Pride and Prejudice, the Needle Book Edition

Yesterday was a fairly big day in my life, for I finally finished and posted for sale the Jane Austen needlework projects I've made to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the first publication of Pride and Prejudice.

I've made quite a few little projects all to fit in a basket lined with handkerchiefs and filled with things like Jane Austen Stamps and some steel buttons from the era of Jane Austen, and of course some favorite needlework tools also from the era.

Far and away my favorite of my Jane Austen projects is my needle book called 'Pride and Prejudice, the Needle Book Edition'. It is the best and my favorite of the needle books I've made and with a lack of humility, I am proud of it.

Here are a handful of the reasons it is my favorite. First, I experimented with the form and actually made a stitched book, with spine and all. It took some engineering but it all worked and that pleased me. I'm not a very good finisher (as in 'assembling' not 'finishing the stitching) and I was happy to show a little ingenuity and still keep it simple enough for me to tackle.

Another reason I love my little needle book: I experimented with decorating the felt pages, and I enjoyed my choice of decorations: labels for the needles belonging to each of the 6 Bennets. I thought the attributions suited each of the Bennet sisters and Mrs. Bennet as well. DH helped me with these; he's a big Jane Austen fan too.

As an aside, do you find it interesting that Mrs. Bennet has no first name? She is only ever 'Mrs. Bennet'. It reminds me of the days in my own life when a woman never used her first name in signing a check (she used 'Mrs. John Doe' instead of 'Jane Doe') and we always addressed letters to 'Mr. and Mrs. John Doe'. That was a long while ago but I remember it well. Along with slips and white gloves.

Back to 'Pride and Prejudice, the Needle Book Edition'. I was pleased that the subtitle 'The Needle Book Edition' made DH chuckle and I gave myself  high marks for earning that chuckle. It is the best chuckle that one of my attempts has earned in a long while.

When I set about designing the alphabets I used for the needle book, I asked the advice of my Apple tutors who all have a geek's love of fonts and hugely pronounced opinions about them. I loved the experience because I learned about the differences and similarities in printing and stitching letters. When I spaced my lines irregularly, my tutors all questioned my decision and I realized we stitchers have a long tradition of spacing very different from that of the printed word.

I also confess, I enjoyed huffing and puffing myself up and telling my young tutors that stitched letters have as long and rich a tradition as does the printed word. Just think how far back the stitched letter and the stitched word go. One of the things I love best about needlework is its very long and rich history. We are not Janey-come-latelys, are we.

I thought of the long traditions of lettering the whole time I was designing the alphabets I used.  DH has a beautiful set of Jane Austen's novels from 1909, bound in green with gold lettering and I've always loved it. I used it as my inspiration for the needle book instead of the first edition of Pride and Prejudice. My needle book didn't end up looking like the green volumes from DH's set,  I see the seeds of the ideas of them in mine and I enjoy the reference.

I would remiss if I didn't mention how much I think my choice of ground fabrics contributed to the needle book. I am a canvasworker and usually work on congress cloth but this time I thought the design called for the tradition of linen. As an experiment  I designed for myself a small 'Pride and Prejudice' heart and stitched the heart five times on different ground fabrics. I've not worked often on linen and the hearts gave me a chance to audition possibilities. Almost immediately I fell totally in love with 25 count Legacy Linen. In the linen world this is a coarse ground and I understand why, but for a canvasworker wanting to translate her patterns onto a linen ground, this linen was a perfect step, almost interchangeable with congress cloth but more traditional in presentation.

I understand the idea that cross stitches look wonderful on the very fine ground fabrics, 34 count and finer, but as a canvasworker I rarely if ever use a cross stitch over 2 threads. As a rule, canvasworkers use a wider variety of stitches and the 25 count Legacy Linen gave my pattern choices a robust and textural appearance. I am a person who likes sparse thread coverage and on 34 count linen and even 30 count linen, I found the thread too crowded in the holes and therefore a bit flat looking.

