INDEPENDENT NEEDLEWORK NEWS

I apologize for disappearing, or seeming to, for a while here recently. I had actually gone up to Michigan for what should be routine medical care (pain management) but isn’t because no Illinois doctors have been willing to provide it — which I know because I’ve been trying to obtain it for over five years while becoming exceedingly worse in the meantime. In fact, only six physicians in the entire state of Illinois are apparently ever willing to provide it, and that includes not just for patients with missing limbs, chronic pain, and so on, but also for those dying from cancer or AIDS. Unfortunately, my friend Creel’s mother never encountered one of those six before dying of two different types of cancer.

I swear, Illinois is the state where all the doctors who just barely manage NOT to flunk out of medical school come to practice. Well, they have to go somewhere, you know! You don’t think they paid all that money to just barely get medical degrees and then aren’t using them, do you? Yes, of course, the students who only graduated to MDs and ODs because of a curve — and barely made it through medical school that way — are out there practicing on people like you and me! How else can they pay off their massive school loans?

One of the reasons this situation is so awfully horrible is because there are only two reasons a doctor can lose his or her license. One is to kill a patient. The other is to over-prescribe narcotics. The really pathetic thing is that most doctors are so far under-prescribing narcotics that they are killing patients by way of suicide instead … but society hasn’t figured out a good way to prove that type of case yet. I believe we WILL figure it out; we just aren’t there yet.

Anyway, infuriated with extremely good reason, depressed by the situation but NOT chemically depressed (as insisted upon by so many doctors, and even by quite a few of my friends — quite incorrectly … and I DO know what the difference is, having been severely chemically AND situationally depressed back in 2000), in pretty close to absolute desperation, frustrated into giving up on Illinois but unwilling to give up on myself, and still FAR from suicidal because I have way too much left to stitch, I chose to go to Michigan to a real state-of-the-art hospital and medical organization to see the doctor of a friend with some of the same health issues I have whose doctor readily prescribes REAL pain relievers for her as needed.

By “REAL pain relievers,” yes, I do mean narcotics — those wonderful pills which are so much less damaging to your liver than Tylenol, and so much less damaging to your digestive system than Ibuprofen. My liver is half again as big as it should be from Tylenol abuse because doctors here won’t prescribe — and Tylenol was barely working anyway. I was going through the 250 pill bottle every week at one point just to take the edge off! The Ibuprofen was just as bad for me — and just as ineffective.

Did you know the addictive potential of narcotics is almost exclusive to healthy individuals who have no pain to start with, while people who take narcotics for pain never experience a “high” from them because the medication simply relieves their pain (which is all the “high” a person who lives in chronic pain seeks)?

Anyway, I was gone just over ten days and my time while away in Michigan wasn’t too spotty as far as keeping up with Independent Needlework News was concerned. It was extremely frustrating, however, and not quite up to my own wishes or standards because I was fighting with a 24K dial-up (even though she has a 56K modem, she doesn’t think there’s any reason to call her ISP and have them check the situation out, and no amount of trying to explain to her why she should be getting better service would change her bullheaded mind) at the house of the friend I was staying with while in Michigan.

You’d think it would have been really great to get home, but while I was away, my dear father-in-law unfortunately had to be admitted to the hospital, where he later became a victim of medical malpractice, dying senselessly, needlessly, and quite unexpectedly while at one of the most well-known hospitals in this area of the country.

So perhaps you can imagine my frustration at receiving the following comment at this particular time from reader Amy Frost:

To whom it my [sic] concern,

I heard about 6 months ago that my favorite thread company Needle Necessities [sic] is going out of business. I have been trying to get some answers on this for months. The place I normally buy my thread told me that she has been waiting for her back-orders for about 10 months now. I have been online looking for the Floss and Pearls that I normally use for my class that I have been teaching for 10 years. I cannot understand why no one has what I’m looking for! I have tried other brands but nothing looks as nice as the Needle Necessities brand.

