorrow, that's for sure. I have two more large samplers to stitch first and a long road of computer lessons to travel, so it will be a while. A while filled with a bunch of happy stitching and studying hours.

I am hoping the people who are in my general classroom at Shining Needle Society will keep me company as I stitch stitch stitch toward making a little dream a reality.

Gay Ann

Reflections as E-Week begins to head toward the finish line

It is almost over, only one day to go for my 4th annual E-Week Sale. Some E-Week it has been too, with a record number of people coming to my Early Morning Sales. I kind-of held my breath that I would get it right and that all the windows would open smoothly. We had one hiccup but nothing like last year when Little MacSoph, simply sick of the whole thing, posted an Apple Ad.
(I know Queendom Website's followers remember that ad because one person wrote me this year and asked how much the computer MacSoph was advertising last year cost).

So the windows all opened in a timely fashion and each day lasted about 2 hours. Several people wrote to me and said it was just like Stitchers' Christmas and I wanted to write and say 'thank you' for such a kind thought!

One more day to go, then E-Week will morph into a new feature this year called 'E-Week ANNEX'. By and large Kate Gaunt has done the work and I owe her a big debt. I couldn't have begun to undertake it all. As followers of Queendom Website know, I struggle under the weight of Mail Jail, so it is wonderful for me that Kate has undertaken ANNEX.

We never intended to end up in the kit business, in fact for the first years of E-Week, I avoided it as best I could. But I have heard from so many people that they have struggled to find the supplies for my projects and increasingly I have become concerned.

Last spring in my Shining Needle general classroom I posted a questionnaire. It wasn't a long one, just 5 questions. I had well over 100 people reply and the vast majority asked please, could I offer a kit option. As many have local needlework shops they wish to support (don't we all wish for that), they didn't want kits to be mandatory, but they did want the option. People who live in areas without needlework shops report that they increasingly depend on the internet for all needlework supplies and they very much favored a kit option.

So with Echoes of Elizabeth Sewing Case last summer Kate and I joined forces to see if we could provide a kit option for the students in my Echoes class. It worked out surprisingly well. Most of the mistakes were ones I made, but most got sorted out fairly quickly.

Echoes was successful enough that we decided to try making ANNEX for E-Week this year.

We both would be very interested in your opinion of ANNEX. Neither of us intends to have ANNEX be a full service needlework shop, only to provide the supplies for my E-Week designs.

We will see how it works out.


So E-Week is drawing to a close and what will come next? Time to stitch! I plan to carry on with Stitch Gay Ann Stash in Shining Needle Society. This year I will lead Stitch Gay Ann Stash in my general classroom at SNS for people working on my designs; I also plan to lead '12 Stitches a Day' in Shining Needle Society's 'Student Lounge'. Let's see if we can all have a productive year until E-Week 2011 rolls around. Heaven forbid the thought!

For now I am going to toddle off to Mail Jail where I expect to live for the better part of a month and a half.

Thank you to everybody who came to E-Week 2010. I hope you will stitch along with us now.
Gay Ann

I am set for tomorrow morning

Finally I am finished and my early morning sale on E-Week's Saturday is ready to go.
Tomorrow 8:00 a.m. California time.

Once I finished, I've been stitching and its nice to keep company with my needle.
Nice to kick back for an hour and unwind.

Till tomorrow morning, then.
I hope it all goes well, hope MacSoph does well. Last year little MacSoph derailed and put up an ad for Apple right in the middle of the sale.

We'll see.
Back to stitching.
Gay Ann

E-Week Eve

It is E-Week Eve, the day before my E-Week Sale starts and there's a small lull before the frenzy of trying to post everything correctly. It is all set to go, I just have to check it twice more.

Then I will stay up tonight as long as I can and post it all.
This year it took me just 2 days short of a month to make more than 70 pages in total so far. Poor MacSoph (my computer) is groaning under the weight of it all.

Right now MacSoph and I are at work on my Early Morning Sales for Saturday and Sunday mornings, but not in earnest yet. I won't know which designs I will sell until later today when I close my galleries. For now we have started blocking in pages and getting bits of it all set up.

Then guess what: once I go as far as I can, I am off to look at threads and I plan to stitch today for a good hour or two.
Yippee! It has been a long time since I have had a block of stitching time!

Gay Ann almost set to go

All four of my galleries are posted

This morning I posted the last of the galleries I made for my Pre-Week celebrations. Although they are not comprehensive, the four galleries do offer an idea of what I stitch.

