More on Thimbles

After my last post, I started a new page on my website for fledgling thimble collectors.

I set about looking for good quality thimbles at very reasonable starting prices on eBay and I've posted the listings on my website. I don't have any financial interest in the thimbles, in almost all cases I don't know the dealers, but I love trolling for thimbles and other needlework tools.

Last week I found a pair of very pretty and very good quality silver thimbles with tiny landscapes on the bands. Little miniature scenes so carefully worked out on the tiny band of a thimble. Each thimble had reached the final day of its listing with no bids, at $9.99. Almost scrap value of the silver!

So I posted them on my website and thus began 'thimbles for fledgling thimble collectors'.

Yesterday I posted a series of excellent quality thimbles with starting prices of less than $15.00.

As I have written number of times, thimble prices have tumbled in the last few years, so that many great thimbles are now about 25% of the price they were 20 years ago.

I am by nature a contrarian collector, that is I like to collect something not at the height of fashion, and now is a perfect time to look again at thimbles. In fact, in the last year and a half I have bought a small stash of thimbles I've long admired but never thought would come my way. At the top of the list: a very rare Untermyer Robbins thimble that went begging. A delight indeed!

Yes, the prices have fallen, but the thimbles haven't changed. They are still tiny trifles of a bygone era, beautifully worked and a delight to the eye. I have always thought of them and the other beautiful sewing tools as a needleworker's jewelry. Go and have a look at the little thimbles on my website page and see if you don't agree.

For quick reference:
www.GayAnnRogers.com
click on 'Thimbles' on the yellow navigation bar
then click on the red button 'thimbles for fledgling collectors'

Let me know what you think of them.
Gay Ann

Thimbles!

In the last year and a half my interest in thimbles has revived and slowly I have bought a small number of thimbles I thought I would never own.

Since the heyday of thimble collecting in the 1980's and 1990's, thimbles have tumbled in price. In the years since I wrote 'American Silver Thimbles' I hadn't followed the prices of thimbles. I hadn't realized quite how far they had fallen until I stumbled on a thimble listing on eBay, followed it and discovered oh how the mighty have fallen!

Being a bit of a contrarian, the fall in thimble prices revived my interest and  I started following and posting eBay listings for thimbles on my website. Each time I have followed listings on eBay I have been surprised at the reasonable prices that some of the great American silver thimbles fetched. Of course, there are still the thimbles that fetch over $1000.00, but this week, for example,  I found a handful of wonderful collectable thimbles that look as if they will fetch only a fraction of what they were worth 20 years ago.

And for fledgling thimble collectors, I just found two very pretty American thimbles with little scenes. Their auctions end today and so far the price for each is $9.99. One has a single bid; one has no bids. Given the quality of each of these little thimbles, the price is very reasonable if they go anywhere close to $10.00.

Is it a smart financial move to collect something that has fallen so much in price?

I don't know about the financial end of it all, but I do know that these are wonderful little collectables from a bygone era and they are suddenly affordable again after a long spell where they cost a fortune.

So here I am again, watching thimble listings on eBay and hoping that a few more come my way.
It's great fun to revisit a hobby I thought was long dead for me.

So wish me luck this week. I have my eye cast on two thimbles in particular and the rush of the hunt is well under way.

Gay Ann

To visit some recent prices for thimbles, visit my website, www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on 'Thimbles' on the yellow navigation bar.

I have some recent listings, but I have also posted pictures and  prices that collectable thimbles have fetched over the last year and a half.
 

Exciting Day for MacSoph and Me

Today turned into a very exciting day for MacSoph and me: our new web program came out of beta and into general release, new today.

In a scant couple of weeks I start my Elizabeth class and I expect my Elizabeth class will run until it is time for my windup to E-Week, so MacSoph and I won't be moving Queendom Website anytime soon, but the program is here and it is ours now, and MacSoph and I can learn and practice lots, and then one day we will indeed move Queendom Website.

I considered staying with iWeb on a third party server indefinitely, until Apple's OS no longer supported it,  but I confess I love the look of my new website. It is a lot like my old one, but with some new twists and graphics and a bit of a face lift, and it should work more easily for most people. It is a more powerful program and I love the flexibility. It is just more difficult and we have to study, MacSoph and I.

Exciting! Geeky, I know, but exciting nonetheless.

And to it add the new versions of PhotoShop and Illustrator.

So this weekend I plan to stitch and study, stitch and study, and maybe go to the movies with DH. Maybe.

