White Threads

Christmas office closure

Just a word of warning about my upcoming office closure. Vetty Creations will be closed from Christmas until and including the New Year’s Day public holiday. I’ll be attempting to get the book FINALLY finished!

While I’ll be around, and may even read emails, I won’t be blogging (unless I think of something absolutely thrilling to tell you – such as that the book is DONE!) or filling orders. Partly this is because I’ll be busy doing the book, but partly it is also that my suppliers will be closed, so if I run out of stock of any particular items, I won’t be able to restock until they reopen.

If you call and leave a message on the Vetty Creations answering machine, I’ll return your call when I get the chance, which may not be until after New Year.

I apologise if this causes you any inconvenience. It is not my intention to annoy you! I was hoping to have a break during this time, but that won’t be possible until after the book is done.

working on the cover

I’ve been working on the cover a bit over the last few days. A cover is really important to a book. If a book has a boring or uninteresting cover, people in a shop are less likely to pick it up. If the information on the back doesn’t pique people’s interest, then they’re more likely to put it back on the shelf. So it is really important that the front and back cover communicate through words and stunning images, what the book is all about.

I did the front cover ages ago, as I needed it to take to the Sydney craft show in June, and my distributors in Europe (Search Press) needed it for their catalogue. But the back cover and the spine are just as important. Apparently, when you pick up my book, I have a few seconds in which to catch your interest so that you look further into the book, to evaluate whether you want it.

I have organised a wonderful testimonial for the back cover, from someone very well respected in the needlework industry. But I also need to know what my readers are looking for in the book, and so I can write the back cover copy accordingly, so that it addresses what they want to know.

For those of you who are eagerly awaiting the release of the book, can you tell me what it is that has piqued your interest? What appeals to you about it? What are you hoping to get from the book? Thanks!

more photography

Yesterday I did some more photography for the book. I had not been completely happy with the photo I had of my sampler. It looked a little washed out and I just wasn’t happy with it.

My mum let me have some of her Christmas bush to photograph around the sampler. Christmas bush is a bush with dainty red “flowers” – they’re not the flowers actually, the flowers are long gone, and what most people consider to be the flowers are actually the bracts. What is a bract, I hear you ask? No idea, but that’s what my sister, the botanist, calls them! 😉

Because the theme of the book is red and white (if you’d notice this by looking at the book, I’m not sure, but its been a good way for me to get the book to come together visually) and Christmas bush is red, it seemed like it could work well with the white embroidery. So we raided Mum’s bush on Tuesday and yesterday I used it.

It did work really well. The “flowers” are very pretty and they made a lovely border around the edge of the sampler. It was much more pleasing than the washed out photo I replaced.

I also took some more little “filler” photos to brighten up the pages. The idea is that they give you a little more of the “story” that I’ve set up in each main photograph. I don’t want you to think that my photos are over-propped (ie. have too many extraneous things, scattered around that detract from the actual subject of the photo, which is the embroidery) though. Most of the “stories” don’t have much of a plot! Most just have a couple of things that help to suggest its use, or give a bit more colour to look at.

Having a story makes it a little bit more inviting than museum-type specimen photos. While museum-type specimen photos are great for giving you a good view of the whole item, and therefore they also have their place in the book, they’re not really all that exciting or enticing!

I have very much enjoyed doing the photography for this book. Its been a challenge to try to communicate the sheer beauty of this style of embroidery, and hopefully I have managed to do that. I recently showed what there is of the book to a highly respected needlework writer, and she said she was left speechless by the projects. I guess that’s a pretty good sign! I certainly found it to be very encouraging!

proud mother moment

Please indulge me today, in a proud mother moment.

Here in Australia we are about to finish up the school year. That means end of year reports and presentation day, where individual achievements are recognised and applauded.

Yesterday my elder daughter was awarded not one, but three awards at the school presentation day. I am so pleased that three teachers chose to recognise her participation in, contribution to, and huge efforts in the areas for which she was awarded.

She’s worked very hard throughout her time at school, so it is lovely that this year it has been officially recognised. The awards are a huge boost to her self confidence, and made her feel very special. I’m very proud of her!

