The Jane Austen Stitching Society

Today was very exciting for it is the unofficial launch day of The Jane Austen Stitching Society.

The official launch day will be on January 1, 2013 when Jane Austen will officially arrive on Queendom Website, just about 10:00 a.m.

Today I sent out a newsletter to about 220 people who had expressed interest at my E-Week Sale last October. Here's a copy of that newsletter and it will give you some idea about the society.

If you would like to join us, write to me: GARRogers@earthlink.net, or to Kate: KateGaunt@aol.com.
Shining Needle Society, the online needlework school, will be our meeting place throughout the next year.

Here then is my newsletter in full:


Dear Stitching Janeite,

It has been almost two months since I began compiling a list of people interested in The Jane Austen Stitching Society and asked you whether you would prefer our fledgling group to be The Jane Austen Stitching Society or The Jane Austen Stitching Academy. Almost 3 to 1 you preferred 'The Jane Austen Stitching Society' so today I officially declare our group 'The Jane Austen Stitching Society'.

What we will do:

Many of you asked what we will do for the year? In a nutshell: read, listen and stitch! 

What I am hoping to do is start some discussions about Jane Austen, and also about the artifacts to do with needlework around her. If you have any ideas for discussions and/or are willing to lead a discussion group, all the better! Please write to me with your suggestions: www.GayAnnRogers.com. Will you use the subject heading: ideas for Jane Austen.

We'll let our group evolve.

Where will our group live?

Our group will live at Shining Needle Society, a very nice place to live. Shining Needle Society is an online needlework school and its director is Kate Gaunt (KateGaunt@aol.com)

Nice for us, Kate has volunteered to house us there and shortly she will start opening the room. To belong to the Jane Austen Stitching Society, you will need to join Shining Needle Society. Happily this is both easy and free. 

You just need to send your name and email to Kate: KateGaunt@aol.com and she will add you to our classroom.

We will communicate through our room at Shining Needle Society, in the same way we hold classes there.

In addition I will keep for the next year a series of pages on my website devoted to Jane Austen, and as I post photos and descriptions they will appear there. I will post the URL for my Jane Austen pages in all my communications, so travel will be very simple. Just click on the URL.

Our theme for the year

Our theme will be 'Jane Austen Then and Now'. While I love historical references, I do not believe in being wedded strictly to the past. I think what we do stays alive if we love the past and pay homage to it, but we live in our own times. Therefore my stitching themes for the year will be about things from then and things from now. I would like to blend the two. This is not a new goal for me: it is alive, I hope, in all my work.

I think one of the reasons that Jane Austen continues to live today is that her books touch some universal themes still relevant to us today. The legacy of Jane and her world and how it impacts us today will be a continuing theme in The Jane Austen Stitching Society.

More about that as we go along.

So what will we be stitching?

I hope lots of projects related to Jane Austen, small and large. 

The first task for the Jane Austen Stitching Society will be for each of us to find a basket. I will post guidelines right after the first of the year. You may now see  two examples of baskets I've bought for Jane Austen on Queendom Website. Many more baskets will work, in fact Kate reports that she just found a beautiful example at World Market for about $5.00. My two baskets cost about $7.00 and $3.00 respectively.

To see my baskets: www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on 'Jane Austen' on the yellow navigation bar.

Kate has promised me a photo of her basket too and I will post it as soon as she sends it.

Our first task will be to gather goodies reminiscent of Jane and fill our baskets.

Jane's Arrival on Queendom Website

Jane will arrive on Queendom Website on January 1, 2013. Yes, probably about 10:00 on New Year's Day, to kick off our year.

With our theme of Jane Austen Then and Now, and with my continuing idea that we use the past as jumping off points for imagination, I have constructed a most unusual way for Jane to arrive on Queendom Website. In the days between Christmas and New Year's I will write a bit about Jane's Arrival and then she will arrive, as I said, on New Year's Day.

Jane and the Holidays

In the meantime, I have Jane Austen dressed for Christmas on my website. Now please note that this is a good example our theme of Jane Austen Then and Now.

Jane Austen would not have celebrated Christmas in the fashion that we do: most of our traditions arrive at a later date, many influenced by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort.

Still, who can resist the temptation to blend the two (and why should we resist?) It made me smile when Jane was decked out for Christmas, and I hope it will make you smile too.