One final reason for loving my needle book: I was a literature major in college and the needle book brought back a flood of pleasant associations from an earlier time in my life. When I stitched the bookmark I had originally planned to use a quote from Jane Austen herself on the backside; instead I used a favorite quote about Jane Austen from Virginia Woolf: 'of all great writers she (Jane Austen) is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness'.  Oh how true her observation.

Often when I finish a project, I almost always think to myself: if only I could do it again I would make it so much better. This time I didn't. I think I did the best with this needle book that I could do. A rare feeling, as I said and one that brings me a great deal of personal satisfaction.

Gay Ann

My Stitching Journey

In the last couple of weeks MacSoph and I have been posting on Queendom Website various portraits of historical women. I was toying with the idea of stitching a portrait to pair with my Elizabeth 1. Just toying, but I thought it might make an interesting feature for a couple of weeks on my home page.

MacSoph (my trusty little computer) keeps files of portraits and paintings for me and so I rifled through the files and found first some beautiful French ladies painted long ago by Elisabeth Lebrun, herself an interesting figure.

I posted them, then asked my followers at Shining Needle Society which they liked the best and why.

Next I posted a series of portraits of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, both contemporary to her and modern and asked again for the favorites.

People liked some of the French ladies but I thought their reception was a bit luke warm. Georgiana fared less well, and many of my followers suggested, if I wanted to do another portrait, why didn't I do Henry VIII.

I replied, 'no Henry'.

I didn't hit my stride with the portraits feature till I posted five paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Now those my followers liked! They liked one better than the others, so I posted it and then extrapolated some colors and made a Kuler-style panel of the colors.

Yesterday I went shopping, armed with a notion of the portrait and the Kuler-style colors, and tomorrow morning (Sunday April 21) I will post the results of my threads spree. BTW, I had a great time shopping for threads!

So do I plan to make a Rossetti portrait with all these threads? No, I'm not going to make a Rossetti portrait or for that matter any other portrait. The colors did inspire me and as a result I have three designs planned for them, but none a portrait.

Did I think this is where I would end up when I started the portrait exercise on Queendom Website? No, no idea where it would lead.

Now I have grand plans and a nice stash of very pretty threads. So will my projects end up looking like the threads? Maybe, maybe not. If I follow my natural inclinations, I will in time subtract some of the threads, add others, and likely end up with a project that looks quite different. But then again, I could end up with a project that follows these colors. Who knows. We'll have to see.

One time, several years ago I came back from the framer with a newly framed piece (over time it has turned into one of my favorites), I was excited about it and showed it to a friend. She reminded me that she had seen the original drawing and the finished piece looked little like the original drawing and nothing like she had expected.

She then asked me if I knew when I started what the piece would look like in the end. I said, no of course I didn't. How would I know where it would end up? She thought I ought to exert more control over my work, and maybe so, but the charm of needlework for me is the journey and the excitement to see where the piece does end up, what twists and turns it takes along the way and what it looks like as I take the last stitch. Actually, I don't often know for certain till the piece is in its frame.

I believe I start a piece and then it takes on a life of its own. It will likely tell me the direction it wants to take and my skill comes not in controlling it but in observing and recognizing the direction it leads me. That's why I am a 'trial and error' stitcher. I want to see what my piece tells me each step of the journey and then test myself to see if I can interpret its messages.

New threads, new promises, new pieces, new directions. Time and again that's My Stitching Journey.

Gay Ann

Queen Elizabeth's Sitting Room

There are certain refrains that seem to run through my life: I love to stitch and I try hard to understand MacSoph, my little laptop.

And right up there along with stitching and MacSoph is -- alas --- too much stash. Too many threads, too many beads, too many papers. Clutter. Yes, fussing about my clutter is almost as constant as loving to stitch and working through my frustrations on MacSoph. Year after year, it never seems to resolve itself.