E-Week, my annual sale of patterns from my archives is only a 4 days away now, with early morning specials on Saturday morning and Sunday morning at 8:00 am each day, California time. I will offer in the Saturday and Sunday specials those designs people have requested most frequently. I haven't made the tally yet; I will in a couple of days. I am wondering which ones.

To visit my galleries:
www.GayAnnRogers and click on the yellow navigation bar.

And enjoy!

For me it is a stroll down memory lane, and what I like thinking about most is this: I am thinking of all the ones I will be able to add in the years to come.

Here's to lots of stitching time!
Gay Ann

A Gallery of Samplers

Late last night I posted a gallery of some of the samplers I have sold at past E-Weeks on my website. I decided to do this because I have some new followers (a happy circumstance) who say they have never seen any of my designs except for the Elizabeth series currently on my website.

In the next few mornings I will continue adding to the gallery. Next up, geometrics, then my girls and last, smalls.
These aren't comprehensive galleries, just a sampling of the designs I have sold in the past.

Gay Ann

Behind the Scenes of Pre-Week on My Website

The festivities for this year's E-Week are under way now as the Queen's Car arrived yesterday and this morning it turned around so we could see the backside.

I spent too many hours building the trunk for The Queen's Car in PhotoShop because I had only a photo of part of the trunk to work with. Although too too many hours, I had such a great time doing it! The Queen's Car plays such a big role in E-Week this year because it will announce all the happenings day by day. But that will come later.

For now the part I worked on the longest happens tomorrow morning and will stay up for Friday and Saturday.
The kids at the Apple Store helped me each step of the way and when we finally tried it, they laughed and laughed at it!
Of course I was excited to see it all become a reality, so I came home the day I knew it would work and DH cracked up at it too.

So tomorrow morning the next step in 'The Future' of Queendom Website makes its debut on my home page.
It isn't perfect, but I will get better at it all in the next year.

I love all this computer stuff. I love it not as an end in itself but for two reasons linked to my far greater love, my needle.
It gives me a chance to make Queendom Website playful and it gives me a chance to teach a bit of color and design in a playful way. Hopefully as I grow and learn more, I will help my followers expand their own horizons. I know this: it certainly expands mine.

Gay Ann, excited that E-Week is coming together

Behind the scenes on my website

It is almost autumn, I have noticed that the nights are chilly and the mist is creeping in in the early a.m. Time for fun and games on my website as I wind up to E-Merchandise Week, my fall sale.

This is the fourth anniversary of the time I first discovered I could post a photo on my blog and the idea of an 'E-Merchandise Week' was born. My fourth annual E-Week Sale of patterns and kits is just around the corner.

It has become a bit of a tradition that small mysteries happen on my website right before E-Week and this year is no exception. The small mysteries have become a way for me to incorporate my lessons at Apple.

Much as I have enjoyed my lessons, I have to say that some of it is so difficult for me that I leave class with a big headache and a need for a nap. Such is the world of adjustment layer masks, tweening, symbols, lossy, pen tools and paint buckets for this old lady.

So what intrigues me so much about MacSoph's kind when I could spend more hours dreaming up new designs for needlepoint? I see MacSoph as a wonderful tool for tinkering with color, line and texture in needlework, a way to bring a wider vision and perspective to a craft I have loved my whole adult life.

And along the way indulge in a little foolishness and fantasy.

Gay Ann

San Francisco EGA, An OpEd Piece about the Seminar

I am newly home from San Francisco where I taught classes for 6 days EGA's National Seminar. I had a great time, but isn't it always true that the best part of a trip is coming home again.

This year I tried something novel: I taught Echoes of Elizabeth Sampler at the seminar while I also taught Echoes of Elizabeth Sewing Case online. Simultaneously. Each morning before I went to my face-to-face class at seminar, I posted a lesson for my online students. Each I posted photos both on my website and in my secret classroom for my online group with the hopes of givinf my online students a taste of what it was like to attend a seminar.

On the last day of my four-day face-to-face class at seminar, I snapped a photo of each of my students and the progress she had made in four days of class and I posted the photos for my online group. It made me realize, class at seminar is over, but my online class continues.


As I said goodbye to my seminar students, I thought: there is much to be gained by teacher and students meeting face to face, but I also began to recognize that online students have advantages also.