If you would like a copy of Jane in Christmas Finery, travel to my website, click on the photo of Jane and you will be able to download the card and print it.

It is both my welcome to The Jane Austen Stitching Society and Happy Holidays to you all!

www.GayAnnRogers.com; www.QueendomWebsite.com works as well.

Life after Mail Jail and Why it is all about Stitching

Yesterday at 3:00 in the afternoon I sealed the last package from E-Week and declared Mail Jail officially closed. E-Week 2012 is now officially over and it is time to move on. There is indeed a life after Mail Jail and today is the first day of that life.

So what am I going to do now that I am sprung from Mail Jail?

Stitch for 2 days! Yes, stitch all the way through the weekend. If I can get past guilt feelings that I still have a lot to do, I may stitch even beyond the weekend. We'll see.

I still have too much to do. All the mess that E-Week created isn't going away without my help and I can't very well decorate for the holidays until some of 'Packing Central' (which is what our living room becomes) is Packed Away.

All year I've been on a program where I watch 20 minutes of Hoarders and then I start sorting and organizing. I've never actually watched Hoarders on the television, but MacSoph streams past episodes for me. Originally I assigned myself the whole hour of Hoarders once a week; but I can't take an hour and I found that 20 minutes dose works almost as well. It does motivate me to part with belongings I would otherwise keep.

So yes,  packing away the residuals of E-Week 2012.

Midway through E-Week I ran out of Echoes of Elizabeth kits, so I began a wait list. The wait list grew too much to be feasible, so I made a new plan: to do more Echoes of Elizabeths by Feb. 1. When I started that wait list Feb. 1 seemed a long time off. Now it doesn't look so far off.  Hmmm... I'd best start work on Echoes of Elizabeth very soon.

I also have Mary Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick miniatures. I have a list for them too and those kits are due May 1. I need to start work on those lists also, although May 1 still looks a considerable distance away.

And then there's my joy for the coming year: The Jane Austen Stitching Society. A year of Jane Austen! O joy indeed!

I have a list of people who would like to be members of The Jane Austen Stitching Society and I promised them a newsletter as soon as I finished E-Week's Mail Jail, so I'd better start work on that newsletter soon too.

And this brings me full circle: The Jane Austen Stitching Society will be about Stitching Jane Austen. I'd better get busy stitching something for The Jane Austen Stitching Society to stitch, don't you think?
So guess what: I guess I can stitch all weekend long and into the next week with a clear conscience that indeed I am working.

What about the mess? The lists? The newsletter? Well, what is the most important? Stitching of course.
I think I'll put off everything else for a while longer while I enjoy the company of my needle.

The Jane Austen Stitching Society... or should it be The Jane Austen Stitching Academy?

This morning life was very exciting for me! It was the second morning of my 'Early Morning Surprise Windows', a traditional part of my big once a year E-Week Sale.

For 3 months now (since last July) I have posted a page about a 'Mystery Jane' on my website and asked my followers to guess who she is. This morning was especially exciting because I announced in my Surprise Window 8 that my Mystery Jane was indeed Jane Austen and that I wanted to spend the new year studying and stitching related to her.

Why the new year?

Because  2013 is the 200th anniversary of the first publication of Pride and Prejudice, that's why.

Our Adventure is all of 4 hours old now and already we have 75 members! If you would like to join us, please send your name and address (snail sort) plus your email to me:
GARRogers@earthlink.net

Here's what will happen in the next couple of months:
I have to finish E-Week and then tackle E-Week's Mail Jail.

As soon as I finish, I will send out a short newsletter to our members with more information about our formation. After the new year, Kate Gaunt, director of Shining Needle Society, will open a classroom for us. Membership will be free.

Our first order of the day is to decide on a name. Here are our choices:
The Jane Austen Stitching Society or
The Jane Austen Stitching Academy.

If you would like to read more about our new Adventure, please go to my website:
www.GayAnnRogers.com
click on SURPRISE Sun on the yellow navigation bar
click on Surprise Window #8 to learn more about our activities.

After October 25 the link will become:
www.GayAnnRogers.com
JANE on my yellow navigation bar.

Hope you will join us in this new Jane Austen Adventure.

Gay Ann, most excited about it all!

