Sorry that I’ve been away for a while. I just haven’t been in a blogging kind of mood lately. Everything seems completely trivial and (at the same time) overwhelming to write about.

Since I call this a stitching blog – I’ll start there.

A short while back I ordered some of those HIH tall birds from Stitching Bits and Bobs when they had one of their sales. Yes, I’m always a year or so behind the rest of the pack…. Anyways, I’ve been working on the Easter bird, and should have a photo to post before Easter.

Then my birthday was March 30, and DH took the day off and took me to lunch, followed by a trip to The Needle Nook in Ligonier. I didn’t have anything particular in mind, but given my love for anything monochromatic these days, I had to buy this:
Rhapsody in Blue

I thought I’d give some silk threads a try, so I took some home and tried a couple of motifs and now not only do I have a plan for my new sampler, I have a plan for my Jan Houtmann sampler, Tree of Life. One is red. One is blue. It must be getting close to summer. I’m going to do each of them on 36 ct. Antique white linen, with Au Ver au Soie silks. Heavenly!

On other fronts:

My kids cause enough insanity to give me gray hair and more gray hair. Wait…I already have gray hair. I need a new and similarly overused phrase for the craziness my kids put me through. Any suggestions would be welcome.

My Worry of the Day is this crush thing my almost-15-year old has on a much older boy (18). Crushes – feh. They come and go. But now it seems he’s interested in her. Now, I think he’s a nice boy. I’ve known him since he was in elementary school. Very handsome. Very polite. Yet I can’t get over this discomfort. The life of an 18 year old is so much different than a 15 year old. Of course, I could butt in like always. Or I could take a watch and wait stance. DD is smart, mature, and self-assured, and is way better with boys then I ever was at her age. I think it will just fade away on its own, making a long argument seem pointless. But God, the watching and waiting is killing me. And believe me, I watch. I had a talk with DS about it, and he told me I had nothing to worry about and that I would surely know if I should worry. What? Then he says, “You know Mom, you know these things. You have your ways of finding things out.” I’m glad he thinks I’m the Great and Powerful Oz, because I sure don’t.

I think it’s just that I love my Colleen so much that I can’t bear to think of her being hurt by some boy. I want our life of soccer games and horseback riding and cooking together and watching movies together to go on forever and NO BOYS ALLOWED.

Not everything makes me fret. I’ve been doing ok at Weight Watchers. No huge losses, but losing a little at a time is worlds better than gaining a little at a time. As of last week I had lost 16 pounds and I was down two sizes in blue jeans. Nine pounds till WW goal weight, although I’m most comfortable at 10 pounds less than that, which puts me at the middle of the recommended Height/Weight category, rather than at the top. So all together that’s 19 pounds left to lose. I’ll get there.

Early in March I started yoga classes at the YMCA. I can’t tell you how much I like this class! It just feels so good. I was having some serious hip pain last Fall during soccer season, and it got better but never really went away through the winter. Well, six weeks of yoga, and we’re into Spring soccer and no hip pain. Life is good.

And on that note – Look for my Easter Bird soon!

I'm having a weird kind of day.
And it ended with me spending too much time here:

Sex Bomb

And then it lead me here:

Skating Cowboys

Well, it's not a bad way to end a day, I guess.

This has been a quiet week. I've been very productive at two of my three jobs - I'm hoping to make a dent in the work I need to do for my third job today. I think it's interesting how some weeks you conquer the world, and other weeks you wonder why you got out of bed!

I know I've been telling kid stories a lot recently...I hope I'm not totally boring you. But here's another one that made me scratch my head: I've told you that DD is in the high school spring musical, Grease. I actually had to explain why it was called Grease. And she wasn't the only cast member that was in the dark about this - after months of practice! So I explained what a greaser was, and then thought about it and said, well, maybe you would call them "gangsta" now. And Colleen replies, "No mom, we don't call them gangster. They're just kids who dress really badly."

Forgive me - I've raised a snob.

