INDEPENDENT NEEDLEWORK NEWS

As you all know, Jenna Magee has been INN’s “technical support person” for many months now and has repeatedly proven herself an invaluable asset. So far, the best I’ve been able to come up with for her is an unwieldy title (in fact, I’ve decided to run a contest to select an appropriate title for Jenna regarding her INN contributions).

Therefore, it is always with great pleasure that I advertise anything on behalf of Jenna’s online needlework shop. Of course, I’m happy do the same for any and all needlework shops, designers, and so on — there just aren’t enough hours in the day, LOL — but without Jenna, I would not be able to bring INN to you, or at least, I would not be able to bring INN to you at the high standards I demand of myself.

It is One Star’s Light Needlework Supplies‘ first Black Friday, and in honor of that — and also to help ensure you don’t need to leave your house to do any holiday shopping — Jenna is having a big sale.

All orders placed today, Friday, November 23rd, will be 25% off !!! The sale continues until 11:59 p.m. eastern time and requires coupon code BlackFriday2007.

So, please take this opportunity to treat yourself to a few special things … and help congratulate Jenna on her first of many Black Fridays in business!

Technorati Tags: cross stitch, Jenna Magee, One Star’s Light Needlework Supplies, sale, Christmas, holiday, shopping, gift

… that doesn’t sound like she runs around in a bathing suit all the time?

As you all know, Jenna Magee is INN’s “technical support person.” She has very kindly been providing me with extensive technical support for many months now. I wish I could afford to pay her. First of all, she’s so good at what she does that I’d love to make it possible for her to quit her day job (if she wished to do so, of course). Secondly, I could definitely make use of her talents full time (it still amazes me how quickly INN has taken off … if I can just get the advertisements up within the next week, I’ll be ecstatic!). In addition, she’s also provided unfailing friendship even though so far all I’ve come up with for her is such an unwieldy title …

So, I’ve decided to run a contest to select an appropriate title for Jenna’s INN contributions.

Individuals may enter once so choose carefully. All entries should be accompanied by your first and last name, and your city and state (or, for international INN readers, the equivalent of that information is fine). Email your suggestion to me no later than midnight Chicago time on Friday, November 30th. Non-stitchers are welcome to enter; however, if you do not stitch, please let me know in your entry email so I can select your prize accordingly.

The winner of the contest will be selected at my sole discretion after Jenna has privately accepted her new formal title.

The prize is guaranteed to be worth at least $25.

Technorati Tags: Jenna Magee, technical support, contest, INN, Independent Needlework News

You can get all your holiday shopping from home today instead … Handcrafts Online (Blogroll) is offering free shipping on all orders placed through Sunday, November 25th, so save on gas, avoid the hoards at the malls, and do your shopping from home!

Not everyone on your list is a stitcher? Well then, you still have options. You can stitch fast, made easier on you because Handcraft Online offers a complete or partial kitting service to its customers so you can get started right away.

Or your gift can be the promise of stitching lessons and time spent together with your loved one(s). You would be not only creating (a) new stitcher(s) and great memories by doing so, but you’d also be giving a gift which keeps on giving — for a lifetime.

Technorati Tags: eHandcrafts, cross stitch, Christmas, Black Friday, holiday, gift

Once again … I must apologize for the unplanned delay … but wasn’t it spooky? (Planned delays, of course, are just plain annoying, but fortunately do not occur when one is self-employed. Or self-unemployed. Or whatever.)

Here, at long last, but no less the worse for the wait, are the well-deserved winners of the Wonderful XS World (wXSw) Halloween Stitch-a-long (SAL) Contests.

Most Bootiful Tree

The competition in this category was very, very stiff. INN readers were charmed by several different styles of finished trees, from the scary to the folksy to the Halloweenishly lovely. It was a close race, but the results are in, and it is well past time to announce the winners.

Taking first place and also being awarded her choice of one design from each of our three SAL designers (Helga Mandl Designs, Periphaeria Designs, and Tam’s Creations) is …

… Karen Gieselman !!!

Mere votes behind to take second place and her choice of a design from two of our participating designers is …

… Lauren Kuik !!!