If de-cluttering isn't at the top of my list of New Year's Resolutions each year, it is always close. From year to year, hope springs eternal in January, tapers off in February and by this time in March is usually a hopeless return to stashes of threads, beads and papers everywhere I look.

But this March was different. Do I mean that I succeeded in cleaning up my mess? No, not at all. So what was different?

I have a favorite English tabloid. From my London years, when DH read The Guardian and the Independent, I read the Daily Mail. I remember the year when Sarah Ferguson had her toe indiscretions. I collected all the English tabloids and brought them home to EGA's seminar. My students that year had a particularly tedious project to stitch  in class and I thought a dose of the English tabloids might prove a worthwhile distraction.

Now I am home in the U.S. permanently but happily MacSoph provides me with continuing dose of Daily Mail amusements. I think the Daily Mail has not improved in the last few years (too many exhibitionist actresses in too little clothing), but this March I was glad I still kept in touch with my old  tabloid favorite.

For the Daily Mail recently had an article on Queen Elizabeth's private sitting room at Balmoral, and guess what...

Queen Elizabeth's just like me!

Here's a link to the article and I hope, if you are like me and you have too much clutter from too much stash, this little article will help you feel a tad bit better.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2291866/Cosy-comfy-ones-sitting-room-Cluttered-treasures-just-little-bit-messy-Queens-private-retreat.html

I have no idea whether the report is accurate and as I don't know the Queen of England, I don't suspect I'll ever know.

But for a little while this month, accurate or not, I took time off from worrying about my stash clutter. If Queen Elizabeth can live that way, well,  so can I.

Gay Ann

Midnight Star, My Needlepoint Geometric

At E-Week last October I sold a geometric design of mine called 'Midnight Star'.  It is a design on dark blue canvas, in blue, silver and white threads, and I think it looks very much like its name.

It is a simple design with a lot of overstitching, and I think it would lend itself well to a lot of improvisation.

So this spring in my general classroom at Shining Needle Society I have issued a 'Midnight Start' challenge. I would love for people to play with the design and see what they come up with. The improv could be as simple as an easy color change, from, say blue to red or green. It could be a more complex color change also, and with all this in mind, I have begun a new series morphing Midnight Star on Queendom Website's home page.

The series has just begun and so far you will find what Midnight Star might look like in the aforementioned red and green, and also all white and silver on a black canvas, and then an inverted version of all black and white on a pinkish taupe canvas.

I plan to continue the series hopefully throughout March on Queendom Website. I've taken to posting a new color, leaving it as the 'headline' for a day or two and then moving it to a slideshow. When I finish, I should have a huge slideshow.

So far the color diddlings have been fairly  tame, but in the next bit of time they will grow wilder, in fact quite wild indeed!

So how have MacSoph and I diddled with the colors of Midnight Star? In PhotoShop of course. Not long ago my Apple tutor Andy taught me about an adjustment layer I'd not tried before; he also had quite a few work flow suggestions for using it. So when MacSoph and I sat down and spent a bit of time diddling with Midnight Star, the results grew quite wild and very inspiring to me. Made me want to pick up my needle pronto and start trying some of them!

Is it possible to stitch a PhotoShopped creation? Not stitch by stitch, but certainly by inspiration. I have often colorized designs of mine and then gone down to the needlepoint shop and picked out threads and colors inspired by my colorizations. They don't ever come out just like the colorizations, but the colorizations are such a great starting point. In my design life, I have always found it much easier to start with an inspiring idea than simply stare at a blank piece of canvas.

Here's the best part: often the results come out so much better than the colorizations because threads and canvas are ever so much more wonderful than pictures of threads and canvas. That's the magic of needlework: we all know that the pieces is always better than the picture.

The difficult thing about needlepoint is that so many of us are in the habit of 'stitching everything exactly the way the designer did it'. That's OK, that's the way our field goes, but I do promise this: life is ever so much more exciting if you branch out a bit and try even small changes. Since Midnight Star is basically a simple pattern, it is a great place to start.