As for stitching, I've been playing around with this and that. Back in January, when I was looking for something else, I found an old Kreinik freebie kit. I forget the deal, but it was something I sent away for and they included this as a free kit. The kit was a Quaker chart and pincushion finishing instructions, some lovely soft linen, wool backing fabric, and Kreinik silk thread. It looks like I started it, put a few stitches in, then put it away. For a long time. (telltale rusty needle parking place is visible in upper left corner!) When I came across it again this year, I decided it would make a good car project, and stuck it in my car bag. So here it is, stitching complete:



I've been playing with my Jan Houtman sampler, too, trying to hit on the right combination of light and dark reds. I had ordered some premium silk floss from Vicky Clayton, and here is one of the motifs in the color Heartwood:



I like this color, but I've decided to go more "red". This is too burgundy. I think I'll be using plain ol' DMC 347.

Have a great weekend, folks!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I don't celebrate this holiday in a big way...I never quite got the excitement of drinking yourself silly on green beer. But today brings out the best Irish proverbs and sayings, so here is one of my favorites:

"May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night, and the road downhill all the way to your door."



What is it about the way the Irish use the English language that makes you feel so sentimental, and sometimes downright weepy?

Well, like I said, St. Patrick's Day to me isn't beer. And my mom never made corned beef and cabbage. But she did buy Irish Potatoes. No, it's not what you're thinking....but the candy kind. Oh my, compacted, sweetened coconut rolled in cinnamon till it was thickly coated. Spicy and sweet. Heaven for the first bite, but then a little sickeningly sweet after that.

Before I put it away, I want to show you the house I stitched into my Souvenir Sampler. This was the house that Dave and I bought in 1985. It was our first home, and we lived in it until 2001 when we bought this house. I decided to depict it as we first purchased it.



It was a small-ish 2BR ranch. No garage. 11 X 11 kitchen. Redwood siding painted over green. And for us, it felt like heaven. I still like that little house. It was the perfect size for Dave and me, but then along came two children. So we added on to the kitchen. Remodeled downstairs to add a third bedroom. Added a garage. And eventually, we even outgrew that.

Anyway, enough of the down memory lane stuff.

And I need a change.

Now I'm playing with the Tree of Life sampler I told you about several posts ago. I'm trying to decide between a) colors and b) type of thread. First of all, stitching it in the blue-ish greens is out. My walls in one room are wood paneling, and I've painted the trim a forest green. And the other room actually has green walls, so stitching this in green would make it blend in either room. I want some contrast. The "reds" are more pink than I had thought, so I'm fooling with changing it to something less pink.

Meanwhile, I've been stitching one of the motifs on a scrap piece, and I'm giving Vikki Clayton's silk threads a test run. I like the premium floss best. But it's expensive. Decisions, decisions.

Not much else is going on here at the moment.

Dave is due home from his golf trip to Myrtle Beach tonight. I'll be glad when he gets home.

DS is acting like a self-centered butt head, but what else is new?

DD came home in tears last night over not knowing the dance steps for the high school spring musical. Evidently the teacher/director really laid into her at last night's practice, with one of those "some people" speeches. And now I want to go down there and rip his freakin' toupee off his silly head and feed it to him for lunch. (Ooops. Did I say that out loud?) "Some People" had better get it into their heads that this is a high school musical with a limited talent pool to choose from, and teenagers to do NOT do what you want when you humiliate them in front of their peers.

Not only that, this is my Colleen we're talking about here. She doesn't cause trouble. She holds a good attitude, unlike some of the other high school prima donnas. She comes to practices. Cut her a freakin' break.

WELL, on that note....Time to get cracking. Sales tax won't automatically pay itself.

Another JCS ornie

Wow, this one was quick! I tried, I really tried to stitch it over one, as the directions say. Ha. As if. I ended up throwing away my original piece and starting fresh and without guilt. Besides, all of the ornaments I've stitched so far are on the big side for ornaments as far as I'm concerned.



A quick note about my last post: I think that I just refuse to acknowledge the existence of 8 track tapes. Ooooh, I hated 8 tracks! First of all, recorders were few and far between. Second, I hated the way that they would change tracks in mid song. Pet peeve of mine, I guess. I don't like anyone walking on my music. Like when a DJ would talk over the beginning or end of a song. Or when they would cut a song short for a commercial. So as far as I'm concerned, 8 track tapes were useless.

I spoke with my Mom Sunday evening. Dad was convinced that they had moved and no one had told him. And of course he was frustrated and angry. It's the first time he's been disoriented in his own home. I fear that he's reached a stage when he'll decline very rapidly. Mia, what's your recollection?

Kids These Days

This is a totally off topic post here, because I haven't stitched much this week. Work and family. And more work and family.

