Closed Patternmart store -

I finally closed my store at Patternmart. Today I updated all the pages here on the blog and at my website, http://creativestitchery.tripod.com/index.html . I'm embarrassed to say I found SOOOOOOOO many goofs there. Not just spelling, which is bad enough, but tons of link problems with all the old free patterns.Went over every page and think I found all the problems, at least I hope I did. :)

You can still buy my patterns at Etsy and some are at Dollmakers Journey. As always I can list them at ebay if that's where you prefer to shop.

I'm off to renew my domain name before it expires. I seem to be VERY behind on everything. It expires tomorrow. At least the taxes are done and got the refund.

Update on next pincushion pattern. The directions are almost done. If it wasn't for all this updating (Which it turned out needed to be done badly) it would be ready for sale.

I know I'm spending WAY too much time on my TAST results. It's keeping me from all the sewing I should be doing. At least I stopped playing games. I wasn't getting anything done when I was addicted to them.

TAST week 7, at least one of them

Here's what I did for week 7. On the quilt top I did the week's lazy daisy stitch. The sample shows the other stitch given, the barred chain stitch. I used it on the blue/green quilt but haven't taken the pic yet because I'm doing week 8 on it. I keep all the excess quilt rolled and tucked with safty pins so it's out of the road as I embroider. 

This is what I'm doing instead of what I should be doing, DESIGNING new patterns.  I am finally finishing the directions for a rabbit pincushion I actually made last fall. It would have been done but I got side tracked by another pattern idea. It's done but needs the directions written. Since it's a winter pattern there's no hurry.

BTW, I"m leaving Patternmart. I just don't sell enough there to cover the monthly rent. I'll be removing links by the weekend. You can still get my pattern at etsy. I should list them at ebay but they make selling PDFs harder. Dollmakers Journey carries most of my patterns as printed and PDFs.

I've had customers ask if I'm going to design some new tatting patterns. If you've been to my etsy store you know I don't even sell much for tatting any more. I've just lost interest. Embroidery has captured my mind right now so I don't know when or if I'll ever design for tatting again. I do have some simple patterns for jewelry I had planned on selling for a few dollars. Maybe I'll hunt for them and get them up sometime this year.

Still behind but here's week 6 for TAST

I hate that I have SOOOOOOOO much trouble making up my mind when it comes to deciding what to embroidery using the week's stitches. This week was herringbone and raised closed herringbone (which makes the padded leaf shape). For this quilt I did part of the heart with herringbone stitch. Below is the result of the raised close herringbone. I'm not done with that embroidery. I want to add more flowers and leaves to it.

This is my other crazy quilt I'm adding embroidery to. I used the herringbone stitch for the net over the fish and for some of the plant leaves.

This pic shows the leaves better.

I may end up combining a few weeks just to catch up. I need to do weeks 7 & 8. Tomorrow will be week 9, though here on the east coast of the US it shows up on Monday afternoon thanks to the time difference.

I may never have added embroidery to these 2 quilt tops if it wasn't for TAST. It may take a few years to fill in all the spaces and then do the seams but at least it's better than leaving them in the bottom of my large embroidery basket.

March with an Irish twist

I wanted to do something a bit Irish for the month so here's a simple mandala with an Irish twist.