Gay Ann

For quick reference: www.GayAnnRogers.com

To join us at Shining Needle Society: write to Kate Gaunt, KateGaunt@aol.com.

A Bit of Fun: A New Website Called "My Needlework Box"

I may be a bit premature in writing about this because I'm only a couple of weeks into its birth, but I am committed to starting a new website. I even bought the domain name for it.

My Needlework Box.

It will never be more than 4-6 pages long, and I can tell you that the first subject will be 'Doilies' in 'My Needlework Box'. I am so very excited about this that I had to write a post about it even though it is still way premature to do so.

So why am I excited about a tiny website called 'My Needlework Box' when I already have 2 websites and moan about maintaining them? Because this one is different and it has a tiny story.

Those of you who follow me will remember my angst when Apple threw Queendom Website under the bus by snatching away support for its easy-to-learn-easy-to-maintain program iWeb. I know a number of you lived through the whole messy process of MacSoph and my move from our Old Castle over to our New Castle over at Adobe.

We're happy, in fact very happy in our New Castle. We've learned to run things and keep up and we aren't afraid of it any longer, but I've never stopped being wary of computer companies and their tendencies to discontinue software at the drop of a hat.

'My Needlework Box' is a very different type of website, for MacSoph and I are writing it ourselves. Yes, I took the plunge into MacSoph's real world and now my life is full of angle brackets, forward slashes, squiggly brackets and all sorts of very strange language.

When I finally publish 'My Needlework Box' you will hear me crowing from the roof tops, for I will be free and unencumbered, except for a text editor called 'Coda'.

Is it ever possible that I could write the code for my own website, one the size of Queendom Website? Not likely, but it will give me a lot more freedom in choosing a program and being able to manipulate it to suit myself if I know some html and css. So that's what MacSoph and I are up to these days.

It has one other small consequence: it's given me a new lease on life and makes me feel a part of today. And strangely enough, it has a lot in common with my first love in life, needlework. I suspect if I asked my engineer friends who stitch if this is true, maybe they would understand why I say this. The main thing they have in common: both can be very tedious and very precise, and just about the time I think I've got it, I discover I'm off by one digit. Same as having to rip that one stitch that threw off my count.

I've been tackling it exactly the same way I tackle learning a new technique in needlework: practice every day. 10 minutes a day, just like taking 12 Stitches a Day.

Now it remains to be seen if I'm smart enough to do this. If I can't, it won't be for want of trying.

Gay Ann

My Jane Austen Needlework Basket

For some time now I have promised I would post photos of my latest project, a basket filled with needlework related to Jane Austen. I have been working on and off for about 6 months on this project and finally yesterday it came together: I posted a slide show of the basket and its contents.

To see the basket and its contents, travel to:

www.GayAnnRogers.com

The slides transition fairly quickly, too quickly to read the captions. Here's my recommendation: watch the slide show through once without reading the captions.

If you want to read the captions, click on one of the thumbnails to stop the automatic feature.
Then you can click through the slides at your leisure.

I had a great time playing graphics designer and creating Jane Austen Button and Trim Cards as well as two little booklets, one for samples of ground fabrics and one the alphabets I used in my projects, but far and away my favorite pieces in the basket are my Pride and Prejudice Needle Book and its Bookmark. Maybe it is because I have always loved Pride and Prejudice that I think my Needle Book Edition is the best needle book I've made. 

Interesingly,  the inspiration for my needle book was not a first edition of Pride and Prejudice, but a 1908 edition bound in green cloth with beautiful gold tooling. My husband  bought the set of Jane Austen novels long ago in an estate sale and I've always loved it. I've meant to take photos of the books and post them on my website. I will do so very soon.