However, due to attending the school awards presentation unfortunately I got very little work done!

slow progress

I’ve been making slow progress here. I knew that Christmas preparations and end of school year things would interrupt my work, but I just have to keep going! The project instructions are nearly all written up – first draft only, and there are still quite a number of technique step-by-step pages to work on.

While writing the project instructions, it has crystallised for me which technique step-by-steps I need, and which ones I don’t need. The other day I thought I was going to need four more pages, but now I think I’ll save a few and be able to dedicate them to other parts of the book.

I have organised a lovely testimonial by a highly respected needlework writer for my promotional material for “Portuguese Whitework”. Really, really happy about that! I decided that it would be really good to have one, and that if I didn’t ask, I’d never get a “yes”. So I bit the bullet and asked, and the person was kind enough to agree – enthusiastically!

So there’s definitely progress being made, but most of the time its not stuff that’s interesting to write about!

Right-handed dictionary review

Yesterday the review we’ve all been waiting for went up on Needle’nThread: Mary Corbet’s review of “The Right-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion”!

Thank you Mary, for such a lovely review!

Both The Left-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion and The Right-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion would make excellent Christmas presents to yourself, that friend who enjoys embroidery, or that young person who you’d like to encourage in embroidery.

But don’t take my word for it, take Mary’s! 🙂

moving boxes

Yesterday I spent several hours moving boxes of books after my latest shipment arrived from the printers. There were 122 boxes, each weighing about 13kg. That’s a lot!

The books were reprints of “The Right-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion”, “Elegant Hardanger Embroidery” and “Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature”. Hopefully that’s enough to last me a long time!

Today I’ll be continuing with writing up the instructions for more of the projects in the Portuguese Whitework book. I completed the first draft of the runner yesterday. I might work on the sampler project today. It feels good to know that its inching forward!

learning embroidery through classes

I occasionally get phone calls from people who would like to join any embroidery classes that I am teaching. As it happens, teaching embroidery is not my core business (writing embroidery books is) and I do not teach any regular classes. (I do teach irregularly scheduled embroidery workshops, however these are in particular techniques, and not general “learn how to embroider” classes.)

For those people who want to attend classes to learn, my usual suggestions are as follows:

find a local needlework store which runs classes
see if there is a local community college which runs classes
find out if there is an embroiderers’ guild group in your area

Many years ago I used to teach embroidery classes at a community college. The other day I was chatting with Christine Bennett, an embroidery teacher, who I know used to teach at another community college. I asked if she was still teaching there. She said that her classes are still going strong, with classes usually full. This is excellent news! So if you’re interested in embroidery classes in Sydney, check out what Macquarie Community College has to offer.

Christine is a highly experienced teacher who would love to have you join her classes. The classes are located in Epping. If you’d like to talk with Christine about the course content, she’s happy for me to pass on her mobile number. Just contact me for details.

scooting along with instructions

I wasn’t particularly well on Friday, so I sat myself down at my computer and got stuck into writing instructions. I didn’t expect to get much done, but the quiet lack of physical activity helped me feel a little better, and I got an amazing amount done!

I had the pattern sheets printed out on big sheets of paper the other day, and stuck them up on the wall next to where I work. It means that I can constantly refer to them, which is really helpful when writing the project instructions.

I’m expecting a *large* shipment of book reprints to arrive in the next few days. I’m hoping that I can manage the mammoth task of moving 122 cartons (each about 15kg) into my storage space. Not something that I’m particularly looking forward to! I think I’m going to be exhausted by the end of it!

wrestling with charts

Yesterday I spent the day wrestling with the charts for the projects in “Portuguese Whitework”. I was adding all the tacking information, and arranging and re-arranging them on the pattern sheets.

Today I think I’ll get them printed out full size which will give me a good idea of how its all working, and will mean I can easily refer to them when writing the counted tacking instructions for each project.

I know that I got heaps done yesterday, but it just doesn’t show in the same way that taking photos does!

I got a note from Bree at Anatomically Incorrect Creatures this morning to let me know that spurred on by my post about the taxidermied deer that I saw some time back, she’s finally made a fully hand-stitched, full-size deer head! You can see it on her Etsy page. I love the photo of it hanging above the mantlepiece near the Christmas tree!