First of all, this weekend was the Freshman/Sophomore Dance, and here is my lovely daughter with her equally lovely date:



Makes me proud to be a parent! But I have to share this with you, also, because sometimes my kids make me shake my head in amazement.

It absolutely kills me when they start talking about the limitations of their MP3 players. DD and her friend were whining in the car a few days ago, that their sub-par MP3 players say that they hold 100+ songs, but in fact, they can only fit about 75 songs, and that's just so annoying.

I had to respond with a Whaaaaa? And then I proceeded to sound exactly like my mother and her stories of radio shows and their first television and so on.

But maybe you guys can relate. Remember the thrill of being able to take your favorite album and put it on....a reel to reel tape? My dad had a tape deck to end all tape decks. It was about the size of a microwave oven. He taped all of his favorite albums, because he said that this way they'd be preserved, because tapes would last so much longer and wouldn't get scratched, and he could get hours of music on a single dinner plate sized reel. Of course, you couldn't leave the house, but you could have your music play and play. And then you'd rewind and rewind. Oh, we thought we were technical wizards. Never mind that you had to spend several days in the house, manually recording stuff.

Then came cassette tapes. We thought it was heaven. You could take them with you! Never mind that you had to manually record those, also, and never mind that you had to flip it every 20 minutes or so. And that the sound quality was pretty bad and that eventually your tape player would eat them up. When DH and I would go on a car trip, we had a small suitcase of cassette tapes. Our music was portable, and we could go anywhere and still have tunes. We were so excited about the Walkman when that came out. What? I could walk with my music? OK, I had to wear a fanny pack, and put a couple of extra tapes in there, but it was no suitcase of tapes with a suitcase sized player.

Skip ahead to today. Now my kids walk around with enough music last a long weekend, in a player that looks like the lighter that I used to keep in my purse back in my smoking days. And they whine that it's not as good as they'd like.

Hmph. If they had to walk miles, every day, up hill, to school, in the snow, like I did, maybe they'd appreciate their little musical miracles.

Last week I visited my parents for a long weekend. I’m still recovering. How selfish is that?

Those of you that have known my blog for a while know that my dad has Alzheimer’s disease. I can’t begin to describe the effects this cruel disease is having on my incredibly intelligent, sweet father. I can see that he’s moving towards the last stages of the disease…it’s only a matter of time. I just want to grab him and hold on to make it stop, but – well – you can’t.

I’m fine during my time with mom and dad. I try to be helpful and loving. But then, sometime during the long ride home, I can feel myself fall apart, and it lasts a few days.

So I’ll be back in a few days.

Ho-Hum

Such a boring life I've lead this past week. I've been working on Souvenir Sampler, but not enough to post and certainly not enough to even hint that I was a good Olympic stitcher. But like I've said before, March Madness is more my thing, and it's just around the corner. I'm looking forward to some great Big East basketball, and quality stitching time.

Here's something I've been meaning to post about, and with tomorrow being Ash Wednesday, I should make my thoughts to gel into a post. I'll be going all heavy on you here:

There's this blog that I read regularly, Going Jesus. Originally, I linked to it via another blog because she has a hilarious collection of bad nativities, Angel Kitsch, and Holy Week Kitsch. So I started reading and got hooked. Over time, I've discovered that she writes in a way that I like: Irreverent, yet faithful. She pokes fun at the absurdities of the (blank) church, (insert church name of your choice), but takes the faith itself seriously. Maybe it's my sarcastic nature, but that's right up my alley.

So, two weeks ago I popped over, and read this post:

"It's early yet, but I realized today that I'm really looking forward to Lent. I love the depth of the liturgy in Lent, the way it tries to get us to flip over the rocks and see all the squirmy sightless things that live under there. The challenge is to see them with an understanding of grace, which is what holds the despair at bay.

There's a little thrill in facing something squarely and realizing that the opportunity for transformation exists. Watching an old pattern or habit peel away and lose its power is a tiny bite-size Easter, an unexpected place for life to break out. I see it all the time, if I remember to look."

This is the part that blows me away - That very morning I had just gone back to Weight Watchers. Yeah, I have this itsy bitsy weight problem, if you call an extra 25 pounds itsy bitsy. So I came home and I was pissed off and frustrated with myself, and dreading the weeks and weeks ahead. And then after I read that - not so much. It's as if reading that post tripped a switch in my head, and I'm ok with this again.