A small aside: when I put a pair of tiny Dovo scissors in the bookmark, my husband said he'd never seen a pair of scissors in a bookmark before. Said I, if it's the Needle Book Edition, it needs scissors doesn't it. Together the Needle Book and the Book Mark make a sewing case, ready to go and help me stitch. I do need to add a needle threader to the set, maybe on the end of a fob attached to the scissors.

The slide show is to say Happy Valentine's Day. I hope you enjoy it and your day -- and if you manage to sneak in a few stitches today, all the better your day will be for those stitches.

Gay Ann

An American Doll Story

This isn't on the topic of needlework, but I can't resist writing about a recent favorite article in the New York Times. Maybe my excuse is that the article has a photo of an American Doll sitting in a basket much like my Jane Austen Stitching Society basket.

Here is the article, a story about a librarian and an American Doll. Do read it and be certain to read the note included from the little girl Flora.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/doll-of-pioneers-spirit-explores-the-city-one-loan-at-a-time/?src=me&ref=general


A lesson about the success of  tweaking conventional ways of doing things and how the results can be wonderful.

Enjoy,
Gay Ann

Updates: The Jane Austen Stitching Society

I have been busy lately updating Queendom Website and most of my updates are about The Jane Austen Stitching Society. Essentially I will spend a part of the next year working on needlepoint to commemorate Jane Austen and the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice.

If you would like to join The Jane Austen Stitching Society, please write to Kate Gaunt  (KateGaunt@aol.com). Our meeting room is at Shining Needle Society; membership is free.

Our first project is to find a basket about 9" x 12" x 3", decorate it and line it with whitework handkerchiefs. With this in mind I have posted photos of the two baskets I chose and I have just started posting the handkerchiefs I decided to use. To see them and read about them, travel to Queendom Website:

for quick reference: www.GayAnnRogers. com

You will see my first hankie and both of my baskets on the home page. In the next few days I will show the other hankies and also how I folded the hankies in the baskets. There are ever so much more clever people at this and I am hoping that members of The Jane Austen Stitching Society will come up with different ways of lining and decorating their baskets and share their ideas with us.

In addition to my baskets and their hankies, I have begun to update my 'Collections' page with fairly modern handkerchiefs of my own. Travel there and you will find the first of my collector hankies and a little quiz about where it was made. I would like to use my own hankies to teach people in the Jane Austen society about distinguishing style and whether whitework from our immediate past is made by machine or by hand and how to tell the difference.

I also hope to spend some time on the whitework heritage from the time of Jane Austen. If you scroll down on my Collections page, you will see the corner of a beautiful Georgian/Regency hankie. The embroidery is of pansies and is so very fine. I photographed the corner with a dime so that you can tell the scale.

In addition to the whitework,  there's the beautiful French lace of Jane Austen's era. And of course the wonderful needlework tools of the Regency era . I can tell we will be very busy in the next months!

Busy as we will be with studying the  embroidery and needlework tools of the past also, a big part of The Jane Austen Stitching Society will be about our own stitching. I am happy to report here that I have completed four little hearts, a needle book commemorating Pride and Prejudice (this needle book is my current pride and joy), a bookmark and a name tag, all to go in my Jane Austen basket.

I have finished writing the instructions for the hearts and Kate has proof-stitched them for me. In the next weeks I hope to finish the instructions for the needle book, the bookmark and the name tag, then we will start stitching in earnest.

It will be a great winter and spring and I am excited that we are starting.
Gay Ann

The Jane Austen Stitching Society

Today was very exciting for it is the unofficial launch day of The Jane Austen Stitching Society.

The official launch day will be on January 1, 2013 when Jane Austen will officially arrive on Queendom Website, just about 10:00 a.m.

Today I sent out a newsletter to about 220 people who had expressed interest at my E-Week Sale last October. Here's a copy of that newsletter and it will give you some idea about the society.

If you would like to join us, write to me: GARRogers@earthlink.net, or to Kate: KateGaunt@aol.com.
Shining Needle Society, the online needlework school, will be our meeting place throughout the next year.