Gay Ann

Decisions Decisions Needlework Style

I finished making the Elizabeth kits for my upcoming class at Shining Needle Society. Finally, yesterday I put the last strand of silk in the last baggie. I still have to pick up and assemble the instructions and pack and send the last of the kits, but for the most part it all ended about 4:00 pm yesterday afternoon.

Over the course of making these kits for my class at Shining Needle Society:
I counted more than 23,000 beads into small baggies.
To these I added strands of pearls and tiny seed beads which I measured.
I counted and labeled more than 10,000 strands of silk.
To these I added more than 1400 spools of metallic threads.

Kit Hell is over for a while; Mail Jail won't last past the end of this week and a bit of freedom is in sight! 

What am I going to do with actual free time? 

That's easy: stitch, of course.

Right now I have five designs I've started; they're in various stages. I know for many people, five is not a great number, but for me it is a lot. I usually work on a maximum of three at a time, usually one big one and two smallsters. But right now the number is five, and it will soon be six and perhaps even seven.

So what are they?

One is a heart. Small and I am so close to finished with this heart that it's shameful I don't sit down and take the last stitch.

One is an ornament, a pretty ornament, but barely started. Still, how difficult can one ornament be. Never mind. Bloody difficult if it feels like being. Let's hope this one is benevolent and benign.

One is a medium-sized experimental design of a garden view. Three good stitching sessions and I'd finish it for certain. I'm glad to be near the end of this one. I've struggled with each and every stitch.

One is a fantasy. It's very large and I've not had time to concentrate on it. It's in the beginning stages, the very beginning stages and that is when a piece takes the most energy and concentration. I need a good block of time to sit down and get to know it. Anybody know where I can steal two weeks of guilt-free time to sit and stitch on this one? No? No, I don't know either. I'll limp along till mid-summer.

One is a friend for another piece of mine. This one's almost finished. Two good stitching sessions and I'd see the end of this one. It was a dream to stitch and I'll miss it. Am I the only person sad to see the end of an enjoyable piece? 

In addition to the above I have promised a sampler constructed from the bits and pieces of my Six Samplers website game. Although I've asked for advice from my general classroom at Shining Needle Society, I know exactly what I want to do. If time permits, I'll try to make more than one of these small samplers recycled from the large samplers. I love doing it, a bit like working jigsaw puzzles.

All of this is fine, except that my friend Natalie threw a monkey wrench into my stitching plans: she gave me an idea for a sampler that begs to be designed and stitched right now! I mean, right right now! I mean, steal the next week, don't move, don't finish the Elizabeth kits, don't leave the house, sit and work on this design!

So what am I to do? Sigh. Double sigh.

Happiness is being able to contemplate such problems!

Freedom is almost here. At least for a short while.

Gay Ann

Elizabeth 1, A Portrait, my needlepoint class at Shining Needle Society

I just finished putting 40 Elizabeth kits in their boxes. DH has gone to the post office with 20 of them; he'll take the next 20 to the post office tomorrow morning. That will mean I have mailed the first 60 of them. Now I have to go to the print shop and order the paperwork for the next 60. Happily the threads and beads are all assembled.

Whew! I'm part way there.

This year has been a roller coaster ride for me, most of the roller coaster due not to needlework but to website issues. Apple and Adobe have driven my life since last summer: I set all the details of my needlework life to revolve around my progress on my new website.

Around Christmastime I thought I would be moving from iWeb to Muse and starting life on my new website. Expecting May and June to be rather frantic computer months for MacSoph and me, I planned the details for my Elizabeth 1 class around MacSoph's schedule.

Of course it didn't turn out that way. Muse is still in beta; in my tensest session ever at the Apple Store, my tutor Cody moved Queendom Website away from Mobile Me, to a third party server called DynaDot.
MacSoph is moved to Lion and now all I have to do is move to the cloud.

So now, after I've been advertising the schedule for my Elizabeth 1, A Portrait Class at Shining Needle Society, for at least 6 months, of course it has changed.

I plan to keep registration for the class open now till either May 7 or May 15 (it's up to Kate); that's one or two weeks longer than I had originally planned. And now because MacSoph won't have computer problems all through June, I would like to start the class as soon as I finish mailing the kits. I think that will be about mid-May. We will start on June 1, not July 1.

