Stitching and Family Update

Hello, here I am! I know it has been about three months since my last post, but I promise you - I am alive and well.... Busy, tired, often sleep-free, but basically well....
So, what have I been up to these past three months? Let me see.... Mostly stitching! Here are the new things I have stitched - for myself and for my shop...

Looks a bit like mismatched puzzle pieces, doesn't it? That's what my head feels like, too. After several months of order stitching my dreams got filled with cross stitch; my nightmares consist of broken needles and ripped threads; every time I look at anything, I automatically see it as a chart.... 

I had to do something, and I did. I took a couple days off, and I stitched a small piece from Little House Needleworks - her free Christmas pattern. Just what I needed! 

Here it is...

Originally it had more hearts, and the saying said "Happy Hearts", but hearts is not usually my favorite motif, so I changed it a bit... Stitching it felt like drinking hot cocoa - warming, sweet and relaxing. I will make it into an ornament, and next year it will be on our tree.

My Hogwarts Crest and my Mansion  are still in the WIPs pile, to my shame... I will have to leave them for the next "mini-vacation." When is the next.. International Hermit Stitching Day? 

Now, about my family. I am a very proud mother this year, because my daughters - both of them - received medals "For Academic Excellence" at their school... Ironically enough, the day after the ceremony my youngest daughter brought home a note stating that, because she forgot to turn in her homework, her "academic performance may suffer." I thought I'd let this one slide - so she won't be the best of the best, but only the best by a little bit, so what? We can live with that. ))) 

Academic Excellence and Attitude in one great package

Also, this year my youngest daughter turned ten... She wanted to decorate the cake herself, and this is the result. 

Mixture of Picasso's technique with Van Gough's Starry Night.

   All in all, I wish I could spend more time with my daughters. Last year, when we moved to this new bigger house, they convinced me that changing schools would be "very sad and traumatic" - all their friends were at the old one, all their favorite teachers were there. So, I agreed to let them stay for one year - next year Rita is going to Junior High anyway, and Vera can go to the new school as well. Now, with a little over three months of school left, I count the days until I can switch them to something closer. Why? 

   First of all - mornings: they have to get up earlier to get there on time, and often that is... a problem. Did any of you, my friends, tried to get a pre-teen girl out of bed in the morning? Let me tell you - it's not easy... 

   Second - after school time: before we moved, after school my girls went straight home (where else?); now, because we live farther away, they go to their grandmother's - she still lives nearby. Then she drops them off to me in the late afternoon... So, even though I do not work as much as I used to, it still feels a lot like work schedule: not enough time with my kids. It feels even weirder, though, because in the afternoons I am alone in the big house, - the big house that was supposed to be for them.... Yet, they are someplace else. 

   Maybe it's me: my daughters are getting older, they don't "need" me as much, and I am getting older too... I feel less useful sometimes - here I am, out of work, alone at home while everyone else is doing something - working, going to school... But what about me, what am I doing?

   Stitching, that's what! I stitch. I should probably cross stitch the banner for myself - "I STITCH". This is all mine, it is the job I chose and created for myself, nobody can take it away, no one can fire me or lay me off from it. It gives me strength to know that I am working towards something long-term and very real - towards creating my own job, my own business, something that will stay past my "hiring age." 

Happy stitching, my friends! 

First biscornu I ever made - "Snow Queen."
Original design by Lubov Kolpakova

A Bumble Bee Biscornu

Tomorrow night, at our weekly gathering with friends, I shall drink a toast to my first repeat customer. Repeat customers, as I found out in the past two days, not only give us pride and satisfaction, but can also spark our creativity. What starts as a simple transaction, ends as something much more.
In my case, a satisfied customer came back and asked for a biscornu with bumble bees - or dragonflies. Now, my first reaction was to start digging through a stash of patterns - for sure I could find something - but then, I thought: why not make my own chart? And so I did.
Here is the result.

Bumble Bee Biscornu
Materials: 16 Ct white Aida, DMC floss, buttons
Finished size: 2.5 in x 2.5 in

The border was "borrowed" from the Ladybug pattern, as I wanted it to be in the same style. But the bumble bees are all mine. As I was working on them, I had a children's song going through my head:

I'm catching up my baby bumble bee

Won't my mommy be so proud of me!

I'm squishing up my baby bumble bee,

Won't my mommy be so proud of me!

My daughter used to sing it when she was three. At the end, if I remember correctly, the bumble bee flies away. I was humming the song while stitching the stripes and the wings. I was thinking of how a five-year-old would see a bumble bee. In the end, I had a terrific mini-biscornu and a pattern. The biscornu went to the wonderful client.

The pattern I want to share with you. 

Over the past couple of years, I have used numerous patterns offered for free on stitching blogs. I figured it was my time to give back and contribute to the list of "free pattern" blogs.
I tried my best to make sure it is accessible, but please let me know if there are any problems with download... and let me know what you think!
Enjoy! 

Blankets and Biscornus

Happy Sunday to all! And not just a Sunday - a Hermit Stitching Sunday Weekend, as I found out from Chris't post. Makes me think of hot tea and sweet pastries... and stitching, of course!

As for stitching - I have been doing a lot of it lately, and even selling some, thanks to online auctions. Here's the new biscornu I stitched just the other day.

Starting a business (if what I am doing can even be called that) proves interesting, but very different from what they show in movies or even teach in business classes. When they talk of "business" in class, I imagine an office with computers, printers, and office workers. Business plans, advertisements, lawyers...

I think, though, this idea is based on the experience of an employee, someone who comes to work at already established place. Any new business starts with you knowing how to make something. Then, after making it for a while, you say, "I can make it really well! I wonder if I can do it for ____ (insert anything of value, essentially - not for free)". Then you try to find some people that might buy the thing you make- through social outlets, web sites, acquaintances, friends, family... anyone and anything that is available.

Advertisement campaign is just a fancy name for a person going from one place to another - be it physical or virtual - asking: "Want to buy what I made?" So, that's what I do now. Thanks to Internet, I don't actually have to go door to door, but just post my pictures online, and thanks to online auctions, occasionally I make a little money. Is that how other business people start? I think so, although I do not have any definite proof. Well, maybe I do - there's a story I heard on the radio about a man who had to borrow $25 a week from his secretary and who was always broke - until his idea became famous and popular. Once it did, he made his dreams come true and married that secretary, and they lived happily ever after. His name was Walt Disney.

One day my dreams will come true. In a way, they already are - I am making something real, something that will leave a memory of me. That brings comfort to my heart.

Speaking of comfort.... 

Nothing brings comfort like a crochet blanket.