And just a few tiny votes behind her to take third place and her choice of one design from one of our participating designers is …

Joni Gochenour-Lehman !!!

Most Creative Display

INN Readers really had a good time voting in the next category, and as this particular category only has one sponsored award this year, it was really exciting to see we had one very clear winner.

Without further ado, many congratulations to the winner in the Most Creative Display category … for a tree which showed not just pizzazz and creativity, but also a big warm heart and good fun:

… Karen Gieselman !!! Karen is hereby the winner of a $50 Gift Certificate from Enchanted Fabrics! Karen, who lives in a small town and thus has to make most of her things herself, obviously had a lot of fun decorating this year. Her Halloween tree is made of tomato cages and papier mache and stands over five feet tall! Everything except the tombstones and the car were homemade by Karen with her family!

Most Creative Individual Finishing

The choices were a bit more difficult for INN readers to choose their favorites in the category for Most Creative Individual Finishing, although we did have a clear favorite in first place. Her finishing idea was so charmingly beguiling that I, for one, double-checked my pattern printouts to make sure I’d actually received all of them! For her exquisitely tricky and even magical idea, first place along with a $20 gift certificate and free postage from Violarium belong to …

… Rita De Graeve !!! Rita, I personally must thank you for such an inspirational finishing idea. It puts a big smile on my face every time I think of it, and reminds me of many good games of Battleship with my brother many years ago (I used to love cramming all my ships into one tiny little area … all that open sea for him to miss when he tried to bomb my ships, LOL … It’s one of my fondest childhood memories, and was nearly forgotten way back in those deep recesses until now.), and both the smiles and the good memories are much appreciated.

Second place and a year’s subscription to The Gift of Stitching online magazine go to …

… Karen Gieselman ! Are those old jeans? Maybe a pair that you accidentally spilled bleach onto? Just wondering because I am still amazed at all this creativity, and my mind is going a mile a minute — well, okay, half a mile a minute, as I did just get out of the hospital a few days ago — at the recycling opportunities for Halloween decor all of a sudden!

Third place and a $10 gift certificate (plus free postage) from Violarium is awarded to …

… oh, now this is just too spooky!

We have a TIE!

Joni Gochenour-Lehman (upper photo) and Joan Pavlick (we love those big, hairy spiders with the googly eyes — just as long as we know they aren’t real — don’t we?) have BOTH taken third place! What now? Will we have to have a stitch-off?

Because the Christmas SAL on wXSw is already in progress … ?

Not to worry! We’re all set, with many thanks to Leena from Violarium, who very generously agreed to sponsor both third place awards.

To all of our contestants, thank you so much for entering. Our pointy hats are off to you for a truly fun competition that made each and every little (and big) hurdle getting here worthwhile. We hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as we enjoyed watching things develop, and we are already putting ideas to percolate in our cauldrons for next year — so you might want to do the same!

That wraps up not only the first annual wXSw Halloween SAL Contest, but also the first ever contest intended to be hosted by Independent Needlework News, while actually being hosted by One Star’s Light Needlework Supplies.

Once again, thank you to all of our generous prize sponsors (all in the Blogroll):

Enchanted Fabrics,
The Gift of Stitching,
Independent Needlework News,
Helga Mandl Designs,
Periphaeria Designs,
QSnap Huggers,
Tam’s Creations, and
Violarium

Please don’t forget to stay tuned here to INN to see if YOU might be the prize-winner drawn randomly from the voting group! That’s where the as yet mysteriously “absent” (because I negotiated for that a while back … and thank you again, Kim!) QSnap Hugger mentioned above as a prize sponsor will make itself known along with some other stitchy goodness. Just as soon as the validation emails seem to have finished coming in (I had no idea there were to be so many, LOL), I’ll get my randomizing research team on the job, and we’ll get that award taken care of, too!

