Let's Get Stitching'!
Hey, all you stitchers! Thanks so much for your interest in the Margaret Doyle stitch-along. I want to run through a few guidelines and then discuss how the stitch-along will work.
Keep things friendly and supportive: Everyone has the opportunity to not only post replies to my blog post, but everyone can also comment on comments and post pictures. Let's encourage all stitchers, of all skill levels, to enjoy the project, ask questions, post comments, and share tips and tricks. Bad-mouthing anybody, including designers and businesses, is not allowed.
Stay on topic: Anyone who has questions or comments for me specifically (like about current orders, invoices, tracking information) should e-mail me at xspeddler@yahoo.com. Here on the blog, it's super great to talk about your other projects, stitchy distractions, and the like, but talk about too much that's off-topic can derail the purpose of the stitch-along and make it difficult for people to follow discussions.
Be proud of your progress! You never need to apologize for slow progress (or frogging!) or for not keeping up with others. Every stitcher has a life outside of stitching. If it's slow-going, that is a-okay!
You do not need to have purchased the pattern to read the blog, and even if you did purchase the pattern, you can read without stitching along. At this writing, I still have patterns that are sold with the DMC floss or Soie d'Alger silks on my site. For those of you who have ordered since Oct. 12th, I am still packing orders from that day and later, as I had a huge rollout of the Halloween box last Wednesday. Watch your PayPal transaction and/or e-mail for tracking information.
Additional guidelines may follow, depending on how things go.
Here is how it will work:
Sometime during the day on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from now until Monday, December 19th, I will put up a blog post. I'll try to generate a conversation by asking a question, but I will also have surprises and PRIZES here-and-there. I can't promise the time these posts will go up -- it will all depend on how things are going with packing orders. Mondays will be a good time to talk about weekend progress on the sampler, and Fridays may lend themselves to planning for a relaxing weekend in the stitching chair (you know which one!)
I want to give another huge shout out to Nicola Parkman and her crew at Hands Across the Sea Samplers for blessing us with this beautiful sampler to work on. And big ol' thanks to Brendon and Karen at Fox & Rabbit for dyeing SO. MUCH. LINEN. for our kits. Also, kudos to Lamora and her Access Commodities gang for delivering the beautiful silks to us from France. And my dear employee Britney made a lot of the thread packs (which were a big job!)
TODAY'S TOPIC: I have had a few questions about the sampler. Nicola wrote a lovely history of the sampler, the area, and Margaret near the front of our booklets. I think you'll find the spiral bound format of the chart really nice to work with (if you haven't used one before.) One question I've received from a few stitchers is: "What do you think the child on the sampler is DOING?"
So, in addition to your thoughts on the subject matter of the sampler, you could also share what you really like about the sampler. Nicola let me choose from among a handful of samplers for this project. I was completely enamored with the color palette, as I've been super into blue this year. I also love that meandering floral border. It looks really fun to stitch!
Thanks for joining me for a stitch-along. Let's get to know each other and have some fun!
Love - Theresa