If this sounds confusing, well fair enough, it is. I think the details are all clearer on Queendom Website (which is functioning fine on DynaDot).
www.GayAnnRogers.com

Life doesn't often go as I plan. You'd think I'd have figured that out by my stage in life, wouldn't you.
But it is clear I haven't.

Oh well, I am ditching work for the rest of the day. I am very close to finishing two needlepoint projects right now and my needle beckons. It is all a bit much and I want to chill for a while by stitching.

Gay Ann

Organization and My Needlework Stash

It is the fourth month of 2012 and time to reflect on my New Year's Resolution Progress. My top New Year's Resolution is always the same: organize my house. And now it is organize MacSoph also. I have endless needlework stash everywhere in my house and everywhere on MacSoph.

More than a quarter of this year has gone by and how am I doing? Not as well as I hoped but better than I feared. I have a way of starting out the year all enthusiastic about organization and then about 2 weeks into the process, life takes over and I fall off the band wagon.

Well this year is different in a couple of respects: I've fallen off any number of times but I have picked myself up and started again.
So what has made the difference?

My mother-in-law who was one of my favorite ever people taught me a trick: don't try to do it all at once, do a bit a day. She was fond of saying, clean out a drawer a week and at the end of 52 weeks, you will have cleaned out 52 drawers.

A couple of years ago I made up a small program for stitching based on my mother-in-law's idea: 12 Stitches a Day. I usually double or triple the number of stitches, or simply stitch one strand, and it has helped me get through very tedious parts of any number of projects.

A bit a day works too for organizing stash, except I get bogged down: I begin sorting a box and I can't decide what to keep and what to toss. Oh, I say to myself, I can't decide this now -- and that's how I abandon organization.

Now I have found a supplement for my mother-in-law's notion: MacSoph streams the program 'Hoarders' for me. If I watch an hour of Hoarders on MacSoph, and then within 24 hours I tackle a box or two, it is amazing how quickly I can decide to get rid of things. So I've been watching Hoarders on MacSoph and then sorting and tossing. I am supposed to watch an hour of Hoarders each week and then work on stash control for 5 short sessions during week.

That part doesn't work. I can't bear the program so I treat it like an ill-tasting medicine, and like a child I find all sorts of ways to avoid it. But when I look around and reflect on the state of my still out-of-control needlework stash, I sit down and watch, and then I have a flurry of clean-up activity.

Is there much difference around here? Well, not a lot but definitely some. Does my cleaning lady still stand in the doorway and cry when she looks into my work spaces around our house? Yes. But there is a bit of progress, and I still have almost 3/4's of the year to improve.

Reflecting back over the first quarter of this year, I would give myself a grade somewhere between C- and D+. I know that might look dismal to many, but this is the first year my grade by this time hasn't been an F.

Hope springs eternal.

Gay Ann

Here's What I Did with My Winnings from Adobe

It's all gone. My followers advised me not to save my winnings from Adobe, but to spend the money.
I did.

In fact I got a little carried away and spent MORE than my Adobe winnings.
Here's what I did with my little windfall plus:

First I bought Starbucks cards for my tutors. A friend of mine said that's what I should do, because it really belongs to them anyway for I would never have entered anything Adobe if it hadn't been for my Apple lessons.

Next I bought Kate a Starbucks card because she helped me sort out whether the email announcing I was the winner was for real or one of those fake contests.

I also put some more money on my own Starbucks card.

I bought MacSoph a present: a jazzy PhotoShop plug in. MacSoph loves it!

I phoned one of my favorite needlework suppliers and treated myself to the new book on Elizabethan Embroidery (spectacular photography!), some scissors and some more skeins of Soie d'Alger (who can ever have enough Soie d'Alger?).

I bought myself a charm I have wanted for quite a while.

And there it went, poof!

All I have left is the official letter saying I'd won, plus the check stub.
It was a great little windfall!

Gay Ann

Sewing Tools and Thimbles on eBay

For a long time now I have been surfing on eBay and posting links on Queendom Website to sewing tools and thimbles I find so that my followers will have a bit of a guide. I don't have any financial interest in the listings, in fact often I have no idea who the listing dealer is, I just like old sewing tools and am interested in the auctions.

This morning I checked on the listings I had posted recently and found a shock: an English filigree thimble, c. 1830, fetched only $65.00.

That's the lowest price I've seen for a filigree thimble.