Technorati Tags: wXSw, Halloween, cross stitch, needlework, contest, competition, Wonderful XS World, Bootiful Tree, Creative Display, Creative Individual Finishing, Independent Needlework News, Random Voter Prize, Violarium, Gift of Stitching, Enchanted Fabrics, Periphaeria Designs, Helga Mandl, HMDesigns, Tam’s Creations, Jenna Magee, One Star’s Light Needlework Supplies, Karen Gieselman, Joni Gochenour-Lehman, Joan Pavlick, Rita De Maeve, Lauren Kuik

… not THE abyss, perhaps … but AN abyss, nevertheless.

At least this time I did not put my toe into the depths, as happened in the late nineties when I was thirty and my heart stopped for eleven seconds. I still have that flatline printout as a reminder that every moment is precious. Sometimes, I still forget.

First, an apology to my readers and a thank you to Jenna for updating you briefly.

This time, it was my turn to be in the hospital, DH hardly manageded to visit (due to his paying job), and I’m not entirely clear on many of the medical details of the situation because, basically, my body nearly shut down for good.

The scariest details would be that my blood pressure was 62/39 (barely conscious, so it really is more amazing I remember so MUCH of the situation, hazily or otherwise), I went into acute kidney failure, and I was so anemic it was the equivalent of missing two pints of blood. (I wonder whose I received back to keep me going? I wondered lots of things about each of you — Do you stitch? What might you have been reading, or did you perhaps nod off, while you donated your pint for me? — as I lay watching your blood run slowly down into my arm … )

Obviously, it is extremely important that my primary care doctor and the flunky Illinois doctors he has to work with determine WHERE I am losing all that blood, and that they do so fast, or … well. I mean unwell.

It is, as yet, unclear exactly what went awry first — the kidney failure or the anemia? Perhaps it doesn’t matter, but in my mind, it seems the anemia is now the more important issue. In the doctors’ minds, the kidney failure is currently primary, even though my kidneys are now functioning normally (minus the frequent kidney stones, of which I have suffered three just since returning home). I can understand that when the body’s organs fail in a certain order, as they do, it is important to restart certain things first and get them working normally. What I cannot understand is to continue focusing on only the worst symptom (in fact, death itself is only a symptom if you look at things a certain way), rather than on seeking the ultimate cause.

At the same time, I am tired. SO tired. It’s really, really hard to keep trying to fight for even your life when the doctors all just look at you as if you are being silly to do so, and I have pretty much run out of doctors in this area to consult — or to even be legally ALLOWED to consult. In addition, I am losing my ability to drive. My doctor has so far refused to take away that privilege, but the fact remains that I am less and less able to safely drive because of the terrible vertigo and the unpredictable blood pressure. Going to new doctors even further away is simply an impossibility for me at this point.

In any case, determining which things are causes and which are effects is befuddling to even the very few C student Illinois doctors, and so … my actually rather good A- doctor is trying to run the show without an awful lot of things he really could use in that black doctor’s bag of his.

With that, I must thank all of you for your many, many, MANY lovely emails, comments, and even telephone calls. So, too, for your prayers, warm thoughts, well wishes, or however you might choose to phrase such things, which most certainly must have been swirling around in Illinois’ November winds, protecting me from who knows what harm in my dizzy, oh-SO-dizzy, anemic, double-visioned haze. It will be weeks before I am able to respond in kind to everyone, unless I can determine some way to convince the cats they actually work for me, rather than the other way around …

Oh, wait … they ARE working for me, as there is no need whatsoever for an electric blanket in this house, even when my blood pressure IS far too low. Always, always, ALWAYS remember to give credit where credit is due!

I will very soon (starting Saturday, in fact, so look for another hiatus shortly … but I am trying very hard to complete outstanding issues first here on INN) be headed to Michigan for a consult with an A+ doctor in hopes of having her interface by phone with my primary care doctor here. Weather and wheels willing, I’ll be back again and trying to get more into the INN swing of things by late next Wednesday, November 21st, or possibly early the next morning.

This post has already grown much longer and more expansive than I intended. Further details will likely appear on my personal blog for those who may be interested.

Technorati Tags: Heather Orn, Heather L Orn

Hi folks, this is Jenna Magee - Heather’s technical support person. I just received the following information in an email from Heather’s husband: “Heather is in the hospital right now, they are running tests to find out what is wrong. We don’t know much yet.”

I will post an update when I know more.

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