Here then is my newsletter in full:


Dear Stitching Janeite,

It has been almost two months since I began compiling a list of people interested in The Jane Austen Stitching Society and asked you whether you would prefer our fledgling group to be The Jane Austen Stitching Society or The Jane Austen Stitching Academy. Almost 3 to 1 you preferred 'The Jane Austen Stitching Society' so today I officially declare our group 'The Jane Austen Stitching Society'.

What we will do:

Many of you asked what we will do for the year? In a nutshell: read, listen and stitch! 

What I am hoping to do is start some discussions about Jane Austen, and also about the artifacts to do with needlework around her. If you have any ideas for discussions and/or are willing to lead a discussion group, all the better! Please write to me with your suggestions: www.GayAnnRogers.com. Will you use the subject heading: ideas for Jane Austen.

We'll let our group evolve.

Where will our group live?

Our group will live at Shining Needle Society, a very nice place to live. Shining Needle Society is an online needlework school and its director is Kate Gaunt (KateGaunt@aol.com)

Nice for us, Kate has volunteered to house us there and shortly she will start opening the room. To belong to the Jane Austen Stitching Society, you will need to join Shining Needle Society. Happily this is both easy and free. 

You just need to send your name and email to Kate: KateGaunt@aol.com and she will add you to our classroom.

We will communicate through our room at Shining Needle Society, in the same way we hold classes there.

In addition I will keep for the next year a series of pages on my website devoted to Jane Austen, and as I post photos and descriptions they will appear there. I will post the URL for my Jane Austen pages in all my communications, so travel will be very simple. Just click on the URL.

Our theme for the year

Our theme will be 'Jane Austen Then and Now'. While I love historical references, I do not believe in being wedded strictly to the past. I think what we do stays alive if we love the past and pay homage to it, but we live in our own times. Therefore my stitching themes for the year will be about things from then and things from now. I would like to blend the two. This is not a new goal for me: it is alive, I hope, in all my work.

I think one of the reasons that Jane Austen continues to live today is that her books touch some universal themes still relevant to us today. The legacy of Jane and her world and how it impacts us today will be a continuing theme in The Jane Austen Stitching Society.

More about that as we go along.

So what will we be stitching?

I hope lots of projects related to Jane Austen, small and large. 

The first task for the Jane Austen Stitching Society will be for each of us to find a basket. I will post guidelines right after the first of the year. You may now see  two examples of baskets I've bought for Jane Austen on Queendom Website. Many more baskets will work, in fact Kate reports that she just found a beautiful example at World Market for about $5.00. My two baskets cost about $7.00 and $3.00 respectively.

To see my baskets: www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on 'Jane Austen' on the yellow navigation bar.

Kate has promised me a photo of her basket too and I will post it as soon as she sends it.

Our first task will be to gather goodies reminiscent of Jane and fill our baskets.

Jane's Arrival on Queendom Website

Jane will arrive on Queendom Website on January 1, 2013. Yes, probably about 10:00 on New Year's Day, to kick off our year.

With our theme of Jane Austen Then and Now, and with my continuing idea that we use the past as jumping off points for imagination, I have constructed a most unusual way for Jane to arrive on Queendom Website. In the days between Christmas and New Year's I will write a bit about Jane's Arrival and then she will arrive, as I said, on New Year's Day.

Jane and the Holidays

In the meantime, I have Jane Austen dressed for Christmas on my website. Now please note that this is a good example our theme of Jane Austen Then and Now.

Jane Austen would not have celebrated Christmas in the fashion that we do: most of our traditions arrive at a later date, many influenced by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort.

Still, who can resist the temptation to blend the two (and why should we resist?) It made me smile when Jane was decked out for Christmas, and I hope it will make you smile too.

If you would like a copy of Jane in Christmas Finery, travel to my website, click on the photo of Jane and you will be able to download the card and print it.