One time in a Sunday sale in London, I found one for 15 pounds (at that time probably about $25.00), I bought it and swapped it with a dealer friend of mine and she sold it for many hundreds of pounds. I swapped it for a Brighton Pavilion thimble which at the time would have cost me several hundred pounds also.

So a price tag of $65.00 was a big shock to me!

Admittedly, the thimble had some damage, and condition always plays a huge role in price for an antique item. Still, at the height of the thimble craze, a filigree thimble with some damage but not disfiguring damage, would have fetched 10 times the amount of this one. In pristine condition, it would have cost $1000.00.

But that was at its height, and thimble prices have tumbled.

So what to do?

In my case, the time is here to look for thimbles. I've known this for some time and have profited greatly. I have bought a handful of thimbles I never thought I would own, sometimes at a fraction of the price they were when I wrote American Silver Thimbles. In a couple of cases, the thimbles so rare that I have only seen 1 or 2 in all the years I've been interested in thimbles.

When I was writing American Silver Thimbles all those years ago, I didn't buy many thimbles; I bought more sewing tools in those days. Now I haven't been buying many sewing tools; I've been looking for thimbles instead.

I am by nature a contrarian, and I am delighted to look for thimbles I would love to have when the prices are way down.

Will thimbles ever again reach their lofty prices of yesteryear? I don't know, but at the recent prices of $36.00 for a Simons Raised Grape thimble and $65.00 for a filigree thimble, it doesn't matter to me. I enjoy the thimbles, think they are beautiful little treasures from a bygone era and enjoy collecting them. Since I don't imagine I will sell them again, I don't consider them an investment except in enjoyment.

Tis a fun market to follow!
Gay Ann

Adobe's Survey Contest Outcome

DH and I escaped outta Dodge. We ran away, just overnight, and when we got home again, we fetched our mail.
In the mail was a check from Adobe's Survey Company for $250.00.

I guess I can't be absolutely positive about the check until I cash it, but it sure does look authentic.

So my guess is, the 'congratulations-you've-won' email was for once real.

So what do I plan to do with these funds?

I thought I should buy Kate a Starbucks gift card for sorting out whether it was real or not;
likewise I thought I would buy each of my favorite tutor-kids a Starbucks card also,
and I would take DH out to his current favorite place for dinner.

Now, DH's current favorite meal comes from a tiny restaurant where we go quite frequently and where dinner for the two of us costs about $16.00, so that won't eat through my $250.00.

What about the balance?

Should I save it?
Should I spend it?
If I spend it, what should I spend it on?

I could spend it on thread.
Or beads.
Or something for MacSoph.

Any ideas for me?

Fun indeed to have a little money earned in an unexpected way.
I'll let you know what I decide to do with it.

Nice end to an uncertain saga.
Gay Ann

A Prize from the Almighty Adobe?

As those of you who follow my blog know, I have been in high angst over Queendom Website's move for months on end now.

Almost since the first day of its beta release, I have been following news of Adobe's new website program, Muse. I've followed it, read far too many articles on it where I understood maximum about 20% of what I read, been to far too many computer classes on how to do it and whiled away days and days trying to figure it out, and so forth. Angst and determination make a powerful couple.

Some time earlier this year, in my nearly-daily checking Adobe news, I found a survey on Adobe's site; click here, it said, and answer the following question: What two or three features or functions, if added to Muse, would make you use it more often / start using it?

Now I cared passionately about one feature, so I sat down and crafted as carefully as I could about 5 sentences explaining what I hoped for and why. I spent more time on those half dozen sentences than I ever remember spending. I was so centered on the message and the hope that somebody would read it that I forgot it was a contest with a prize for the best entry.

I simply clicked and sent my slaved-over words into cyber-space and moved on.

-------

Yesterday morning an email arrived in my inbox saying, Congratulations, you are winner of the Adobe contest, please send the information to claim your prize money. Please reply before March 28.

Now how many of you reading this would think, yeah right, for sure someone is going to send Gay Ann prize money. How many of you would warn me, delete it, above all don't send any personal information because for sure this is a scam.

I looked at this email and thought, oh my, what chance is this for real? zip to zero, I figured!

Now Kate is always wise about things like this, so I forwarded the email to her. She told me, let's google the company. She found a general phone number, I phoned and guess what, after phone calls, emails and much assessment, it turned out to be for real!

OK, stop right now. How many of you are thinking, Gay Ann is indeed VERY naive!