E-Week, My Annual Sale of Needlepoint Patterns Starts in the Morning

It is E-Week Eve, the night before my biggest sale of the year begins on my website and MacSoph (my trusty little MacBook Pro) and I are just putting the finishing touches on the Sale. If I can stay awake till midnight tonight, I will post it. If not, first thing in the morning.

MacSoph and I have been working on the sale behind the scenes for a month now and it is exciting to see the sale materialize. I've been clicking through it and checking all the bits. My sale this year is a mix of patterns from my archives and new projects I have made during the year: Samplers, Girls, Geometrics and Sewing Cases.

Just a couple of evenings ago I finished the last of the projects, the smallest one I have ever made. It took me a little over an hour to stitch; it took about 8 hours to write the instructions. Ce la vie!

Highlights this year? a large sampler fully kitted with beads and threads and congress cloth. This sampler is probably my single most frequently requested patter in the last two years and I decided this is its year.

Mary and Bess are in the sale. They are my miniatures of Mary, Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick. I decided to tae orders on them for delivery next May 1. It will give people a chance to save the money for them and me a chance to make the kits. Each of the kits takes me about 2 hours to put together, so it is nice not to have to rush.

A sewing case, the single most detailed one I've ever made. The instructions for it are 91 pages long. There's a novelty sewing box and there's the little project I just finished making. Also a novel thimble ornaments where I did a bit of engineering and am happy and proud to say it worked.

Now that the General Sale is almost finished and set to go, you'd think MacSoph and I would have some time off, but not so. We have to work on a tradition at E-Week, our Saturday and Sunday Early Morning Sales. At 8:00 California time on both Saturday and Sunday mornings, I will start opening Surprise Windows and I will open one window each 15 minutes until the morning's 8 windows are open. Yes, 16 of them in total, so MacSoph and I still have a lot of work to do.

And then following E-Week, Kate will sponsor E-Week's Annex; she offers beautifully-made kits to go with my patterns. Annex starts on October 26 and will last this year until election eve.

So the next few weeks will be very busy times on Queendom Website and its inhabitants.

Since MacSoph and I moved to our New Castle (aka our new website), I've inherited a little avatar. She's been on my website for a few months now, typing away furiously. This morning, when I checked, she wasn't there. Her handbag was, with a note that said she was tired of so much work and she'd gone stitching.

Watch for her. I have a feeling she'll turn up.

She's a lot smarter than I am, because what I'd like to do is have a week with my needle. I keep telling myself it won't be long till I can join my avatar.

Gay Ann

For quick reference: www.GayAnnRogers.com
www.QueendomWebsite.com will carry you there too.

E-Week's History

I've decided MacSoph, my trusty little MacBook Pro, is a good sport to put up with her life right now, for she seems to have very little rest. My Apple tutor Julia has always told me that computers are like people, they need 8 hours a night rest. Alas, it is likely that MacSoph will be sleep deprived for a while this month.

The good news for MacSoph and me is, we are indeed making progress mounting our big yearly needlepoint sale called E-Week and as we work away, I can't help but reflect on E-Weeks past.

E-Week began life in 2007 as 'E-Merchandise Week' (named after Merchandise Night at EGA's seminars), when I posted a small string of projects for sale on this blog.

I remember my first E-Week well. I wrote right here that along with several patterns for sale,  I planned to post a few kits left over from seminars very very early one morning and I'd leave them up for the week. It turns out that some people had stayed up all night checking this blog and the first kit lasted 53 seconds. They were gone in 10 minutes. I think we crazy stitchers just like to shop and we like a bit of excitement.

That's how Early Morning Sales were born. As I've never removed any of the posts from my blog, I suspect the notices of my first Early Morning Sales are likely still archived. As time permits I'll have to check and see.

It was less than 6 months after my first E-Week that my little laptop then called 'iSoph' crashed and we took her to the Apple Store's Genius Bar. I remember the kid behind the Genius Bar asking if I had backed up the computer; I  remember replying, 'Back up? What's that?'

I walked out that day with a new MacSoph and a receipt for One-to-One Lessons in the Apple Store and by October 2008 MacSoph and I mounted our second E-Week on our newly minted website.

Now we are working on our 6th E-Week. My original little MacSoph has retired and my present MacSoph, a much more powerful machine, has taken over. It's been an eventful 6 years and it's true that E-Week has evolved from those early days.

