Topic: Bits and Pieces
Time passes quickly when you are having fun. Or when you are attending craft shows. Which, by the way, also was a lot of fun. Nashville was wonderful, we saw so many beautiful models, met wonderful people, enjoyed our hotelroom where you can have pizza delivered, even put in an occassional stitch and savored our freshly baked waffle in the morning. Too bad the coffee wasn't really up to our standards. But after one week of Starbucks coffee I doubt anything would have been up to that standard. Below are some pictures we took in Nashville. As some of you already know, it's not allowed to take pictures in the rooms of the designers, unless they give you permission (which we got from Weeks Dye Works). And to be honest, we forgot to make more pics. I am sure more designers would let us take pics if we'd only asked.
After Nashville we got everything together for our Nashville night. We had a lot of fun going over all the new leaflets, new accessoiries, threads and gadgets. One of our treasure finds in Nashville were the Hob Nob designs. These are little designs (50 x 50 or smaller) that are packaged in a 2,5 x 2,5cm see through box and the design comes with the cutest little button. This line of designs is called doodles and it means that you can use whatever thread you have left over. They don't give DMC numbers, just colors and the designs work up wonderfully. I don't have any pics at the moment, but we'll try to get some up. Since the little boxes are only ? 4,50, they make great gifts as well.
On Saturday we had almost everything in the car for the Sampler Day at the Frisian Museum in Leeuwarden. We were situated right by the entrance and boy was it busy that day! I don't think we have seen that many customers in one day before. And here people are telling that cross stitching is a diminishing hobby/art. Well, not according to all the ladies and gentlemen in Leeuwarden.
Sunday I spent most of the day trying to re-order everything we sold out of the day before so that we would have enough for the Handwerkbeurs in Zwolle. And thanks to some wonderful suppliers we managed to do that.
Then last week we were in Zwolle at the Handwerkbeurs. Thursday was spent setting up the stand. My parents do such an amazing job with that. As I had to work in the morning, they set up the stand all by themselves. Pics of how the stand looked are below. Once the stand is set up, we can start decorating, i.e. putting out all the boxes with the leaflets, arrange all the fabrics on the side table, put up the models etc.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday we met an incredible stream of customers, both well-known and new ones. I think that that is what I so much enjoy about these shows, the chance to meet customers. Saturday evening we were invited for diner by a special customer and we had a great evening. Sunday was still very well attended and at 5pm we could break down the stand and pack everything up. Fortunately the weather wasn't too bad driving back.
This coming weekend, the shop is open on Friday and Saturday and next week we will be in Rijswijk at the Patchwork & Quiltdays. It is always exciting to go to a new show. This time we will have a ready made stand so right now we are working on how to put up the models (you are not allowed to put nails in the walls LOL). We think we have the solution, now we just need to buy it. I will make some pics of the stand in Rijswijk as well.
Edited to add two pics of the Rijswijk stand.
Stitching wise I haven't done a lot these days. I am working on a Show Special that we started in Zwolle. It is a design by Hands to Work and we are offering it with either antique white or ecru 13 dr/cm Belfast linen and a skein of Gloriana silks of your choice for 10 euros. I need to stitch the hand, bunny and peacock on the top part and the alphabet below the saying. It is a very nice project, not overly difficult, but the handdyed thread make it so beautiful.
I put in a few stitches in my Pat Thode Santa. I don’t think I shared this before, it is a new canvas that I started in the US. While in the US my friend showed me drawings of the new ornaments and the new 2006 canvas and oh my gosh, they are beautiful. I think that they will be released around April and I can’t wait. I picked up another Pat Thode santa and plan to keep stitch at least 2 or 3 each year. Of course I need to go back to my larger canvas as well.
Well, this is a rather long update, but it was kinda overdue. With all the activities that are around the corner, my updates no doubt will be less frequent than before. I do hope to get at least one update per week done.
And to close off with a stitching picture, this is one of the newer models in the shop thanks to one of our customers. It is Birdhouse Row from Imaginating done on 36 ct. Edinburgh with Gloriana Bluegrass.