Face to face at seminars, teachers and students have the obvious advantage of meeting and spending time together.
In online classes we do miss the face to face friendships and explanations, but we do gain something too. That something is time.

In an online class we have the luxury of extended time. Running the two classes simultaneously, I realize how compact my face to face seminar class was. Instead of posting my online lessons each day to match my face-to-face class, I normally would have posted my online lessons once a week.

Now, as I said, my face to face seminar class is over, but my online class stretches on. It continues for the rest of September. Then it will go on hiatus for two months so that people have a chance to complete the stitching. In early December, my online class will resume and we will cover the finishing.

When considering face-to-face classes vs online classes, it seems we swap the great advantage of seeing each other in person for the luxury of extended class time.

Gay Ann

EGA Seminar in San Francisco is Just around the Corner

I realized midway through today that I leave for EGA's San Francisco Seminar a week from tomorrow. I am going a day early so that I can go to the Impressionist exhibition from the Musee d'Orsay, in fact several of us are going.

Friday I will have time to look around and get my sealegs and classes for me start on Saturday. I am teaching Saturday/Sunday, then Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday.

I am greatly looking forward to this seminar and am toting MacSoph (my computer), my camera and my video cam to see if I can take and post photos of the seminar on my website during the week I am there.

Am I ready to go? Nooo, but hopefully I will be by next Thursday. Important things like kits for my class are already there, even a couple of extra kits. All I have to do is find my models, both for the things I am teaching at the seminar and my models of Echoes of Elizabeth Sewing Case and my little Townhouse Sewing Case.

I have high hopes that I will see many Echoes and Townhouses in progress and even finished; high hopes because people have been writing to me saying they are bringing their pieces. It is always such fun to see what people do with my designs. I love it when they use my patterns as a starting point and adapt the design to suit themselves. Needlework is such a personal hobby and it should reflect the stitcher, her colors and stitches, and her tastes and her environment.

With this in mind, I am packing so much thread, overdyed thread in particular from Thread Gatherer, Gloriana and Dinky Dyes, colors that would look good on my big Echoes of Elizabeth Sampler. I am also taking all sorts of beads to coordinate with the threads, so I should have a good time trying to convince people to try something a wee bit different. You never know.

And all along the way I plan to have MacSoph and cameras recording the experiences of the in-seminar student as she grapples with the techniques and with design and color choices. Fun times ahead as we approach autumn. I realize that I have been teaching at autumn seminars so often that it seems like a ritual now. I have taught at one or two autumn national seminars for more than 25 years now and this is my final one.

So if you come to the seminar, do come by 'Meet the Teachers' on Sunday afternoon or 'Teachers' Showcase' on Thursday evening to say hello. Not going to the seminar? Then stay tuned and I will see you online. Online, my home from now on.

Gay Ann

Colors for Echoes of Elizabeth

For a long time now I have believed that a needlework class, even one for a 'fixed design' like Echoes of Elizabeth should always have a design and color component as a reminder that a piece of needlework is more than the sum total of a bunch of stitches.

Earlier this month I offered Echoes of Elizabeth Sewing Case on my website in three different color combinations. One color combination, with red accents, is straight from Echoes of Elizabeth Sampler, one a taupe variation, one a green variation. I borrowed the colors from these variations and played with my overdyed threads to make some new combinations.

In the next few days, leading up to seminar, I will post a new color combination for Echoes Sampler each morning on my website. I am hoping my students will take the opportunity to visit my website and check them out. I will then take the silks to class and give people a chance to swap the threads and beads in their 'fixed' kits for one of the variations, or even a combination of the variations and the original.

Even if people end up with my original color combination, I hope they will take the opportunity to consider the others and therefore stretch a bit beyond 'up at one, down at two'.

To follow the color combinations in the next week, visit my website starting tomorrow morning bright and early:
www.GayAnnRogers.com

Gay Ann

Jennifer's Photo of Flora and My Cameos

As a tribute to Jennifer, I wanted to post the composite photo she did of Flora and my cameos at Callaway. This is my favorite photo of my work and the one I use in my classroom at Shining Needle Society. Makes me sad and happy all rolled into one when I look at this. I still love the photo and probably always will.
Gay Ann

Jennifer Taylor

This past week marked a sad week in my life and a sad occasion for needlework as well: we lost Jennifer Taylor.