Now, for example,  Early Morning Surprise Windows open at a more civilized hour (8:00 a.m. California time) and in a more orderly fashion, once each 15 minutes, on Saturday and Sunday of E-Week.

Last June MacSoph and I moved from our old website to a New Castle. For practice we held a small Castlewarming Sale in August to see if we could navigate well from the New Castle. We survived, indeed we flourished and we are now quite at home in the New Castle, but we decided we needed an overflow website. We renamed our Old Castle 'Stash Castle' and we navigate back and forth now between the castles.

This very morning MacSoph and I started work on E-Week's 2012 Surprise Windows. We have Practice Windows in place on Queendom Website and soon we will have the real windows up on both  Queendom Website and on Stash Castle too. We decided to post them on Stash Castle so that we have a back up.  In case the windows won't open on Queendom Website on October 20 and 21, we can flee over to Stash Castle and open them from there.

Yes, in the last 6 years we've learned a thing or two about Back Ups.

Gay Ann

Needlepoint's Creative Process

I swear, the traffic on Saturdays is getting worse than on the weekdays.

I thought this yesterday as I was on a simple drive home and was stalled in traffic.  A trip that should have taken 20 minutes took me well over an hour, but it turns out it wasn't time ill-spent and it adds an odd but all too common small twist on Needlepoint's Creative Process.

The reason for my errand where I got caught in a traffic snare was a trip to Michael's. I had had an idea how to solve a problem for one of my E-Week offerings and I went to Michael's looking for a ring or a belt buckle or something that would act like a hanger. I wanted a simple way to hang a long length of ribbon on a wall, something like a bell-pull hanger.

E-Week, my big big sale of the year, starts on October 17,  just a little over a month away and given where I am in the process (not far enough along), it is nearing time for a bit of panic.

At Michael's I surfed through the store and gathered up a small cache of paraphernalia that I thought might work for my chore: some silver rings that looked like wedding rings, a small square plaque with my initial 'G' (I usually prefer an 'R' but they were out of 'R's), some slightly larger decorative rings and a  couple of extra lengths of ribbon. I paid for my small cache and headed home.

That's when I got caught in the  traffic snare. So there I sat, creep, crawl, creep, stall, creep crawl, creep stall, with nothing to do other than watch the road ahead and either panic about wasting-time-in-traffic-which-I-can-ill-afford-because-I-have-way-too-much-to-do or reflecting on what I'd just bought. More productive to think of what I'd just bought.

 My mind drifted over my small cache and I tried to figure out how I might put it together . I was thinking up all the alternative mixes, as in 'I could use this with that, I could attach it in this or that way' and so forth. This went on for at least a dozen cycles of trying to get through the stoplight at the bottom of the hill.

And then it came to me, a great idea how to do just what I wanted. I mentally clicked my heels together and thought, yessss!!

Of course, my idea involved none of what I'd just bought.

But this I have learned: if I hadn't bought my cache, likely I wouldn't have thought up my idea. Maybe if I hadn't been caught in traffic on the way home from buying that which I will now likely never use, I never would have thought up my idea.

So one of my important remaining tasks for E-Week got solved by buying a bag full of odds and ends that I will likely never use and getting caught in traffic long enough to figure out that I would never use what I just bought.

Go figure. But that's the way it often works.

Castlewarming Party and Needlepoint Sale on Queendom Website

It is the happiest feeling! I feel like MacSoph and I have truly settled Queendom Website in our new home. We just finished putting up our first sale from Muse and it is working grandly!

We made this sale to test whether we could work Muse well enough that we could do our big fall sale, E-Week, from it. In many ways E-Week is my Ring of Fire in that it is large and sometimes difficult and I need to be at my best for it, and so does MacSoph.

Tomorrow morning (that is, Saturday morning August 4) is our big test, for at 8:00 a.m. sharp California time we begin opening 5 Surprise Windows.

Surprise Windows and Early Morning Sales are an on-going tradition at E-Week. There for two mornings I open a series of 8 windows with surprises behind them. To manage them, MacSoph and I need to be our very most nimble selves.

If indeed we succeed in opening them, then we will congratulate ourselves, spend the following two days celebrating, and on Monday morning start preparing for E-Week. We will know then that we can do it all.