Talk about receiving Grace? That's a Lenten Experience. Well, Pre-Lent, anyway. But I'll take it.

A small finish, but fun, fun, fun! This is another from the 2005 JCS Ornament issue. I made some changes to make it look more country-ish. Darker fabric, more mottled threads.



Another thing - I love to listen to music while I work at the computer. I've been using a new site, Pandora.com. How cool is this: You create your own radio station by giving them a list of your favorite artists, then they generate music for you. Your favorite artists are included, but so are similar artists. Then you can refine your station by giving songs a Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down. I'm amazed! I've been using the free account, which has some ads and I'll bet that the number of ads will increase in the future. But the ads are all just web ads - nothing audio - so they really don't impact my listening. So the free account works just fine for me. In fact, I think it's fantastic.

This week's SBQ:
Do you love comments or hate them? Do you check them every day, never check them, or find them helpful? And finally, are you convinced no one is reading your blog if you don’t get any?

I like comments - or else I wouldn't have them. No man is an island - I don't think I'd still be writing if I thought I was doing it in a vacuum. For instance, I've tried paper and pen journaling before, and my longest writing span has been about 4 months. Yet I've been a blogging for almost 3 years. Comments aren't the only reason, but they are a factor. It's nice to know you've made someone laugh with some goofy family story, or that someone likes your stitching. Or that someone shares (or disagrees with) your views on life.

I check comments on recent posts most every day. That's because I read your blogs by linking from my list in my sidebar. So I'm always starting at my own blog and moving on. If there are no comments - I don't really think about it. Sometimes I even bore myself.

There's not a lot of stitching going on here. I'm still working on Souvenir Sampler, but I'm getting in an hour or less each day. So it's slow going. The digital camera has gone AWOL, and this scan isn't great, but it gives you an idea of where I am:



I'm in the middle of stitching the small house. It should be interesting - I'm trying to make it look like our first home, back in 1985. It could be charming, it could be hilarious. We'll see....

Although I'm not a knitter, there's a knitting blog that I read regularly. Her post today was priceless. Go here and read today's post - the section about the "real" knitting Olympics:

Knitting Curmudgeon.
Now tell me that doesn't make you smile!

Oooh, I'm seeing several neat offerings from Nashville! I think I'll wait a few days before I decide on my favorites.

Meanwhile, besides working on my Souvenir Sampler, I have this waiting in the wings:



I've been obsessing over this sampler for a few weeks.

And here's another one that I can't get off my mind:



What? So they're red. They're kinda old. And they are big. In fact, really big. I'm in a old, red, and big kinda mood.

Are you like me? Do you keep visiting Online shops to see if they've updated with Market stuff yet? I can hardly believe how impatient I am this year. Lord knows I have enough to stitch right here in my own darn house. Yet I keep clicking over to my book marked favorite shops and I just keep clicking away. It's like pounding the elevator button.

I need to get a life.

Well, to make my obsessive behavior seem more fruitful, I'll share my favorite online shops with you all. I don't have any affiliation with any of these stores. I'm just a shopper. And maybe while I'm filling in the links, I'll pop over just one more time today....

My favorite: Shakespeare's Peddler. Theresa has a nice selection and really great detail on all of the new things she posts. She always tells you the fabrics and specialty threads that have been used for these recent designs. I like that kind of attention to detail in an online store. There’s nothing like ordering something, only to find that you don’t have what you need to complete the project. I've taken advantage of several of the monthly specials over the past few years. Like kit of the month, freebie kit of the month, fabric of the month, etc. It's like a really upscale kit, and a usually a great buy.

I like Stitching Bits and Bobs, too. The site is well organized, with big product pictures, but not much project detail. I swing by there frequently to catch what’s on sale, and I buy one of the Monthly Bits threads programs. I haven’t had any snags so far, so I’m happy.

Another shop I frequent is Wyndham Needleworks. They have a selection of samplers to die for, and my orders from there have always been quickly processed. Another bonus: Wyndham only charges you for actual postage when they ship. I like that.

There's The Silver Needle. Extensive variety of needlework charts and other goodies. LOTS of other goodies. Stitching do-dads you’ve never even thought of. And tons of Vera Bradley stuff, but I’m not into that. So in my opinion, there’s way more info on VB than I think is necessary in their newsletters, but hey, if they sell lots of it and it keeps a shop profitable, then God Bless. The site is easy to navigate and search. I must admit, I surf and day dream there a lot, but I've yet to order.