-------------

I think it was for real, maybe I just want to believe it is for real, so of course I decided I had proper crowing rights and I crowed.
And here's the interesting part: not a single person to whom I crowed was anything but skeptical, as in 'are you sure it isn't a scam?'

The glory of my win (if indeed it was a win) was all lost, sinking in a sea of skepticism.

I am still crowing! I just talked to my framer, and after conducting our business, I said 'oh by the way....' and she replied, well, let me know when the check arrives; till then we'll see....

-------------

Are my friends right? What do you think?

Tell you what: I'll let you know for sure if and when the check arrives....

Gay Ann

'

Daydreaming in Painting Class and Its Results

In my last post I described the pleasure of sitting in painting class daydreaming.

When I wrote that post I had been in painting class for about 6-8 sessions, actually I can't remember exactly how many sessions, but I know I didn't accomplish much, unless you count mixing paints, dabbling a bit and daydreaming as something.

In the end all the mixing paints, dabbling and daydreaming added up to a new idea that hit me like a thunderbolt. Result: I've abandoned all work ethic and fiddled with my new idea for days now.

The problem is, work is breathing down hard on me in the form of unfinished kits, incomplete Mail Jail and of course endless streams of unanswered email. Now I'm back to an age-old scheme: I have to work so many hours to earn playtime.

But I cheat. I've succeeded in putting off work for 4 days now, all in the interest of yet more play.

Oh self discipline where are you when I need to access you?

Picture me looking around and not seeing self-discipline anywhere nearby.


Will my idea work?
Too early to tell yet, but it is terrifically captivating.

What if it doesn't work?
I'll have had days of creative frenzy and the amusement a good creative frenzy brings. That can't be all bad, can it? Excitement makes the endorphins flow, and aren't endorphins a sign of good health?

See how one can justify just about any escape from what one should be doing?


What if my idea does work?
Well, more excitement, more creative frenzy, more work avoidance.
It's all such a vicious circle isn't it.

But an entertaining one. Entertaining indeed.

And a nice thought that all my daydreaming and tinkering in painting class added up to a very big idea after all.

Gay Ann

What I've Learned in Painting Class

Whew! What a couple of tense days MacSoph and I had! Well, part 1 of Queendom Website's transition is over; now I have to do that 3 more times. Actually I'm going to see if I can talk my tutor Cody into doing it again next time.

I've been so tense and I'm working too much, and Natalie, my friend who is trying to help me widen my horizons, gently nudged me to go to painting class for certain this week, even though I have too many deadlines right now and too much stress in my life.

So I packed up my painting gear and off I went to painting class. It's about a 5 minute drive from my house.

When I arrived, I parked myself in my favorite spot, and I spent a lot of time gazing around the room and thinking. Finally my sweet young teacher said to me, when was I going to start painting? Soon, I said. She asked me what I was doing. I said I was thinking. She said I spend an awful lot of time thinking and not much time doing.

I've been in painting class now for about 8 weeks of actual class time and so far I've produced 3 variations (all unfinished) of one design, 2 variations (also unfinished) of a similar design and that's all.

You know, I spend my whole life working and producing things. I work toward goals and try to achieve them, I spend endless hours working on instructions and beads packets and endless endless hours on MacSoph, all producing something, getting on with work, finishing things, keeping up Queendom Website, writing in my classrooms at Shining Needle Society, and last year, in 2011 I stitched 35 designs which I sold at my hearts sale, my Royal Wedding Extravaganza and of course at the madhouse in my life, my E-Week Sale in October..

In painting classI don't have to try to be the best student; I don't have to paint a painting every time I'm there, I don't have to finish anything. I can just sit back, ask a few questions and reflect on various ways I might do something if I were so inclined and think. I don't have to work hard and produce something. I might just mix some paints and see what colors I can mix. I like to mix paints a whole lot. And I like to daydream about them.

I've thought up so many ideas in painting class! I make notes about them. I dab the paint sometimes onto paper, sometimes on to needlepoint canvas and I think what I might do if I redid it. How would I change the colors? How would I change the lines? How would I do the patterns if I were to stitch on top of the paint? I usually get about half-way through a painting, then painting class is over and I go back home to work again. Back to the grind of turning out work, the push to produce.

So in painting class I've proved a big disappointment.

But it's been a gift. No pressure, no stress. By the end of painting class last time I was so relaxed and sleepy that I came home and instead of working, I had a 2 hour nap.


Here's what painting class has taught me: I understand now why people collect needlework patterns, sort the threads and pet the design and imagine what wonderful things they will make.