Today I finaly [sic] called Needle Necessities myself for the 1st time and spoke with the manager, Debbie. She told me that they are no longer in business. I cannot believe this! What makes me upset is that on your website it reads the following information “Needle Necessities NOT, Repeat NOT, Going Out of Business”. [sic] Who do you think you are? your [sic] readers are relying on you for accurate information. This is so disappointing!!!!

Sincerely,
Amy Frost

When I wrote my first article titled Needle Necessities NOT, Repeat NOT, Going Out of Business at the behest of a reader who wished to remain anonymous, I also spoke with the front Office Manager, Debbie BuSteed, just as Amy did. At that time, on Tuesday, August 21, 2007, Debbie vehemently insisted Needle Necessities was NOT going out of business, and that if it were, she would know. Accordingly, that is what I reported.

Unfortunately, Needle Necessities has had some difficulties in the past year or so, including employee transitions which resulting in falling behind on numerous orders. Apparently, these difficulties eventually resulted in the owner of Needle Necessities making the decision to actually close the business. Debbie BuSteed, whom I spoke with again after receiving your comment, Amy, confirmed that the owner had informed her on Monday, September 10, 2007, that the business would be closing. She did not intentionally mislead or lie to me, nor did I intentionally mislead or lie to you. I trusted my source, who was the best source of information I could get at the time — and who still remained the best source of information even when you contacted her and then when I contacted her again. The only “problem” is that Debbie is perhaps a more optimistic person than she should have been in this particular situation — but with a company which had been in business as long as Needle Necessities has, I think I would have tended to err in the same direction myself.

Debbie’s priority since then has been on finding a new job, combined with finishing up the work which remains for her to complete at Needle Necessities (which sounds like quite a bit, actually, especially as there are only two remaining employees) which is one reason she did not inform me so that I could inform you instead of your informing me.

My priority has been on first my father-in-law, and then after his death on supporting my husband and the rest of his family, along with taking care of my own health instead of rushing to inform the rest of the public.

As for your wholly inappropriate and offensive question, “Who do you think you are?” I am the sole owner, investigative reporter, and writer of Independent Needlework News. So far, all the work I’ve done here at Independent Needlework News has been for FREE because I haven’t figured out how to place the ads onto the site, and the person who said she’d help out with that kind of technical support stuff has apparently not had time to work on any of those things. Just because my tag line says, “It’s like CNN, but all needlework news, all the time!” doesn’t mean I’m working 24-7-365 or that various individuals are working for me to cover things 24-7-365. Needlework is important, but not that important. What the tag line actually means is that you can come to Independent Needlework News 24-7-365 for needlework news … and I think pretty much everyone except you understood that prior to this; if not, they will now.

As for me, I still do not feel particularly up to regular blogging for Independent Needlework News or anywhere else. It seemed the doctor in Michigan had been a big help, but then Dad died and now nothing is working. I’m not really sleeping well or eating. I’m grieving and barely holding it together for my husband. This threw a financial wrench into things also that is making life extremely difficult, and I have another trip to Michigan in a couple of weeks that I don’t know how I’m going to manage … except I know it will cost more than the last one did for a shorter stay because I’ll need a hotel, rental car, and so on.

But getting back to work on Independent Needlework News is probably a good idea. That will help restore a sense of normalcy. Maybe I’ll feel like stitching, which always makes me feel good.

Perhaps some of you will let me know of big sales of Needle Necessities floss.

Technorati Tags: Needle Necessities, rumor, out of business, needlework, pain management, health care, medical malpractice, routine medical care, Illinois, narcotic, opioid

Distributor Norden Crafts has a very informative article called Copyrights and Copywrongs on their website.  It gives you the basics on copyright law as it pertains to the needlework industry.

This article is about as close as you can get to finding copyright information pertaining to the needlework industry “in a nutshell.” Even though I have been studying copyright law with regard to needlework for many years now, even I still find it confusing at times. 

In fact, that is one of the biggest problems with copyright law, in my opinion – that it is so confusing.  I focus on it often here on Independent Needlework News as a service  to you and to the industry I love because, most of the time, understanding is the key to compliance.  It is difficult to follow a law you don’t understand because you don’t know if what you are doing is correct or not.  However, ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law, and the penalties for copyright infringement are too high — this is DEFINITELY one law you do NOT want to break for a MULTITUDE of reasons.   