Same with Elegant Stitch. I’ve browsed a lot, but I’ve never bought anything. It’s a good site and deserves a look around, but I haven’t been moved to pull out my credit card.

Then there are others that I really don’t even browse around, yet I’ve bookmarked them for some reason. There are so many sites that are a drag to navigate, with product pictures that you practically need a microscope to see. Or just columns of numbers and names. Now, I work with columns of numbers all day…so if the product doesn’t splash across the page, you’ve lost me. The site just looks like more work.

OK, I’ve just visited all of those shops again. But with a purpose! Not just out of obsession. And now I will go away until tomorrow. Which starts at midnight.

Oh, real quick! While I’ve been typing here, I’ve been listening to some fabulous Internet radio, Vault Radio . I’m listening to a live performance of James Taylor singing Fire and Rain, in 1970, from the Berkeley Community Theater. I’d swear I’m 14 again. Check it out.

Today I'll share more pictures of Kentuck Knob with you. This view is looking at the back of the house as it sets into the hillside.



And this is the porch that wraps around the back and side of the house. I love this part of the home. There is something about the stone and the wood and the light that just sings.



You can tell this home was designed for people to live in. Its style is named Usonian, a term FLW coined to describe a simple, elegant, high quality, affordable home for the American middle class.

Dave and I could live there in a heartbeat. Not that it's up for sale and (in my dreams) I could come up with the downpayment....

Even though I haven't written much lately, I have been stitching. Well, a little anyway... This was a freebie from Workbasket, done on 18ct pink damask aida, with Ozark Sampler's "Spring Flowers" thread. It was lovely thread to work with, and the colors made me think of Spring even though the sky was grey and the wind was howling. Ahh. Escape.

And to drive my point home

I was shocked and dismayed to see the "CLOSING" signs going up outside our local JoAnn Fabrics. I can hardly believe it. It was a small store, so that was my first thought - that JoAnn's was closing its smaller stores and focusing on these super sized stores.

So I did some research and found this corporate report on Yahoo business:

Our strategy is to grow by replacing many of our existing traditional stores with superstores. We believe that our prototype 35,000 square foot superstore gives us a competitive advantage in the industry. Our superstores provide a unique shopping experience by offering a full creative product assortment-sewing, crafting, framing, seasonal, floral and home décor accessories-all under one roof. On average, we close 1.1 traditional stores for every superstore that we open. Our superstores typically generate, on average, over three times the revenues of the traditional stores they replace. In markets where we have opened multiple superstores, we have been able to grow our revenues significantly, and we believe, expand our market size and market share.

But then I came across this from a small local newspaper from suburbs north of Pittsburgh:

Spring closing scheduled for Jo-Ann Fabrics
By Tawnya Panizzi, Staff Writer
Thursday, January 12, 2006

Just two years after Jo-Ann Fabrics expanded to a super store at The Waterworks, the popular craft retailer will close its doors.

Company officials confirmed the news on Monday, saying the site is expected to close in March.

"Though we are closing The Waterworks store and have no immediate store opening announcements in the area, we are always assessing the community's need for a full-service super store," said Jeff Fink, vice-president of real estate for Jo-Ann Stores.

Fink gave no reason for the decision.

In 2003, the crafting specialty store moved from its cramped spot in The Waterworks to a 33,000-square-foot space, making it one of the plaza's largest properties.

Jo-Ann Fabrics was selected above big-box tenants during a search to fill the coveted anchor position by mall owners, The J. J. Gumberg Corp.

Jill Moreman, spokesperson for Gumberg, declined comment on the soon-to-be vacant site.

"I don't have details on that," she said.

At the time of the Jo-Ann expansion, Gumberg spokespeople said the contract would be long-term.

Fink said the company last year opened 40 superstores across the county as part of a strategic initiative to transition many of its retail outlets from traditional fabric stores to full-service ones.

Headquartered in Ohio, there are more than 950 Jo-Ann stores across the country. The store specializes in crafts and home decor, carrying a variety of creative supplies for sewing, framing and scrap-booking.

Fink did not say if employees at the Pittsburgh store will be relocated.

Just two years ago, store and mall spokespeople said the expansion would align with corporate strategy and was something that shoppers repeatedly requested.