I understand about the fantasy now. It's wonderful! Don't let go of it! Ever!

Gay Ann

Transition Part 1

Whew! Three very tense and stressful hours and Queendom Website is moved.
You know, moving anywhere, whether it be for real or in cyberspace is always stressful.

But for nowIt's over and finished and I don't have to go through this again till Muse comes out of beta. Then I will finally move away from iWeb and to my new site. Yes, I decided to stay with my original plan of keeping iWeb with a new server until Muse is in general release.

For now, everything at Queendom Website looks the same and seems the same. It is a bit different behind the scenes, but up front it seems much the same.

If you find any differences or problems, will you please email me and let me know?

Thank you!
Gay Ann, much relieved.

www.GayAnnRogers.com

Moving Day for Queendom Website

I thought I would start moving my website yesterday, but moving day is tomorrow.

Soon as I know everything is up again and running well, I will post here and on my website.

Guess what day Queendom Website is moving: on the Ides of March. No matter what happens, Queendom Website's fate won't be as bad as Julius Caesar's, so all is looking up.

I am taking 6 deep breaths every hour and keeping my needle nearby for a dose of calm stitching when necessary.

Gay Ann

Queendom Website: Transition

The time has come for Part 1 of Queendom Website's move.
In the next few days I will move my website from one server to another.

What does this mean?

Right now I publish Queendom Website on 'Mobile Me'. We are moving from one publisher to another, from Mobile Me to DynaDot.

What might you notice?

Hopefully you won't notice any difference.
There is a small possibility that it will be a rocky move. If this happens, I will post my progress here, on my blog.

If there are any irregularities, know that it isn't your computer, it's a period of transition for me, that's all.

Gay Ann

Sometimes Needlepoint Saves Me

I've had a bunch of stressful days. Nothing serious, just all website related.

Indeed all website related, and yesterday afternoon I spent most of my classtime very near tears.
I left class feeling frustrated, disappointed and directionless, as I face starting over yet again and learning another program for my website.

It will be my third one.

The first one was terrible. No, that's not fair to say; it was a great program but it is for people who live well in a box.
It forced me to line up everything in a tidy fashion. I know, I know, everything about web design is better when the elements are all lined up. But one can't go against one's grain and I was unhappy with everything I did in that program.

So I left it.

Then last summer along came a new program that was everything I wanted. I followed its progress and I played around with it from time to time, then In the last 3 months I began work on it in earnest.

I've worked nearly daily on it and I was so excited, I got exactly what I wanted, all on my own, no templates, no lined-up boxes, no unalterable padding and margins, etc.

And then it all came crumbling down around me. The program is in beta. Now in beta 6. It was supposed to come into general release in 'Early 2012'. I've followed its progress and my guess is, it will come into general release way too late for me. So with colossal disappointment I made up my mind I have to change programs yet again.

Now I've found a program which looks great. The tech support is unreal! I asked a question yesterday morning and had an answer back, as promised, in less than an hour. Remember, I was asking on Sunday morning. Amazing! Friendly, to-the-point and helpful. I took a short course as an overview and it looks very much easier than the other two programs I tackled. The company is large, ergo it's going to be around for a while, what's not to like.

Only one pretty hefty disappointment: it is totally template-based.

So here I am again, back to little boxes, all lined up in a row.

I guess the web world is so strongly in favor of little boxes all in a row that I can't fight it any longer. There simply isn't time.

So I came home yesterday from class very disappointed. I took a deep breath and picked up my needle, and it all came flooding back why I love needlework so much. I have some canvas, I have some thread, I can do anything I want. It's personal and up to me and there aren't any boxes and I learned long ago in my needlework career not to pay any attention to The Rules. I chilled and relaxed and left it all behind in the company of my needle.

A nice end to a frustrating couple of days and a reminder what an important role my needlework plays in my life.

This morning, the beginning of a new day, I see more options. What I may well do is move iWeb (my present website) to a new host and simply wait for the program I like. I still have nearly 3 months to decide. And I will learn the new program too, just in case I can come up with something I like.

Meanwhile, 12 Stitches a Day. Every day. My daily reminder that at least a part of my world belongs totally to me.

Gay Ann

All the Beads for My Needlepoint Portrait of Elizabeth 1

Yesterday I finished writing instructions for my needlepoint miniature portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots. It was an arduous task, writing those instructions, and I was happy to see them come to an end. So happy, in fact, that I emailed Kate that I had finished and asked her if she could hear me shouting with joy all the way from San Diego to Dallas.