Jennifer was a small finely-drawn person who loomed so large in needlework. She had dual loves, embroidery and the computer, and she excelled at both. I met Jennifer at Callaway where for many years she assisted Shay Pendray in teaching Japanese Embroidery. It was the heyday of Japanese Embroidery and classes in those days were full to overflowing with students eager to take on the rigors and discipline of that embroidery form. In later years, after Shay Pendray retired, Jennifer took over teaching Shay's classes at Callaway and she in turn had a new assistant.

I knew Jennifer from our days together at Callaway and I always enjoyed her company. Like me, she was a very early morning person and every year we were there together, we shared a number of very early morning breakfasts, then off Jennifer would go to the rigors of her Japanese Embroidery classes.

For many years before I learned to do it myself, Jennifer took the photographs of my work. In fact, she took my favorite photo ever of my work, the composite of Flora and my cameo pieces now on my classroom homepage for Shining Needle Society.

It was in 2004 and 2005 that I worked closely with Jennifer on EGA's booklet of Audrey Francini's work. Audrey had asked me to write about her for Needle Arts (EGA's magazine) and it grew into a whole event to celebrate Audrey: an article, a book and a one-woman show of Audrey's work at EGA headquarters in the autumn of 2005. Jennifer took all the photographs of Audrey's work, no small task in itself, then she did the layout of the book and saw it through to publication. In addition she composed a totally memorable power-point presentation of Audrey's work which ran consistently through Audrey's show and has been on view many times at embroidery functions over the years.

Of the years I knew Jennifer my favorite time with her the night she showed the power point presentation of Audrey's work at the final banquet at Callaway. She had asked me if I would do a 2-minute introduction. I remember, when the time came, I stood up from the banquet table where I was sitting beside Dorothy Lesher. As I stood up to walk to the podium, Dorothy said to me, 'if you make this too long it will be off with your head!'

I said my 2 minutes worth, then sat beside Jennifer as she showed Audrey's work. A hush fell over the room as moment after moment came up of Audrey's beautiful embroidery enhanced by Jennifer's unrivaled skill with a camera. I don't think there was even a cough in the room. At one moment I looked across at Dorothy Lesher who was totally captivated.

When it was over, Dorothy, long forgetting her threat to behead me, said she could have watched the presentation over and over again hour upon hour. And so could we all.

Good bye, Jennifer, we shall greatly miss you!

Gay Ann


Photograph I took of Jennifer Taylor and a piece of her Japanese Embroidery at Callaway in 2008.

My New World: a Work in Progress

MacSoph is my computer, a little Apple MacBook Pro. MacSoph is a genius and the kids at the Apple Store help me learn how to communicate with her.

For some time how I have had a long term vision of where I want to go and what I want to do with my website and my general classroom at Shining Needle Society. It has to do with creativity in needlework and it will take me a long while to learn, but I am plugging away at it each week. It is all a bit like learning to do a difficult stitch: in the beginning it is a wobbly experience, then gradually it gets easier, or at least one always hopes so.

This morning a wee piece of the puzzle arrived on my website doorstep in the form of a Surprise.
For quick reference:
www.GayAnnRogers.com
Click on 'Surprise' at the top of my homepage.

A small step in a long journey.

Gay Ann

Goop Be Gone, coming in the spring

When I found myself in a day-long conversation about Goop a few days ago, I wanted sooo badly to pursue the concept and what to do about it right now but Reality reared her ugly head. My work load is maxed out.

In the spring!

In the spring I will do it and I can't wait! A class called 'Goop be Gone'. I want to tackle the subject of painted canvases, how to buy them, plan for them and what to do with them.

Here's what Goop be Gone won't be: I won't write a stitch guide for someone. What would be the point? I want to show people how to look at a painted canvas, understand its structure and what it asks for. I want people to explore what kinds of stitchers they are and learn to choose appropriate canvases for themselves. I want to take a close look at how and why one chooses threads and stitches.

I would like people to understand the idea that stitches and threads don't live in isolation; they live in a community and you have to consider the whole community before you add a new member. Choosing threads and stitches is not arbitrary; there has to be a reason and each has to serve the purpose of advancing the design.

So in the spring Goop be Gone will arrive and I will see if I can make a bit of a difference.

Gay Ann

Goop and My Techniques Column

My goodness, but I inspired a flurry of notes to me about 'Goop', my term for needlepoint that is all gooped up with too many stitches and threads. As I pointed out, this usually happens on painted canvases.