So -they're even closing a huge store. Not. good.

But my main concern is (me, me, me): Where will I go for fabric? I absolutely refuse to shop in WalMart or (shudder) SuperWalMart, and now it looks like those are my only two choices within a 35 mile radius.

This blows.

Some days I am particularly grateful that I can work in such a beautiful place. I've told you that I work at a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, called Kentuck Knob. If you like a home with clean lines and a warm atmosphere, this home is perfect. Oddly enough, it seems particularly inviting to me in the winter. Must be that in-floor heating. Mmmmm. Fabulous.



Actually, I work in the Visitor Center, "keeping the books" and so on. The tour guides are the ones that spend the most time in the house. Winter is our slowest time, but believe me, the house is just fantastic in the winter and if you book a winter tour, particularly on a weekday, you'll probably have a private tour with the best guides in the business.



Oh and by the way....the Visitor Center sells cross-stitch kits of reproductions of FLW windows. What's not to like??

I will have some stitched Christmas ornaments on my tree this year..I will....I will...I will! My first ornament finish from the 2005 JCS Ornie issue:



I don't know if it's the fabric or me, but something seems very cock-eyed here. It was some older fabric from my collection. A long time ago I had a pen pal who was stationed in Germany, and she'd send me her fabric finds. Super cheap, but not always exactly even-weave. I think this was one those fabrics. But I'm not too worried, because I plan to finish it as a little pouch/bag to hang on the tree, so it may not be so noticable. Well, except that poor snowman's eyes look kind of...wandering. Hey,you! Are you looking at ME?

You can call me Long-winded Stitcher today

I’ve had some interesting reading over at Anna’s blog, where she references an article about the popularity of scrapbooking that unfortunately takes a poke at cross-stitching. If you haven’t bopped over there yet, here is the text from the Pioneer Press:

"I believe that scrapbooking is not going to die out like, let's say, cross-stitch, because everybody continues to take photos," she said. "The industry's going to change and evolve along with technology. Scrapbooking will always be around." Chris Dunrud, president of the Midwest Scrapbook Association

I’ve been stitching since 1982, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. Regardless, I’ve always watched what was happening in the cross-stitch world and over the years it has always remained my favorite pastime. I’ve taken side trips into quilting, knitting, brazilian embroidery, wreath making, flower arranging, and rubber-stamping, to name a few. Some of those I’ve kept a hand in. Others I’ve put away, saying, “What was I thinking??” Yet I’ve always come back to cross-stitch. My guess is that most of us (stitching bloggers) have done the same.

Now, I don’t want to get into comparing which is “better”, scrapbooking or cross-stitch. Hey, whatever craft/art floats your boat. Find it, do it, love it. I think that Ms. Dunrud just made an off the cuff comment. Either that, or she just isn’t very observant. So here are my observations, and keep in mind that they are just that. My observations. I’m not an industry insider. I don’t get or read any crafting trade publications. I don’t own a store in that particular industry. But I do shop…and these are my opinions.

Of course scrapbooking looks like it’s thriving. Go into any big box craft store and you’ll see the hottest stuff, front and center, taking up huge amounts of space. Right now that’s scrapbooking (and jewelry making, but let’s not muddy the waters with that today). Obviously, scrapbooking is selling well, because in retail, SPACE=MONEY. Cross-stitch supplies are usually found towards the back of the store, with maybe 15 feet of shelf space for fabrics, threads, and supplies, and another 6 feet for Leisure Arts books.

Here’s the thing, though. Hasn’t it always been like that?

In the past almost-25 years, these big box stores have grown in size and multiplied in number like crazy. I’d say that the today’s average Michael’s is at least three times bigger than the stores of 10 years ago. Yet cross-stitch is still occupying the same space. Does that mean that it died? I don’t think so. The big boxes carry art supplies, too, in a small space in the back, and I don’t think that drawing and painting have died, either. And let’s not forget quilting supplies. They get even less space in the big craft retailers, but it would be ludicrous to say that quilting has died. These three examples just don’t thrive in big craft stores. And I think this is why:

Some crafts, like scrapbooking, are perfect for big box stores. It looks simple enough, so anyone will be tempted to try it. The supplies are fantastic for big-box retailing. It’s pre-cut, pre-packaged, colorful, with lots of variety, and offers instant gratification. A perfect impulse item! A beginner could take her stuff home and zip together pages with pre-cut shapes and stickers and your photos and create a lovely scrapbook page in under an hour. Add to that my opinion that women and girls are drawn to all things paper (ok, maybe it’s just me), and you have a very hot retail item, and if it’s profitable, let me tell you, it will get tons of the shelf space. So, for the sake of all of the folks employed by these huge stores, we wish scrapbooking a long and happy life. (How long its life will be is debatable though, because I think that my kids’ generation prefers digital images to photographs, but only time will tell.)