Yes, one task complete, but no rest for the wicked. Today I decided was the day to tackle the bead packets for my Elizabeth 1 class at Shining Needle Society which begins in a couple of months.

Elizabeth 1, as I stitched her, has a complex collection of beads and today I began the first stages of counting little beads into little baggies. Today I counted 34 (+ 2 extra) little gold balls, plus 1 green teardrop bead, plus 1 pearl teardrop, into 157 2" x 2" baggies.

After I finished my 157th baggie, I stopped and figured out how many little gold balls I have counted into 2" x 2" baggies since I first taught my Elizabeth portrait at Callaway a year ago, and when I did the math, the sum was 11,200 little gold balls.

In addition to little gold balls today, I counted 17 metal bugle beads along with 4 red beads, 4 green beads and 4 slightly larger gold balls into another 157 2" x 2" baggies. That was my day's work. In all there are 7 such 2" x 2" baggies that fit into a 3" x 4" baggie.

I didn't do the math for any more beads because I thought the totals might overwhelm me.

So why did I begin tackling the beads today? Because I want to go tomorrow morning to a bead show in search of... yes... more little gold balls, more red beads and green beads and also more slightly larger gold balls. I discovered my supply of them didn't extend as far as I needed. Oh, I have enough for my Elizabeth kits, but on Elizabeth's heels are Mary and Bess and they need all the same beads also.

I think my fate in the next year is to count another 3000-4000 little gold balls into more 2" x 2" baggies.

Such is my life right now, and probably into the future. I don't mind, for there are worse things: I could spill all those thousands of little beads. That would indeed be much worse.

It is always satisfying when little beads are all safely fitted into their little baggies. Then they can't spill, can they.
Unless the baggies rip, but that thought is too much for today.

Gay Ann

Tomorrow: the official end of my needlepoint hearts sale

My actual hearts sale ended a week ago and Queendom Website came alive with Hearts Sale Annex as Kate Gaunt sold the supplies packets for all the hearts. Tomorrow is the last day for hearts supplies; tomorrow evening or early Wednesday morning Queendom Website will change -- and for me it will mark the beginning of Queendom Website's transition. Yes, a new castle is coming, a new home for Queendom Website. We hope.

It has been rocky. I know the rocky ups and downs come from using a website program in beta. Just in transition from beta 5 to beta 6, poor MacSoph was brutalized. She and I are up and running again and hopefully it won't be more than a couple of months more.

So what about Queendom Website in the next couple of months, during the period of transition?

I would like to bring back my 'For Beginners' articles and perhaps add a couple of techniques columns.

I will definitely write about more from eBay if eBay comes up with collectors' goodies worth bidding on, hopefully lots of vintage and antique scissors and thimbles and stilettos and little hemmeasures, all sorts of goodies for sewing cases. I hope to write about cameos again, and some bits of laces and linens as I have an idea what to do with them now that I am a linen devotee.

Ahh, yes, linen! The focus of my spring will be on Legacy Linen as I continue work on a spot sampler and what else but a couple of new hearts. Mostly my linen pursuits are aimed at my Elizabeth class at Shining Needle Society. I stitched my Elizabeth portrait on congress cloth but now I am curious how it would work on linen. Maybe some brave souls will try.

Why the linen fetish of late, after a lifetime on canvas and congress cloth? A while back I had an idea for a sampler that I became convinced would work best on linen. I tried a 25 count linen that was simply too wiggly but now I have found Legacy Linen 25 and it is a joy to work on! I have all sorts of plans ahead, just need chunks of time to work on them.

So as Kate begins to pack up Annex from my hearts sale, I raise a champagne glass filled with orts and toast the coming months of transition as we begin to move Queendom Website, MacSoph and I.

Drugery? I am sure. As anybody connected with them knows, computers can drive one nutsss. But not only drudgery; there will be joy too! To me months ahead with at least some time to stitch always bring joy.

So for spring this year, my favorite time of year, I need some luck -- a lot of luck -- and my needle will provide a lot of joy.

Gay Ann

Just two more days of my Needlepoint Hearts Sale

I can't believe how quickly the week of my hearts sale has flown by, and here it is, almost the middle of February. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Just two more days and my hearts sale for 2012 will finish.

