INDEPENDENT NEEDLEWORK NEWS

Most of us have seen this coming, as we watched the number of Stitching Festival shows around the country be cut back drastically over the last few years … until this year, when there was only one show in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and, of course, there was a great deal of chatter and speculation because it took a rather frighteningly long time for the Stitching Festival website to be updated with 2007’s class and other show information. However, it is still with a very heavy needle that I write of this stitching tragedy: Liz Turner Diehl (Blogroll) and Stoney Creek’s (Blogroll) Marilyn Vredevelt have announced that the Stitching Festivals, previously called the Creative Arts and Teaching Show (CATS), previously called the Creative Arts and Textiles Show (also CATS), have officially closed their doors.

In my opinion, the name changes hurt their business, as did the fact that they never had a location which served midwestern US stitchers well (a very surprising thing, since Stoney Creek, who was one of the main sponsors and coordinators of the show for its entire run, is located in a beautiful midwestern city itself — Grand Rapids, Michigan) — Des Moines was and is just too out of the way and too small to fit the bill. What about St. Louis or Chicago — both cities with huge, dynamic, international airports (and at least halfway decent public transportation, too)? Too expensive? Then go to a suburb of one of those cities instead; just going 15 to 30 minutes from the airport would reduce costs dramatically for both event organizers and event attendees. Too busy and confusing traffic-wise? (What? Compared to New York City or Atlanta? LOL … ) Then what about a city like Indianapolis? It’s got a slightly smaller but still very functional international airport, though it does not have the halfway decent public transportation Chicago and St. Louis do (of course, if you leave the downtown area of either of those cities, public transportation is a crapshoot or non-existent anyway). And there are easily dozens of midwestern cities I’ve never been to which would make great locations for a “traveling stitching festival” — cities YOU know and love because you live in, or have been to them for one reason or another. Please see below, because I want to hear about them.

The good news — at least for east coast stitchers (the thousands upon thousands of midwestern stitchers are still being left out, unfortunately), is Marilyn decided almost immediately that she couldn’t desert us completely. Therefore, she announced Stoney Creek will be organizing a new event called the Stitching Jubilee, which will begin next year. It will start off occurring in only one location: Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, from October 2 - 4, 2008. Marilyn is promising that the new website (Blogroll) will be up and running no later than January 15, 2008. (I’ll keep checking and will make a post to let you know when it IS up and running; right now, clicking on that link will give you an error.) In the meantime, you already can sign up for more information here (Blogroll). Further information will also be available, of course, in Stoney Creek Cross Stitch Collection magazine, which is one of my favorite subscriptions.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to swing a trip to Valley Forge myself (which is a location I personally preferred to the Hershey location. I got the chance to check them both out when I lived in New Jersey, at which time they were conveniently located for me, and I was constantly hungry in Hershey … must have been the smell of chocolate in the air because that’s all I wanted to eat, too! I think I gained twenty pounds every weekend I went there, LOL), but I’ll definitely try. I hope a lot of you will try, too, because if this venture doesn’t do well, clearly, it won’t continue.

Although it makes perfect business sense for Marilyn to select the east coast to begin her Stitching Jubilee venture, as the east coast is where the Stitching Festival was always most successful, I look forward to seeing the Stitching Jubilee grow — and I hope THIS venture will grow WELL into the midwest, too. With that in mind, I want to hear from you, as mentioned above. Despite all my traveling, there are literally dozens of great midwestern cities I have never been to and thus know little to nothing about; I want to help Marilyn select the BEST and most viable choices for Stitching Jubilee locations, but I need your help to do it. So I hope stitchers from all over the midwest (and anywhere else, if you’d be willing to travel to the midwest) will comment on this post with their suggestions for a midwestern location you would find convenient to attend — wherever that may be. Please tell me not only the name of the city, but also the reasons it would make a great location for the Stitching Jubilee. If I get enough responses (at least one hundred) I’ll forward the answers to Marilyn myself — but only if those answers wouldn’t make it look like I’d sprayed buckshot all over the center of a US map! So please try to consider traveling instead of having it in your back yard (unless you’re already located in a really good location with a great airport ). The location needs to be within a four to six hour drive of most of the rest of the midwest to be “perfect,” and it must have a really good international airport. (Why international?  Because we want the Stitching Jubilee to be able to bring us designers from other countries to teach classes, too, and because there are always a good-sized number of stitchers from around the world who manage to travel to an event such as this if they are provided with the requiremed means to do so; we certainly don’t want to leave those stitchers out because if they can afford to travel to this event, then they can probably also afford to spend money on classes and in the market to help make it a rousing success! )  A good public transportation system is a huge plus, and having a train hub is also a significant plus, in my opinion.  (Personally, I’d far rather take a train than drive myself — OR fly.  If I were traveling with someone else and thus sharing gas costs and the driving, then driving becomes a bit more attractive … but not much, LOL, as I could be stitching all the way on a train!)  Also, please tell every stitcher you know about this post, so that we get enough comments to make this a worthwhile survey. . Here are the links to this post (just highlight, copy, and paste): http://independentneedleworknews.com/2007/12/16/stitching-jubilee/ or http://tinyurl.com/34v4jg

