April 2008 Newsletter

SPRING FINALLY….YEAH!!! We are busy busy busy!!! Everyone is busily stitching and finishing things and bringing them in for framing or for Wendy to pillow up. A little touch of cold this week and then it's supposed to warm up again. We hope the weathermen are right on that one! Pat is feeling better and stitching again trying to catch up on everything she is behind in. Rumblings of a repeat of the unfinished wall are in the works but Pat says that Diana has to have her day first!!! Diana is still not convinced that she could do justice to the first appearance of the wall!

Shop News: Shepherd's Bush Bush has several new kits for Mother "For Mom's Garden" and "Dear Mother". "Dear Mother" is on 10 ct fabric and quick and simple for your mother's special day. Blackbird Designs Birds of a Feather Club continues with the second in the series. We hope to have the 3rd chart in stock in the next week or so. Cedar Hill has contiued their bouquet series with June and July. Crescent Colours and Country Cottage Needleworks continue with the Sweet Treats series. If you haven't seen this one it is really cute, easily done as individual pieces or all together with the pretty flower border. Nancy Buehl of From Nancy's Needle continues with great new canvas pieces. She has started a line of smaller designs fitting 10" canvas or even 8x12. The "2 Cabins" is done and framed in the shop while Diana is working on the latest one "Two Cottages". Both are simple and easy to stitch and turn out really beautiful. Pine Mountain Designs Top tie series continues with April and May. These are not as month specific as some of her other pillows and designs so are more flexible for using at other months. The internet needlework market has just concluded and we have several different designs in from designers that we don't usually see throughout the year such as My Mark, Keslyn's, Cross-Stitch-Art and several others. Stop in and see what they have to offer! SamSarah Design Studio continue with their monthly "Baubles", June is strawberries and just too cute…July is on order and is 9 pairs of flip-flops. Drawn Thread has 3 new designs on order: "Toccatta Four", "Flower Boxes" and "Sampler of Stitches-VWX". They should be in the shop in the next week. Lizzie Kate has several new designs along with completing the Flip-its for the year. "USA Squared" and "Housework Never Killed", both of these are fast and easy and we all feel the same about housework that this last one is about! Jeannette Douglas Designs has added an accessory pattern to her "My Stitching Treasures". This was a gorgeous box style piece to start with and now with the accessories is complete and must have for those that love the sewing accessory side of designs. Of course Pat has already requested the pattern. CM Designs continues with their cute chubby snowball monthly snowmen. Bent Creek continues with their Big Zipper kit…only 2 more to come out. Diana has been keeping up with these releases and it is hanging on the wall waiting for the next in the series. Also they have a new row! We haven't seen one in a while and this one is an all season one called "Seasons of Change". Poppy Kreations has a new design called "Blessings to All", Diana really likes this one with it's soft appearance and wonderful house! Other designs and designers abound in the shop so be sure to come and take a look.
So many things to stitch and so little time!

Postage Rate Increasing: Postal rates are increasing this year again. We will continue to attempt to find the cheapest method of shipping for our customers but wanted you to be aware of the effect of the increases. We continue to ask for email address update information to help decrease the cost of mailing newsletters out.

24th National Counted Cross Stitch Show: This is the show that is held at Rockome Gardens in Arcola, IL. After a couple of years of uncertainty and problems the show came back in 2007. It will continue this year June 6-15. This show as always well received by stitchers and designers. They have a display/contest area with many stitchers submitting their stitching in various areas. Also several designers and shops are there for your shopping pleasure. Rockome Gardens themselves are beautiful and well worth a look around. There are classes on offer for a reasonable price. To visit the website for Rockome click
here.
It is well worth a day trip or weekend excursion to view the beautiful entries and meet the designers. Hours of operation are 10-5

Holiday Closings: May 26th for Memorial Day July 3rd & 4th for the Holiday

We have recently received some disturbing information. DMC corporation has been having financial difficulties for the past year and just this week has approached the French Courts for either bankruptcy or a reorganiztion plan. French bankruptcy laws are much stricter than in the USA and we are uncertain how this will affect the supply of DMC. We are hoping that it will only mean a distruption for a period of time in the production and shipping of the floss lines and not a total discontinuation. At this point no one knows for sure but we will attempt to keep you posted. We did order extra floss right after we heard in case we have problems refilling the drawers in future orders so should be okay for a while to still fulfill your DMC needs. We continue to carry Anchor floss and have conversion charts to move to that line. This will also affect hand-dyed companies as DMC is used as a base for their fibers. DMC has been in business for 226 years making floss so we hope that this is a temporary issue and that the future will see a return on the DMC lines. Since the printing of the snailmail newsletter we have learned that at this time the fiber line has not been affected by this problem. The issue is limited to a chain of specialty stores in France and an apparel and fabric line that DMC also has. We will continue to keep in touch with more updates.

 

With a Love for Stitching
Pat and Diana

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