After I received a flurry of notes and some guilty consciences, I decided I should pursue the avoidance of Goop further.
So Tuesday morning, I will post another Techniques Column about painted canvases. Tuesday morning, bright and early.

Gay Ann

Pretty Scissors

I love scissors! In fact, I have a passion for them and own far too many pairs. Some of them are wonderful because they are so good at my needlework chores: I have a favorite pair of Dovos with blades so slender that they make the chore of ripping easier; I have traditional Ginghers for cutting meshes when I do Ruskin. And I have all sorts of others poised for snipping threads at all kinds of destinations around my house, in short wherever I might light with a canvas in my hand.

In addition I have collected scissors for, well, forever.

In the last few years I have been making sewing cases and using some of my scissors in them. Now I have started making scissors fobs. Stitched ones, beaded ones. They're fun to do and decorative too.

When my students started asking about scissors for sewing cases, I also started surfing on eBay for pretty scissors and posting the listings on my website. A way of chasing scissors without having to own them all myself. My website followers have reported that they have bought many of the pairs I have found on eBay and it is always exciting to hear that a sweet pair has found a nice home.

So I surf. Often when I should be doing other needlework chores, like more kits, more packets of beads, corrections to my instructions masters, and of course Mail Jail (which is forever, even when I am not having a sale).

On my website I post the listings, sometimes with a bit of editorializing, sometimes with the progress of the auction, always with the auction results. Lately I have found some wonderful pairs! In fact there are a couple of memorable pairs on my eBay page right now.

Ahhh, temptation!

Enough about scissors for the morning; back to work on chores. Faint panic sets in this morning as I watch the dawn of the final day of June. Half the year is over.
Gay Ann

A Technique Called Goop

This morning I posted a new Techniques Column.
Essentially it is on what I call 'Goop' and my column suggests one way we might all avoid the concept.
For quick reference:

www.GayAnnRogers.com.
Click on 'Techniques' then scroll down and click on Techniques 11.

Gay Ann

Tomorrow: A New Techniques Column on My Website

One time I was having breakfast with a number of needlework friends at our very favorite breakfast haunt (best Eggs Benedict in all its variations around, but that's another story).

Much of the discussion was about painted canvases for needlepoint, and one friend turned to me and made a comment that I didn't do painted canvases, therefore was rather left out of the discussion. I realized then something I hadn't thought about before: my friend sees a dichotomy.

I don't see the dichotomy. Painted canvas or counted canvas, it is basically all the same to me.

I suppose that's from my designer point of view. I suppose the difference comes in that the stitcher has more obvious latitude on a painted canvas to choose stitches and threads, and it is precisely that latitude that is the subject of my Techniques 11 column.

Tomorrow morning: www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on Techniques, then on Techniques 11.

Gay Ann

A New Techniques Column on My Website

It has been nearly half a year since I have written a Techniques Column on my website. I think it has been so long because I have been mired down in writing instructions booklets and didn't feel like writing any more than I had to. But this morning I woke up in the mood to catch up on Techniques.

My new Techniques Column is on the weight of thread. As I look at needlework past and present, I think much of technical success depends on the weight of the thread the stitcher chooses. We all recognize when thread is too thin, but too often we miss noticing when thread is too heavy. My column this morning is on assessing thread weight and constant testing. Like most of life, there isn't any magic answer, just toil and practice.

I have found over the years that very little is set in needlework. I know any number of needlework teachers who think up formulae and pronounce on their perfection, but the best of the needlework teachers I know say the opposite: most of good needlework is a matter of trial and error and a lot of tinkering, and so it is with thread weight. A couple of my experiences with thread weight and why I find it very important is the subject of my new Techniques Column this morning.

For quick reference: www.GayAnnRogers.com, click on 'Techniques', then scroll down to 'Techniques 10'.

Gay Ann

Townhouses on View

I am newly home from EGA's South Central Region Seminar in Dallas. I had a super time there and one of the best treats for me: I saw some FINISHED Townhouses from my recent class at Shining Needle Society. The townhouses and their stitchers are on my website's home page; on 'Townhouses' I have just posted more photos of the insides and backs of the Townhouses too.

I enjoyed seeing the Townhouses in particular because of the color changes. I suspect the changes were inspired by my colorizations of doors and windows, a little added bonus to the class.

