White Threads

do you want to meet up?

I got a message from Lisa from Canada just recently, saying that she was going to be in Sydney at the beginning of February and would we like to meet up? Coming to the end of the book, I’m all for the idea of having some “play” time after all this hard work, so I figured it sounded like an excellent idea.

Lisa and I are going to meet up on Thursday 2nd February at the Powerhouse Museum, to see the Love Lace exhibition, and we’d like to invite anyone else who’d like to come along to join us!

I still have to figure out where we will meet, because the museum’s entry and forecourt are undergoing a bit of a renovation at the moment. But I will figure out somewhere and let you all know. Wherever it is, we will meet at 10:15. I have to be back home by mid afternoon, so we’ll probably finish up around 1, 1:30ish, but you’re welcome to stay on. You don’t have to leave just because I do!

The general entry fee for the Powerhouse Museum is $12 for adults, and $8 for concession. I am pretty sure that the Love Lace exhibition is included in this price. (The Harry Potter exhibit is not!)

If you’d like to join us, let me know, and we will know to look out for you at our meeting place. I’ll let you all know where we’re going to meet when I’ve figured something out.

It’d be great if you’d perhaps bring some of your current embroidery (if its not too big!) so that we can all share about what we’re currently working on. I might be able to bring the printouts of the book…!

something on every page

I nearly forgot to write my blog post this morning – I just got straight onto working on the book!

On Saturday I finally finished what I call my “first draft”. For anyone else writing a book, this would mean that the author had finished getting all the words out of their head and onto paper. It is relatively early in the book writing process. That’s not what *I* mean though.

Most authors write in a word processing program, and then the designer takes their words and puts them into the page layout. Because I am both the author and the designer, I write directly onto my page layout, in the design program that I use (QuarkXpress).

This means that my “first draft” includes all the words, photos, and diagrams (or at least an indication of what photos or diagrams are going to go where). If you’re familiar with my books, you’ll know that due to the step by step nature of the instructions, the text is completely intertwined with the pictures. Often, to make it fit, I need to massage the words and layout of pictures a lot to edit them into shape and make it work. So for me, a completed “first draft” means there is something on EVERY page, but it will already have undergone a significant editing process to get to that stage.

I took a long time to complete my first draft because there were some pages that were completely empty until Saturday. As soon as they were done, it felt a little more finished.

I went to my local office supplies place and got them to print it all out for me (much quicker than troubling my poor little laser printer with it!). I finally held some semblance of this book in my hands for the first time. Wow!

It has now been handed over to my proofreader for checking. My husband is my proofreader. He is very meticulous, likes words, yet knows very little about embroidery, so he comes to the work with a fresh, non-understanding brain. If he can understand the instructions, a stitcher should certainly be able to! If he can’t, then I need to make it so that he can.

Thankfully, he hasn’t found huge amounts that need significant work. Mostly it is just small changes. But it is a really important step, as he sees things that I don’t see, because I am over-familiar with it.

When he’s written all over it, I get the pages back again and work through the things he wants me to change. I get to decide what changes and what doesn’t. However, if he thinks something needs fixing, it probably does!

So that’s what I’m working on today. I will hopefully also find the time to go and get my pattern pages and the cover printed out, so that they can also be checked.

glad we didn’t go camping

Elder Daughter has been reading “Swallows and Amazons” recently, and decided that she’d like to camp out in the back yard as a bit of an adventure. We’ve borrowed a tent from my parents for this.

Dad came around yesterday to show us how to put the tent up – he said it wouldn’t be intuitive. We did a test run and it went up just fine, but I can’t imagine we would have figured it out without him! The girls enjoyed getting inside the tent and imagining the possibilities.

We only have a small backyard, and much of it is taken up by garden and the swing-set. So we tucked the tent in an area that we noted would have a water frontage if we had a downpour. (We have had so much rain here this summer that the ground is full of water, and if it rains there are parts of the yard that become ponds quite quickly!)