Needlecraft just isn’t suited to mega-store retailing. It’s not a “grab-go-finish” item. In the case of cross-stitch, the customer/crafter must be able to visualize the finished project, starting with a black and white paper with little marks on it, a blank piece of fabric, and a bag full of embroidery thread. A beginning quilter must be able to visualize her project from template measurements to bolts of fabric, to a finished quilt. The beginner needs a little reassurance maybe. Or a little guidance. That’s not happening in these huge stores. They carry some of our supplies, probably just to service us minimally. So we look to small, specialty stores.

And I’ll repeat, hasn’t it always been like that?

To be sure, the number of brick and mortar specialty cross-stitch shops has dwindled over the years. However, the number of small, specialty shops for any type of retail enterprise has dwindled. Where I live in typical small-town America, we’ve lost our small paint stores, yarn shops, quilt shops, art supply stores, hardware stores, corner grocery stores, dress shops, camera shops, hobby shops, and bakeries, and several more that I just can’t think of right now. (Maybe the current exception is the knitting supply industry, but let’s see what happens with those shops in the next 5-10 years.) So I believe that losing brick and mortar cross-stitch shops is part of that trend. On the other hand, look at the proliferation of online shops. While we needle artists prefer to handle and see our supplies in person, if we don’t have a local shop, the online store fills a need that is still there, and in fact creates more need because we see so much more online than a real-life store can possibly carry in its square footage. The variety and the volume of new designs for cross stitchers is mind-boggling, as well as the new fibers, embellishments and fabrics. So smart shop-owners have augmented in-store sales with online sales, newsletters, and expedient special orders. I see only good things ahead, and I think it’s a very exciting time now for needleworkers.

Which brings me to the next question – needlework for the future. I think that as long as needlework continues to evolve, it will always be around. Certainly its face will change, just as our tastes and fashions change. Some stuff that I swooned over 20 years ago leaves me cold now. I can also see how designs, motifs, and styles have re-emerged. No doubt we’ll be surprised at what designers are publishing in 10 years…and then we’ll find that it’s pretty cool and yes, we’ll buy it!

And let’s not forget the power of the stitching community, in particular the online stitching community. For the first 20 years of my stitching, really, I felt like I was the only one out there. If I wanted to find friends to quilt with, it was no problem. There were hundreds of them. Church groups, guilds, etc. If I wanted to find friends to do flower arranging, heck, there were tons of garden clubs. But cross-stitchers? Well, not around here, anyway. When the kids were little, I answered pen-pal ads in JCS magazine (remember when they had those?), and found a couple of stitching pen pals. WELL, in the late 90’s we got a computer and the internet and WOW, have I found a stitching community! Although face to face is the best type of community, we are thrilled with our ability to communicate with each other with words…and pictures! Blogs, online groups like Yahoo and Ezboard, and our own personal webpages absolutely draw us together as a community. It’s really fabulous.

Ok, that addresses the future of the art with existing stitchers, but the fact is we won’t be around forever. What about the next generation? I’ve read so many stories saying that needlearts seemed to skip a generation in their family…I figure it must be true. Is it part of a kid’s desire to separate from her parents? I don’t know…I know that in my own family my grandmothers were always doing some kind of handwork, like embroidery, crochet, or knitting, and it made my mother crazy. She said it made her nervous to sit with them because it seemed like they couldn’t sit still. My mom was a reader. She always had a book going. And I’m a stitcher. My own daughter cringes at the thought of picking up a needle, yet her sketchbook is full and she’ll spend hours and hours on a sketch. What’s the answer? I don’t know. If you are happy with your art, then that’s all that matters. Keep at it. One day someone younger than you will look at what you are doing and think it’s cool and ask you about it. And then needleart will continue from there. It’ll just happen, so why worry about it?

OK, I’m off to stitch something that I wouldn’t have dreamed of stitching 20 years ago….now you should go, too!