White Threads

Despite being told about a week ago that the gorgeous Satin Royal fabric had been discontinued, I got a call from the distributor yesterday to tell me that my order had arrived!

They had been told by their distributor that there was none left and none would be coming, but it turned up anyway. They don’t know why or how, but I don’t really care – because it means I have more of this gorgeous fabric!

I told the girl who called me that she’d made my day, and she was my favourite person of the week!

If you want some, get in quick, because this time it really is all that is left…! Email me if you want some. It is the most gorgeous fabric for Mountmellick embroidery. 🙂

I heard just a few days ago that Zweigart has discontinued their gorgeous Satin Royal fabric which I have been highly recommending for Mountmellick embroidery. I sold my last piece the day before.

I had been waiting on an order that I placed before Christmas, and in the chasing up of it, I was told that it had been discontinued and there is no more stock available… BOO HOO!!

I have removed it from my website because I have no stock left. 🙁

I have been trying to source another similar high quality fabric that is suitable for Mountmellick. Of course, I will let you know as soon as I find one and am able to stock it.

In the meantime, we still stock our excellent polycotton satin jean fabric. This is an excellent value product, and many of the projects in our book were stitched on it.

Lying in bed wishing I was still asleep between 6 and 7am on New Years Day, I started to think about where I would like my business to go this year. (I often do my best business thinking in bed in the morning.) I was trying to prioritise some things to do, and decided that a good place to start would be an overhaul of my website.

This is a big task – having done it before, it is easily a couple of weeks full time work. I started an abortive attempt some time last year, but was never really happy with the “look” I’d come up with. So I left it.

When I finally decided I’d pretended to be asleep long enough, I got up and went to my computer. I had a look at the files from last year’s new design attempt. Surprise surprise, I am totally predictable as the date on those files was 1/1/07. Seems like I have some sort of urgency to remodel my website each New Years Day.

I came up with a new look that I really love. Now I just have to plod through applying to all the pages. It could be months before anyone sees any results from this, so don’t get your hopes up just yet…

Earlier this week we also finally got around to de-potting the fig tree that was beside our front steps. We were pretty sure that the root had escaped through the bottom of the pot because each time it rained, the pot filled with water and didn’t drain. We thought we might have to smash the pot to get it out, but amazingly, we got it out by hacksawing through the root at the base of the pot. We then treated the root still in the ground with neat Roundup to kill it.

Yesterday we had nothing planned, so took a trip to the local nursery in the Hills District. We bought a new plant to go in the pot (a mandevilla??) and some new ones for out the back under the Cecile Brunner climbing rose. My husband has rather a penchant for bright flowering things, so some gorgeous red geraniums were in order. Yes, I know – does anyone really BUY geraniums? Well, we did, because the colours were what we wanted. All the ones in the gardens near here, that we could have nicked a cutting from, were not colours I was interested in.

We also bought a new hydrangea called “Everlasting Summer” (or something like that) which has a repeat flowering. This is to go in a darkish spot under the rose, too. (Hopefully our mower man won’t destroy this one, like the white one that Mum gave me a few years ago.) This and the geraniums all were planted yesterday afternoon.

Today is showery, so we will take the chance at some point to put the new plant in the pot to go by the front steps. Then it can happily enjoy the rain.

I spent the afternoon yesterday beginning the design process for some of my class projects for the year. First cab off the rank is Southern Cross Needlework in Maitland. I have designed a Mountmellick cushion with honeysuckle, dogrose, wheat and daisy. It will make a lovely companion piece for the other cushion I made last year with dogrose and blackberry.

I’ll get stuck into stitching it today.

I spent half an hour this morning picking up and sorting out the hundreds of beads that went *everywhere* when I didn’t make sure that the bead container was properly on the table.

I keep my embroidery beads in little pill boxes, with separate “morn”, “noon”, “eve” and “bed” compartments for each day of the week. They’re great for storing all my beads, except…

…as I discovered this morning, when you don’t put the tray they sit in properly on the table.

CRASH!!

The little compartment lids flip up and out the beads tumble and go about as far as you can possibly imagine on wooden floors.

I bet I’ll be finding them for weeks.