#Winning

I'm wrapping up things from the Online Needlework Show that finished last week. Stitchers and shops visiting the show pages seemed to be fewer in number each successive show, but overall things went well. Lots of charts headed to shops and distributors and directly to a handful of lucky winners. I recognize a certain reality of cross stitch being less prevalent among crafts than in past decades, but vow to continue to do my part in offering up a unique slice.

Congratulations to these folks who won a prize in a "Share the Love" drawing. Rather than just reward the entrant, I asked stitchers to give me a name of someone they thought deserved a prize.  It was very fun to see stitchers unknowingly nominate each other or more complicated  pointing loops.  I also had a number of folks include a statement as to why the nominee should be rewarded.  These comments ranged from the person being their inspiration, their stitching buddy, the person they are trying to inculcate (don't you love that word!) to more curious tales...because he just passed a mondo kidney stone, she just lost her job, she's on bedrest for a month, two kids in college. Happy stories, sad stories. I wish I could give them all a prize, but that would sadly defeat the economic attempts to run a viable business.

Here are the ten that did get the goods.

• Kim Berger and her friend Kathy Coleman
• Gillian Murray and her friend Cheryl Isaak
• Debbie Wolfe and her friend Paula Shelgren
• Melissa Frazell and her sister Lindsay Kudera
• Christine Forber and her sister Beth Charette

Meanwhile, I'm not one for living in the past. Always - on to the NEXT chart.  I'm working on this new piece. I'm stitching the 6th turtle in a stack of infinitely many. Fortunately they get smaller as they go down.  If you don't know the reference, you can peek at wikipedia at "turtles all the way down"

Turtles all the way down