Please help me help Marilyn bring the Stitching Jubilee to ALL stitchers! After all, this is the season of giving … It’s time to give back to a designer who has given us a great deal over the years.

Technorati Tags: CATS, Creative Arts and Textiles Show, Creative Arts and Teaching Show, Stitching Festival, Stitching Jubilee, Marilyn Vredevelt, Liz Turner Diehl, Stoney Creek

One of my favorite things to do is read People magazine. I’ve loved it for well over twenty years and, in fact, you’re as likely to find me reading People as stitching.

It’s NOT that stitching and People are on an equal par in my life — don’t get me wrong there, LOL! But sometimes, I have to take off the magnifying glasses I now require to stitch so I can rest my eyes. Then, especially if I don’t want to get too involved, as I might with a really good book, it’s People I reach for and curl up with for a while. People and at least one cat, of course.

(Sadly, it seems the older I get, the fewer people in People I know. A couple of months ago, I did not know anyone who had crushes on either of the teenaged cover-persons. Heck, I did not even recognize either of their names! Fortunately, they weren’t the only people mentioned in that week’s issue. )

Anyway, to bring this discussion on topic, today I want to share with you the cross stitch news blog of one of my regular readers and commenters. Allura has been doing a fabulous job with her own Cross Stitch News (Blogroll) since she began it in May. It’s always a treat to see what she’s found worthy of her blog subtitle: “Stitching in the News and Around the Internet” (copyright Allura, 2007). The majority of Allura’s posts (unlike mine, LOL) are short and sweet — easily digested, well worth adding to your diet, AND delicious. Therefore, I am confident that fitting them into your already hectic schedule will not be too difficult, and will soon prove to be of merit.

Lately, I find myself turning first to the pages of Cross Stitch News rather than to People when I need those breaks from stitching. My DH has even teased me that I’ve started keeping People in the bathroom lately (where it was never allowed before), and asking what’s up with that because I used to be able to go to the bathroom alone. I’m not sure if my DH thinks I’m too addicted to stitching, or if I’m a workaholic who’s doing too much bringing my work home with me, but at the moment, I’ve answered him a bit defensively, “I’m just not quite ready to give up my People altogether, and the bathroom is about the only place in my life it fits, okay?”

So People is still one of my guilty pleasures … Cross Stitch News is something for Allura to be very proud of, though — and for me to feel not the least bit guilty about reading or recommending to you!

Technorati Tags: Cross Stitch News, CSNews, Stitching in the News and Around the Internet, Allura, People magazine, magazine

… 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.

My husband is having tests, tests, and more tests … so far nothing is conclusive, the results are not back yet, and/or only time will give us answers (i.e., will the medication work to break up the clots). So far, he seems to be doing well, but he is a worrier and waiting on the unknown makes him quite anxious.

On the other hand, he is getting a much needed break which I have been trying to get him to take for many months, as I have seen it affecting his health negatively, so I am trying to perceive it from the viewpoint that perhaps the powers that be agreed with me and wanted him to sit down and take a load off already.

The kitties miss him very much, and Dumbledore, our deaf cat, is especially confused. He sees my husband’s car in the driveway so is certain he is hiding here somewhere. It is rather funny to watch him go from window to window looking for him in the back yard (the lawn does need to be mowed, and Dumbledore has let himself out of the house once before to go get my husband while he was mowing the lawn!) …

Anyway, I must run, but I hope you will go watch this wonderful video; it brightened my day big time.

Technorati Tags: Heather Orn, Heather L Orn, Paul, Britain’s Got Talent, mobile phone salesman, South Wales, opera, Britain’s Got T*lent