It has been a bit of a journey, learning PhotoShop. I have been working at it for just about a year and a half now and the learning curve has been a bit steep but very worthwhile. What I love best about the potential of PhotoShop for me: I can now colorize my designs in a way I could only dream of in the past. I hoped if I colorized my designs, that my students will see all the potential for creative use of color and be brave and inspired to try the changes.

And now, with the Townhouses in Dallas, I saw the fruits of my labors. It was all so rewarding!

Now I have some new colorizations coming shortly to my website: I colorized Echoes of Elizabeth and soon will post the colorizations along with the original. I like the colorizations so well that I am going to buy more thread, take it to class with me and see if I can talk a student or two into trying the changes. I will let them swap threads and enjoy watching the results.

So here's to PhotoShop, many more lessons and more and more uses for this great program!

And new for me? Illustrator has arrived in my life. Illustrator is leg 2 of my dreams for my website, and along the way, guess what: 25 years of hand-written instructions have come to an end. I've produced my first set of instructions on MacSoph, my computer. Illustrator rocks in the life of this aging designer.

Always goes to show you: new tricks for old dogs are possible.

Gay Ann

Some of my proudest moments in Stitching Elizabeth 1

For a couple of weeks I have been writing about my experiences stitching a portrait of Elizabeth 1 (currently on my website's home page).

Tomorrow morning I plan to continue my series on stitching Elizabeth 1 by writing about my proudest stitching moments.

So often my proudest stitching moments happen not when I use a difficult stitch but when I manage to convey a certain effect by choosing a stitch well. Sometimes this happens with the simplest stitches I know, and such is the case with one of my favorite parts of Elizabeth 1.

I have long said, it isn't the number of stitches or the level of difficulty that sets apart a piece of needlework; it is the skill in using the stitches to achieve certain effects. I wish I could say it is all skill, but it is usually the result of a lot of experimentation and a measure of good luck. Actually more than a measure of good luck.

For my series, visit www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on Elizabeth 1.

Gay Ann

Looking Ahead and Dreaming

The Queen is in place on my website homepage now, and the small story of my surprise is in News&Views.

I am looking forward to our class at Callaway where Carole Lake and I are teaching the Queen. I hope we have a rousing good class for it is my final 'travel and teach' job at a seminar. Yes, after Callaway in January I am retiring from 'face to face' classes and turning to the internet.

I am a great believer that fantasy is the first component of creativity, and in the last couple of years I have found in the computer all sorts of fantastic opportunities for fantasy. I want to pursue them! I look forward to staying home with DH and MacSoph (my computer); I look forward to lots more classes at the Apple store and lots more ideas for my website.

Yes, I will miss seeing people face to face, but the computer has some great advantages. Face-to-face classes last 2 or 3 or 4 days; cyber-classes last for months. The months allow time to try a technique, think about a color, ask a question, solve a problem. Maybe, on down the line, there will be a way to combine the two. Who knows.

So here's to time to dream and see what I can do, both with needle and with computer, and hopefully a combination of the two.
Here's to more PhotoShop, some Illustrator and maybe some Flash. Here's to a magic gate, a poem, a castle and an alternative world.

I can't wait!

Gay Ann

If you would like information about Callaway Needle Arts School, here are some links.

To see all of Callaway’s offerings for January, click on the link below:
http://www.callawaygardens.com/needlearts

Or contact Pat Callihan at pccalli@callawaygardens.com

A Big Surprise indeed for me -- tomorrow morning

A short while ago I had a terrific surprise and I will post the story of my surprise on my website tomorrow morning.
It has to do with a piece I stitched last year.

More about it in a couple of days.
Gay Ann

Taking a Class from Betty Chen Louis

Today is the last day to enroll in Betty Chen Louis’ first online class.

For some time I have been urging people to take Betty’s online class, in fact I have been strongly urging them to do so. The project is small and therefore stitch-able, and the lessons are so important.

So important for in Betty’s lessons lies a shift of emphasis, a way of reorienting how her students see needlework. While stitch and thread are important parts of a successful piece of embroidery, they are not the only parts. They aren’t an end in themselves, they are the tools. It isn’t about the stitches and threads; it’s what you do with the stitches and threads that matters. And nobody currently working in my needlework world is more aware of it nor more able to access it than Betty Chen Louis.

That’s why I have been beating the drums and urging people to take a class from her.

And once again:
I should have said in the beginning: I have no financial interest in Betty’s projects; I just think they are extraordinary.

Gay Ann
(posted also on my website today).