Happy Thanksgiving Canadians!

There is a lot of weird nonsense going on in the world right now, but there is also plenty to be thankful for. Monday is Thanksgiving Day for our Canadian friends, of which I am happy to have many. I was pleased to be asked by Thread & Eye in London, Ontario (the same shop that let me pilot the Roll Your Own Mandalas) to extend my Reflections series to include Canada. Challenge accepted.

Reflections of Canada 

Canada has no shortage of cool cultural icons, and I tried to balance some from both from modern society and the native peoples. Throw in a few common non-human residents and add a generous sprinkling of the traditional maple leaves and... Voila! Reflections of Canada.

Ingredients: Hockey sticks, teepees, Inukshuk, beavers, pine trees, Parliament building, geese, moose, totem pole, RCMP, the CN tower, dogwood flower, and maple leaves.

This chart is currently available exclusively through Thread & Eye. Neale and Kathy are happy to do mail order.  It's shown stitched in Dinky Dyes Warratah silk on 32 count Vintage Smokey White linen by Zweigart, but it will obviously adapt to just about any color scheme.

Freshly Harvested

Ask your favorite LNS or ONS for these fresh picks from Ink Circles

This fall was the first in many years when the TNNA (national trade organization for needlework) didn't organize a fall needlework market for wholesale buyers. To fill the gap, two different efforts created new shows using new concepts as a way to bring a surge of fresh designs for the fall.

Norden Crafts generated quite a buzz last month with their show and over 120 new designs from your favorite designers, everything ordered through and shipping from Norden. This month, the gals from Shepherd's Bush coordinated an online show where contributing designers made little mini-shows on their own websites and handled orders directly.

It may have been a bit tough for individual stitchers to sort their ways through these new formats, but recognize the result being HUNDREDS of new designs being made available in the cross stitch market within the last month. With that, I salute the efforts made for both shows and proudly present to you the six new designs released by Ink Circles, including Second Spring in collaboration with Hands On Design. Contact your favorite shop to order any of these charts. I do have an online web shop, but I don't add new releases for a few months in an effort to give shops first crack at sales.

Love and Let Love

Here is a special mandala for you. Some of you...if you're not into this sort of thing (tolerance) please just scroll along to the next blog/post - no comment is necessary. If you'd actually like the pattern to stitch this gratuitous profusion of rainbows, hearts and little ♀♂ in various combinations see below.  

Relentless

Uses 10 skeins of DMC (3 of which are black); 115 inches square; suitable for aida, beads, etc.

Colors called for, but you can pick your own rainbow.

READ ALL THESE WORDS BEFORE YOU BUY: A pattern for this cross stitch design is being offered in pdf format, rather than the usual norm for me which is printed only. Also unusual, is that I am not specifying a price; you put in a number that is right for you, like a tip jar. I'll be donating the funds from this one to an appropriate local org. This is NOT an automatic download - you have to wait for me to email you the file, which I will make every effort to promptly do. I will send it to the email PayPal tells me, unless you say differently. I will not be doing anything ever with the email you use other than sending you the file. The file you receive is copyrighted and is NOT to be posted on any web site or forum, disassembled, scanned, etc. If your friend wants a copy, please send them the link instead and encourage them to chip in a buck or two.

If you run a shop and are interested in printed copies of this, send me an email and I'll be happy to set you up.

Neglect

I've apparently not posted since January? That's a bit embarrassing, and not for want of content. Some mandalas to stitch... here are the monochromes.

A Holly Jolly Mandala

A Spirited Mandala

Wings and Things

Valentina

TNNA Phoenix

Two new Ink Circles charts debuted in January at the TNNA Phoenix tradeshow last weekend. Shops that attended were able to pick up or order these through Wichelt. They are going this week to shops on automatics from me, and they'll be with all the distributors within a few weeks (i.e. available everywhere by then.)

The first is a set of sewing implements that fit inside this little tray. When I first saw the tray, my first thought was of an antique bed. So naturally, it needed an antique bed covering. The set grew as I thought of more things that could fit into the bed.

The set is called "Cover Story"

The set includes a scissor keeper, pinkeep, needlebook, the coverlet, and some throw pillows.  The chart pack includes all of the finishing instructions for each item. I chose Red, white, and blue silks from Treenway. The fabric color is important to be darker than the white, but not much. Heroic by Picture This Plus worked out perfectly. Below is an example of the overshot woven coverlets that inspired these designs.

Read more about coverlets here

The second new piece is a followup to the popular Reflections of Paris and Turrets and Town pieces. This time we visit London. If you look you can see most of the popular landmarks with everything from police boxes and double decker buses to Underground signs sprinkled in.

Reflections of London

I find this style of design fun to draw as well as enjoyable to stitch. Given the encouragement and the popularity, I'm planning more. It's only a question of which city/country/area to do next.

Rainier

New RYO colorway called Rainier: 311/322/828, 961/962/963, 3844/3846/3811, 501/3052/524. These are the 2014 mandalas:

Open letter to Amanda

Hello Amanda,

   I'm not sure what your financial and moral situations are that led up to you joining the Chinese pattern sharing forum. I don't have any vendetta against you in particular, you just happened to be more obvious than most of the thieves so it was easy to single you out for example.

   It always leaves me with a knot of anger in my stomach when I see my charts posted up on the sites for the downloading.  Seriously, how would you like to see something that you've spent hours developing as a saleable product being passed out for free. Actually it's worse than just giving them away for free. To download them, I know that you have to further propagate the piracy by uploading different charts to the forum. I wonder who you sold out to download my pattern.

   My daughter's college doesn't take "gold coins" for her tuition. The grocery store doesn't accept them either, nor the vet, nor the power company. Perhaps you think we designers are swimming in dough from all the legal sales and don't really miss the gravy. If you were to look at how many of my charts were posted in that forum, and calculate how many downloads each, and how much lost sales, you might be surprised at how high the figure was. Perhaps you don't realize what a small percentage of the retail price from a legal sale ends up in an account from which I can pay for those groceries.

   From your Facebook pictures, I can see you have a young son. Are these the lessons you are teaching him? He'll grow up to be a real gem, I'm sure.

   I particularly like the way you waved your arms around and Facebook deleted everything from my timeline, including my own photos. It's as if NOTHING happened there. I called you out as a thief, with the hard evidence to back that, yet somehow I was the bully. But not before 4,000+ people saw what you did. 

   There's not much I can do to stop the root problem. Those foreign sites don't comply with legal requests and takedown notices. You've changed your screen name, as if that will protect you or somehow hide you from view. Lawyers to chase infringers and shut down sites don't work within the salary limits I have, and further dealings with you will only depress me.

   Besides there is a different morally decrepit soul over on Google docs that I'm turning my energies toward today.  She somehow thinks that if she recharts my patterns into the cross stitch program herself, that she can copyright the output. And as I speak, a friend just sent an email pointing out that some bitch on Pinterest is sharing scanned images.  Ah what a respected and rewarding career.

May karma bite you on the ass,

Tracy