We considered having the sleep out last night, but realised that we still need to organise mattresses to sleep on, so down came the tent again in preparation for our mower man coming today.

Last night at about 10pm, a huge electrical storm came over. It was terribly close, with lightning and thunder following VERY close on its heels. The rain thrashed down, and at one stage we thought we might have heard small hail. I’ve just heard a report on the radio that we got about 27mm (about an inch) of rain in this area!

So I’m very glad we didn’t go camping last night. The position we had the tent in would have indeed filled up with water. I can imagine there would have been some wet bodies seeking shelter in the safety of the house! And the girls aren’t real fond of electrical storms so I can’t imagine they would have agreed to staying out in one!

We’ll find another night to have our holiday sleep out.

In the meantime, the book keeps getting closer and closer. 🙂

first draft nearly complete

I’ve been working hard filling pages of the book. Currently there are only two pages that are yet to have anything put on them. One is a chapter opener that I need to take a photo for, and one is a fairly simple step-by-step instruction page.

Once they’re done, the first draft will be complete. I have already moved on to editing some of the other pages. It is lovely to be at the stage where I am checking all the project instructions, doing really fiddly typographical things (yes, I enjoy this! I am a book designer at heart, seeing that is what I trained as!) and just generally editing the pages.

I had a fun time the other day putting the photos of the historical examples in place. Wow, they look fantastic! It makes a wonderful start to the book, really helping you to get a feel for the historical background of this style of embroidery.

In the slightly paraphrased words of a “They Might be Giants” song, “and now we’re even closer, and now we’re even closer. And now we’re closer still…”

historical photos

This morning I have received the files for some historical photos I’ve requested to use in Portuguese Whitework. They’re downloading at the moment, as I write. Its a little bit exciting as these are going to add a wonderful sense of history to the book!

I have been very fortunate throughout the process of putting this book together. All the people I have dealt with in Portugal have been so wonderfully generous with knowledge, time and even things like photos and fabric. I have been thrilled by their kindness and willingness to help me.

I’m really looking forward to putting the photos in place on the pages. 🙂

This morning a reader asked if she will be able to pre-order Portuguese Whitework. Yes, you will be able to, but not yet. Once the book is off to the printers and that process is underway, they’ll give me a shipping date, which will help me to figure out when it will get here (give or take some weeks, depending on shipping!). And after it is off to the printers, I will have time to get the necessary information up on my website.

I also hope to put together a youtube video type preview of the book. I’ve seen a few video previews of books now, and think they’re a wonderful idea. I’m really looking forward to the fun and the challenge of making that!

In the meantime though, I have a book to finish, and the historical photos (still downloading as I write!) to enjoy!

Added later: Oh WOW! The photographer has been even more generous than I had hoped, and sent me a number of photos of each of the items I requested, showing different details. I had only asked for one of each item! Manuel Correia of www.mcfotografia.com, you are wonderful! Thank you so much!

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2012! And a particular welcome if you’re joining us here for the first time after visiting Mary Corbet’s Needle’nThread! Why not subscribe to White Threads while you’re here?

'Portuguese Whitework: Bullion Embroidery from Guimarães' by Yvette Stanton, due for release in early 2012.

2011 has been a year of hard slog for me. I’ve gotten seriously into writing and stitching for my upcoming book “Portuguese Whitework”. I am well on track to having it off to the printers very soon. From there it will take a few months to come back to me, and to make its way around the globe to my distributors.

However, it hasn’t all been hard work, as I have enjoyed the stitching for the book so very much! I find myself very much in love with the style of needlework, and now say that it is my favourite style. If you would like to know more about the book as information becomes available, please sign up for my email list specifically for news of the book. You can email me to ask to sign up for it, or let me know in the comments section of this blog post.

Personally it has also been a great year for me and my family. My husband had some excellent things happen at work. He’s a librarian, and his library moved into its new purpose-built home early in the year.