If you would like to take part, go to Queendom Website right before 8:00 a.m. California time on August 4: www.GayAnnRogers.com/index.html

So what's worth coming for? A sweet little freebie that is a small thank you for putting up with our transition in the last year, and a glance toward E-Week, now just about 2+ months away. E-Week starts this year on October 17.

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It has been a little over a year since I found out that Apple is discontinuing iWeb as I knew it; just about a year since I learned that Adobe had planned Muse. It has been a year of learning and moving.  I've learned about C-Panels and FTP stuff, and other stuff I'd never thought an aging lady could learn, but here we are, with all our ducks in a row, at least until tomorrow morning.

If indeed our Surprise Windows open successfully, you will hear MacSoph and me shouting in joy across the country, and then the celebration! An afternoon and evening of stitching, nothing but stitching! I plan on stitching and chatting and partying in my general classroom at Shining Needle Society.

If you would like to join our party, join Shining Needle Society and ask to be in my general classroom there. To join, write to Kate Gaunt who is director: KateGaunt@aol.com. Membership is free and we plan to revel into the night!!

Wish me luck for tomorrow morning and come party with us tomorrow afternoon and evening.

Gay Ann and MacSoph

A Dress Rehearsal Sale of my Needlepoint Patterns

MacSoph and I are finally (FINALLY!) settled into Queendom Website's New Castle and we are happy there. A bit wobbly but basically happy, with the distinct feeling that we will grow more competent with experience.

It is with experience in mind that we are having a small sale on Friday, August 3 and Saturday, August 4. We decided we need to try a small sale before we are centered in the ring of fire that my big autumn sale called 'E-Week' can become.

So on Friday morning, August 3, early as can be, we will post a small selection of patterns for sale in hopes that someone will want one or two and click on the buttons to see indeed if she can navigate through the sale items and if our PayPal buttons and email buttons work well.

This Dress Rehearsal is also our chance to try out Surprise Windows of the sorts we have on Saturday and Sunday mornings at E-Week. There will be four windows for Saturday morning, August 4 at 8:00 a.m. sharp, California time, and MacSoph has already got quivering keys over the idea of how speedy we must be to connect everything in a short time.

We will see how we do, MacSoph and I, and if we do OK, we will head into the E-Week Season with much more confidence.

Right now, on Queendom Website's Home Page are four 'Practice Surprise Windows'. If you travel to Queendom Website's Home Page and practice, you will find they take you to faraway places, each window.

People have been emailing me to ask, what am I selling? Well, it's a secret! It will be here soon enough.

Meanwhile, all next week, if you click on the Practice Surprise Windows you will find tiny hints behind each.

If you do travel to click on the Practice Surprise Windows, will you let me know if you find any irregularities? Write to me: GARRogers@earthlink.net. This time it is all about MacSoph's and my practicing our skills so that we are indeed swift of key come E-Week in mid-October.

Gay Ann

Summer Needlepoint Loafing

Every morning first thing in the morning I think to myself, OK, today diligence will reign and before I fall asleep tonight I will have made significant inroads into my too-long To-Do list.

Such was my resolve yesterday morning. I'd had a nice holiday on Wednesday and my plans were to conquer The To-Do List on Thursday.

In reality what happened doesn't set a good example.

On Queendom Website I have a new mystery. It's 'Jane'. I've asked my followers to guess who Jane might be and a number have written guesses; one suggested to me that the Guesses might in fact be a Wish List. Interesting notion. Has anybody guessed the identity of 'Jane'? Maybe. That's all I'll commit to right now.

My friend Natalie came up with the idea of 'Jane' and it is all I can do to keep from working on Jane. Yesterday I succumbed. I spent the entire day working on my Jane plans. By early evening DH put in his two cents and I went back to the drawing tablets. I sketched my way into the wee hours last night, with all the mess of linen, threads, pencils, sketches, books, xeroxes, cards etc. surrounding me.

That's the trouble with my job: the most engaging captivating part of my job is the invention. The imaginings, the puzzles, the what-might-be's, the dreams, and right now I am in High Dream mode.

Meanwhile the 'To-Do' list grows longer. Queendom Website still needs a lot of attention, Stash Castle (my old website) is in disarray and badly in need of decoration and organization, E-Week is only 3 months away, I have a stack of instructions to write, and then there's my New Year's Resolution of cleaning up my hoarders mess. Not to mention my Elizabeth class at Shining Needle Society and my General Classroom there too. And I can't forget the daily slog of homework from my Apple University lessons. See, it goes on and on and on.