Of course activity on Queendom Website doesn't stop because as soon as my hearts finish, Kate Gaunt will be here with all the supplies my hearts. Yes, the first time that Kate's Corner Annex will be on Queendom Website during my hearts sale. Two years ago Kate started suppling threads and canvas for my designs during E-Week, simply because I couldn't do it all. Hers is a separate little business and I have no financial interest in her supplies. They belong to her.

This year I am particularly excited about supplies because Kate has squares of Legacy Linen 25 count for sale as well as congress cloth squares. I am hoping that people in my Shining Needle Society general classroom and also those in my Elizabeth 1, A Portrait class will try experiments on the linen. And ultimately I am wondering if brave souls will decide to stitch the portrait on the linen. One fine way to decide is to stitch Heart of Elizabeth on the linen and see how it looks. Heart of Elizabeth is essentially a little practice piece for the portrait.

In general Hearts are such a great way to experiment, for many of them are just a few evenings' work, not a months and months long project. Why not experiment and then end up with a stitched heart.

I am so excited about the prospect that I am already eyeing my miniature portraits of Mary Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick. I am wondering: could I make Mary's and Bess's Hearts on congress cloth and then again on linen to see what happens.

I should be packing heart patterns, I should be working on my new castle, I should be doing dozens of things, but I ditched it all for a couple of hours today and drew hearts for Mary and Bess. Slightly smaller than Heart of Elizabeth, I am hoping it won't take much time to stitch them.

I'll save the stitching for when my classrooms start working on their hearts. I drew the drawings; I cut the canvas and mounted it on stretcher bars, and I had a look at the designs under the canvas to see if I thought they would work. Now I think I'll see if Kate will send me two squares of linen, then I'll set all the makings aside till we start work in Shining Needle Society.

Do I want to wait? Of course not. But I've had a little holiday, now it is back to work again.

Gay Ann

My Needlepoint Hearts: the Power of Imagination

Today has been a very busy day on Queendom Website for my annual Needlepoint Hearts Sale started in the very early a.m.

This year I have 8 new hearts. I had planned to have 5, but then at Christmastime I played a game with my general classroom at Shining Needle Society. I gave them a short description of each of the 5 hearts

Heart #1 The dominant color is charcoal. This heart has beads
Heart #2 The dominant color is rust.
Heart #3 The dominant color is periwinkle. This heart has beads.
Heart #4 The dominant color is periwinkle. This heart has pearls
Heart #5 The dominant color is pink. This heart is smaller than the others.

Based on these descriptions I asked the class to conjure up what they thought each heart might look like and vote for one.
Obviously there weren't enough hints for anyone to guess accurately (although a few people came close). The idea wasn't to guess what the heart did look like but to use the hints to help imagine a heart they would like.

I promised to post a photo of the heart with the most votes on my website on Christmas morning.
#4 heart was the one they chose. It is called Periwinkle Roses and Pearls Heart and it has Bullion Roses, Ribbon Roses, some typical needlepoint patterns and a sprinkling of pearl. It's a very Girlie Girl heart which seems to me appropriate for Valentine's Day.

Heart #1 was the second choice, mainly because everybody wondered how I would combine charcoal with a heart motif.
As people know now, I took the bodice of my Elizabeth 1 needlepoint portrait and made a heart so that my students could practice several of the techniques before they stitch them 'for real' on their portraits.

Heart #5 which is really the subject of this post received many votes from people who like pink; they also said they liked the idea of a small heart and imagined it must have pink roses and pearls. One person even said that she would love a series of small hearts, quick to stitch, with pink roses and pearls.

In actuality, Heart #5 is rather geometric, a little scissors case with tiny scissors on its backside, in short nothing like the hearts my classroom members conjured up, but I loved their ideas.

I immediately started three small hearts, smaller than my normal hearts, and graduated in size. The motifs were of course pink roses with a sprinkling of pearls.

And that's why I planned 5 hearts for my yearly sale but actually have 8 hearts in the sale.

It wasn't important whether my classroom guessed what my hearts looked like; much much more important the power of their imaginations, even if the end results of their conjurings were nothing like the actual heart #5.

I have to say thank you to my general classroom at SNS for the ideas. In fact, I bundled the three hearts and made them a special price for my classroom as a small thank you.

The needlepoint hearts in my annual hearts sale are now posted on Queendom Website,
www.GayAnnRogers.com.
They will be there through Valentine's Day.

Gay Ann