My eldest daughter finished her primary school education and is off to the larger world of high school. She continues to mature into a delightful young lady.

Rainbow Girl, my younger daughter, has stepped into the world of elite gymnastics on her quest for an Olympic medal. Given that she’ll need to be 16 years old before she can compete internationally, we’re a long way off from anything like that! But she surprised us completely. We had no idea she was that good, have no idea where the sporting talent has come from, and would never have imagined a child of ours setting themselves the goal of an Olympic medal!

And because of all the gymnastics training, just a few weeks ago, I finally got my driver’s licence. Driving is still not something I’m thrilled about doing, but it will make life easier, I am sure.

2012 promises to be a year of great delights. I will finally publish “Portuguese Whitework” – it feels like it has been a long time coming, especially since we visited Portugal to do the research for it way back in 2008, before I got sick with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome! (I’m completely better now, if you’re wondering…!)

This year I’ll have to decide which idea on my list of book ideas turns into my next book, and get started on it. I will be off to Adelaide to teach at the “Beating Around the Bush” conference run by Country Bumpkin at Easter, and have various other classes lined up around the countryside.

I hope that 2012 (wow, it feels strange writing that!) is a wonderful, stitchy year for you, filled with happiness and joy.

proud mum again

I told you that I probably wouldn’t post this week, however, for Christmas I received a particularly special gift.

Because I have only just gotten my drivers licence, for the whole of last term, I was taking Rainbow Girl to gymnastics on the train each gym day, and then coming home to Elder Daughter, who spent the intervening time with friends or relatives.

It turns out that she and my mother had embarked upon a project for me for Christmas. All of it was Elder Daughter’s making (except the final construction, as they ran out of time, so my mother constructed it).
So on Christmas morning I was presented with a very pretty hand-embroidered cushion. The design was my daughter’s, and I think it is gorgeous. The colour scheme was my daughter’s, chosen to go with our lounge, and it works beautifully. The embroidery was my daughter’s, and it is very well done.

I was quite overwhelmed with the amount of thought, time, care and love that went into the cushion. I am very proud of my daughter and her creativity! And thanks also to my mum!

Happy Christmas

My Christmas present to you: a sneak peak of another project from my upcoming book Portuguese Whitework!

I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Christmas! At Christmas time I celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, my saviour. I am grateful to God for all his blessings to me, but particularly for the blessing of his son Jesus.

I’d also like to thank you all for your interest in Vetty Creations over the past year. I really appreciate the fact that you read “White Threads” and that some of you join in by commenting.

All the best for the coming new year. I hope that for you it is happy, safe, and full of love, good health and stitching.

more diagrams

No, I didn’t spend the whole day in the car yesterday, skiving off. I didn’t go anywhere in the car at all – me driving or anyone else. I actually spent pretty much the whole day buried in my office working on more step-by-step diagrams. Therefore nothing much to say.

Have a great day!

An accomplishment

Ok, here’s something I bet you didn’t know about me: until very recently I did not have my driver’s license. Yesterday, however, I passed my driving test and am now licensed to drive by myself. Quite frankly the thought of that scares me! But I am now officially able to do it.

I just have never wanted to drive. I still don’t really want to, but with Rainbow Girl needing to get to gymnastics training a good number of days per week, it became necessary.

Here in Australia, we have a system where learner drivers have to accrue 120 hours of driving practice before they can take their driving test. Fortunately this changed a few years ago, so that drivers over 25 (which I am just *slightly* over) no longer have to do the 120 hours, just as many as they need to learn to drive well.

However, because I didn’t have to do the 120 hours of practice, I feel that I have cheated (I did not, though!) by not having to do it. I feel very inexperienced, and very much like I am not ready to drive by myself. However the driving tester obviously felt that I was good enough, or they wouldn’t have passed me.

So if you see me out on the road, give me a wave and a nice wide berth!