So this morning I am filled with remorse that I loafed away an entire day immersed in Jane Dreams.

Really? Well, most of me feels remorse; a part of me enjoyed myself hugely.

Last night I tucked Jane and all her trappings away in a box and put her out of sight, so that I would tackle Work instead of Temptation today.

Sigh, it was a lovely day.

Gay Ann

Queendom Website and Stash Castle

Slowly MacSoph and I are settling. We returned to our old site yesterday and redid much of it. MacSoph and I had the idea of turning it into Stash Castle, thereby moving all our stash (such as eBay auction recommendations and auction results there.

Of course, soon as we had a part of the work completed, we went shopping and found a few goodies worth writing about. Couple of very nice thimbles, and a few thimbles for fledgling thimble collectors too. We still have to do cameos.

After posting the thimbles and a needle case, we went back to work and established a quick way to travel between the two sites. I posted buttons on Queendom Website for a quick trip to Stash Castle, then just close Stash Castle and you are back on Queendom Website.

It will eventually all come together, in fact I don't think it will be long now.

Soon as we are even 80% settled MacSoph and I are planning to have a housewarming party with a couple of surprises.

Soon, very soon.

Gay Ann much relieved that this stressful year of shopping for a new Castle, moving and settling in is almost behind us. Long may Adobe be happy with Muse!

Wonderful Whitework Embroidery!

I can't help it, I just love beautiful examples of whitework embroidery! I love the fineness of the tiny stitches and the beautiful motifs, and lately one such example fell into my lap.

I have been collecting bits and pieces of lace and whitework for a new mystery, and as a part of these pieces, I bought a large but somewhat tattered handkerchief. The handkerchief is large and plain except for an embroidered motif in each corner and truth to tell, I was somewhat disappointed because the shapes of the motifs weren't what I had hoped for.

Disappointed until I checked the quality of the embroidery when disappointment turned to excitement. For the motifs are among the best quality whitework I've seen in a long time.

This morning I posted two photos (one a closeup) of one of the corners, a sprig of pansies in pulled thread and with padded satin leaves, on my website.

I hope you will travel there and see if you don't think the pansies are worth the trip.

For quick reference: www.GayAnnRogers.com/index.html
When you arrive, click on 'Collections' on the yellow navigation bar.
And be sure to scroll down on the page to see the closeup.

Nice, very nice treat, on an early Sunday morning in July.

Gay Ann

Welcome to Queendom Website's New Castle

Here's a new URL that will take you directly to the New Castle:

www.GayAnnRogers.com/index.html

www.GayAnnRogers.com  will also work.
If you type the URL and your computer adds '/site_2.html' you need to eliminate this.


You can also visit the Old Castle by going to www.GayAnnRogersAnnex.com

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MacSoph and I have a TON of work to do still and you could help me greatly.
If you visit Queendom Website, will you click through the pages and let me know if you encounter any irregularities? And I will welcome any suggestions.

The New Castle is a work in progress and I am learning as I go.

Well, it has been a long 10 months, and it has certainly had its ups and downs, but we're here.
Whew!!!

Gay Ann

Update on My Move

For the time being my website is down and it looks like it won't be up and running for some days.
Sometimes things just don't work out as one plans.

Gay Ann

Update: Moving Day for My Website

I just heard that you cannot now access my website at all, neither the old one nor the new one.

I thought I would post my progress here, that we have moved my domain name but it isn't yet pointing to my new site. This may take a few hours; it can also take 2 days.

I am going back to Apple for more help this afternoon and will report in this evening.

Gay Ann

Queendom Website will Move on Tuesday, June 18, 2012

Moving day is almost here: MacSoph and I plan to move Queendom Website on Tuesday, June 18, 2012.

That's our pan, but you know how the best laid plans go.

If indeed we succeed in moving on Tuesday, Queendom Website's URL will change slightly and this will influence people who have bookmarked the site.

Whatever happens on Tuesday, I will immediately post news here, on my blog, including an updated URL.

Will you keep your fingers crossed for us that all goes well? Whew, I don't know about all this technology at times, but we'll hope for the best.

Gay Ann

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