Norden Craft’s article helps answer some of the more confusing questions in a fairly clear way. I recommend it to you as something to read today, and then as something to review perhaps once every six months or so — just to keep these thoughts fresh in your own mind so that your actions are always clearly in line with copyright laws.

Bookmark this site, too, for those times when you have questions!

By the way, if you are wondering why a needlework distributor is interested in copyright law, it is because needlework distributors are affected by the illegal copying of needlework patterns, too.  Copyright infringement hurts the needlework industry AT EVERY SINGLE LEVEL.

Let’s say this distributor normally sells ten copies each of ten different patterns to each shop (100 patterns total). If one customer from each shop buys one copy of each of those ten different patterns and makes ten illegal copies of each of those patterns, which they then illegally give to ten different friends, then those friends do not need to buy the original patterns (which means the shop loses their business).  Now the other nine of each of those patterns waiting to be bought by customers are still sitting on the shop’s shelves …

And let’s not forget to do the math, either.  Suppose each of those ten different patterns retails for $10, which is getting to be a fairly average price nowadays.  Just one set of those ten patterns at retail value would be $100! With just one customer from each shop giving away ten copies of ten patterns to ten friends, the shop would lose $1000!  Nine more shops around the country would also lose $1000 each!

When the shops don’t sell the patterns they expect to sell, they don’t reorder as soon as they expected to and/or they don’t have the funds to place new orders for other products. This means the distributors are now not receiving orders like they used to — either they are receiving smaller orders, or their orders are coming in farther and farther apart.

It took a little while, but in the end, both the shop AND the distributor lost business, and that is why Norden Crafts has made this article available to you. They want you to understand that if you make a copy of a pattern for a friend or accept a copy of a pattern from a friend, it is hurting their business, too.

What’s more important, perhaps, at least to you, is that Norden Crafts wants you to understand that when you cause your shop to lose business in this way, then you give your shop two choices, neither of which is particularly appealing: raise their prices or go out of business. Which one do you prefer?

I prefer my shop stay in business AND be able to keep their prices lower, so I refuse to make or accept illegal copies of patterns. Please do the same.

JUST SAY NO TO COPYWRONGS !!!

Technorati Tags: Norden Crafts, copyrights, copywrongs, needlework, copyright, infringement

Well, I certainly am … I even want an owl named Hedwig, although I’m certain my cats would disapprove. But there’s a solution to that problem — needlework always offers a solution to problems like that!

This one comes to us from Meg Thompson Shinall, the daughter of Ginnie and Ken Thompson — who-who together brought to America so many of the counted thread techniques we have grown to love today. Meg also continues to stitch all of her models with the popular though — in my opinion — not nearly often enough used, Ginnie Thompson Flower Thread.

Now, with Meg’s latest design, you, too, can have your very own Hedwig. Maybe that isn’t what Meg intended for you to call this darling owl, because she named it the Life’s a Hoot Owl Case; however, somehow I have a feeling she won’t mind too much that I’ll be calling mine Hedwig, for who-whom I can hardly wait to arrive on my doorstep!

If looking at the front of this darling kit doesn’t convince you, then just take a quick peek at the darling little baby owls on Flower Thread’s homepage!

Your $30 kit includes the Putford scissors and may be stitched in just one weekend. Kits are limited, so please make your orders soon — and then please allow six weeks for your kit to be specially put together just for you!

Before you hit your final order button, though, be sure to take a look around the rest of the Flower Thread Stash Enhancement Experience area … Who-who knows what else might have to go into your cart, too?

Technorati Tags: Meg Thompson Shinall, Meg Shinall, Flower Thread, Putford scissors, cross stitch, Harry Potter, Hedwig, owl, Life’s a Hoot, needlework

I received a question from a reader (who prefers to remain anonymous, but thank you all the same for giving me the opportunity to weigh in on this very important NEWS ISSUE within the needlework community) late yesterday asking me to confirm or deny a rumor going around that popular thread company (certainly one of MY personal favorites!) Needle Necessities either has gone or is going out of business.

This rumor is COMPLETELY FALSE.

I spoke directly with Debbie BuSteed, Needle Necessities’ front Office Manager, on the telephone just minutes ago using the main Needle Necessities number posted on their website (714-892-9211). Debbie was very forthcoming and confirmed that while she has heard the rumor and received numerous calls about its veracity, it is NOT TRUE. If ANYONE would know whether or not this rumor were true, it would be Debbie.

Perhaps partly fueling the FALSE rumor is the fact that a few Needle Necessities’ employees have chosen to leave the company for personal reasons. Therefore, Needle Necessities has been running shorthanded, which has in some cases left them somewhat behind in filling orders.

However, they are catching up with all their employees pitching in wherever they can. Debbie herself is doing pretty much everything from answering the phones and taking orders right through to shipping — except the actual dyeing, she says, which she does not know how to do.

***************************************************************************

Now, on a somewhat different note, I would just like to refer you to another of my absolute favorite Internet resources. It’s called the Internet Tourbus, is written with intelligence and a generous dose of good humor by Bob Rankin and Patrick Crispen, and I have been subscribing to it for literally YEARS, even though I know the Internet pretty well by now. In particular, I would like to mention an archived Internet Tourbus issue concerning people who have spread false rumors which resulted in harming a company’s business … And THAT resulted in those people being SUED by a big company — Proctor & Gamble, to be specific … And the little people LOST the lawsuits — BIG TIME — because they had lied without bothering to check their facts, and thus were deemed to have willfully harmed Proctor & Gamble’s business.

So my personal advice to anyone who has been spreading this rumor about Needle Necessities which I have now FLATLY DEBUNKED is that you post immediate retractions everywhere you posted the rumor ASAP to CYA. Better to be as safe as possible at this point than sorrier than horse poop. Feel free to refer people to this article here on Independent Needlework News for the facts; the direct link to this article is:

http://independentneedleworknews.com/2007/08/21/nn-not-out-of-business/

or you can also use the TinyURL code: http://tinyurl.com/2gru83

And sign up (or as Bob and Patrick call it, get a free ticket) for the Internet Tourbus, too. You’ll enjoy it; I promise!

Technorati Tags: Needle Necessities, rumor, out of business, Internet Tourbus, Proctor & Gamble, lawsuit, sue, Bob Rankin, Patrick Crispen

The Thread Basket is a delightful online and mail order shop I’ve recently discovered which I’ll be finding all kinds of reasons to mention to you — the first of which is the fact that store owner Valerie speaks fluent English and French, lives in the US, carries many of those hard to obtain French designs we US stitchers are finding so attractive lately (such as Bleu de Soie, Calendula Creations, Les Creations de Chrystelle, and — my favorite so far — Tournicoton), travels to France, plans to stock more French designs, wants to know what her customers would like to see her carry, and accepts US checks and PayPal as payment.

However, today I want to let you know Valerie has recently gotten in stock a number of chillingly spooky fabrics available in fat quarters. They’re just perfect for finishing off those Halloween ornaments you’re working on for the Halloween tree competition sponsored by Wonderful XS World! Or how about a quick tree skirt for your Halloween tree?

Or if you’re not participating in that Halloween SAL, just think how charming these would be in a Halloween themed quilt or crazy quilt!

Shoot, you might need to put these fabrics on your wish list because I don’t know how much Valerie has of each in stock — and I want at least a yard of each for myself now that I’ve come up with all these ideas … Oh, but then I won’t have time for Independent Needlework News, so I guess you win after all.

Pictured here are Haunted Mansions and Dancing Skeletons, which are just two of the great Halloween-y fabrics Valerie has in her shop right now for your benefit!

Technorati Tags: Thread Basket, French, Bleu de Soie, Calendula, Les Creations de Chrystelle, Tournicoton, crazy quilt, quilt, needlework, cross stitch, fat quarter, Halloween, autumn, fall, wXSw, Wonderful XS World, ornament, fabric, finishing