It is both my welcome to The Jane Austen Stitching Society and Happy Holidays to you all!

www.GayAnnRogers.com; www.QueendomWebsite.com works as well.

Life after Mail Jail and Why it is all about Stitching

Yesterday at 3:00 in the afternoon I sealed the last package from E-Week and declared Mail Jail officially closed. E-Week 2012 is now officially over and it is time to move on. There is indeed a life after Mail Jail and today is the first day of that life.

So what am I going to do now that I am sprung from Mail Jail?

Stitch for 2 days! Yes, stitch all the way through the weekend. If I can get past guilt feelings that I still have a lot to do, I may stitch even beyond the weekend. We'll see.

I still have too much to do. All the mess that E-Week created isn't going away without my help and I can't very well decorate for the holidays until some of 'Packing Central' (which is what our living room becomes) is Packed Away.

All year I've been on a program where I watch 20 minutes of Hoarders and then I start sorting and organizing. I've never actually watched Hoarders on the television, but MacSoph streams past episodes for me. Originally I assigned myself the whole hour of Hoarders once a week; but I can't take an hour and I found that 20 minutes dose works almost as well. It does motivate me to part with belongings I would otherwise keep.

So yes,  packing away the residuals of E-Week 2012.

Midway through E-Week I ran out of Echoes of Elizabeth kits, so I began a wait list. The wait list grew too much to be feasible, so I made a new plan: to do more Echoes of Elizabeths by Feb. 1. When I started that wait list Feb. 1 seemed a long time off. Now it doesn't look so far off.  Hmmm... I'd best start work on Echoes of Elizabeth very soon.

I also have Mary Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick miniatures. I have a list for them too and those kits are due May 1. I need to start work on those lists also, although May 1 still looks a considerable distance away.

And then there's my joy for the coming year: The Jane Austen Stitching Society. A year of Jane Austen! O joy indeed!

I have a list of people who would like to be members of The Jane Austen Stitching Society and I promised them a newsletter as soon as I finished E-Week's Mail Jail, so I'd better start work on that newsletter soon too.

And this brings me full circle: The Jane Austen Stitching Society will be about Stitching Jane Austen. I'd better get busy stitching something for The Jane Austen Stitching Society to stitch, don't you think?
So guess what: I guess I can stitch all weekend long and into the next week with a clear conscience that indeed I am working.

What about the mess? The lists? The newsletter? Well, what is the most important? Stitching of course.
I think I'll put off everything else for a while longer while I enjoy the company of my needle.

The Jane Austen Stitching Society... or should it be The Jane Austen Stitching Academy?

This morning life was very exciting for me! It was the second morning of my 'Early Morning Surprise Windows', a traditional part of my big once a year E-Week Sale.

For 3 months now (since last July) I have posted a page about a 'Mystery Jane' on my website and asked my followers to guess who she is. This morning was especially exciting because I announced in my Surprise Window 8 that my Mystery Jane was indeed Jane Austen and that I wanted to spend the new year studying and stitching related to her.

Why the new year?

Because  2013 is the 200th anniversary of the first publication of Pride and Prejudice, that's why.

Our Adventure is all of 4 hours old now and already we have 75 members! If you would like to join us, please send your name and address (snail sort) plus your email to me:
GARRogers@earthlink.net

Here's what will happen in the next couple of months:
I have to finish E-Week and then tackle E-Week's Mail Jail.

As soon as I finish, I will send out a short newsletter to our members with more information about our formation. After the new year, Kate Gaunt, director of Shining Needle Society, will open a classroom for us. Membership will be free.

Our first order of the day is to decide on a name. Here are our choices:
The Jane Austen Stitching Society or
The Jane Austen Stitching Academy.

If you would like to read more about our new Adventure, please go to my website:
www.GayAnnRogers.com
click on SURPRISE Sun on the yellow navigation bar
click on Surprise Window #8 to learn more about our activities.

After October 25 the link will become:
www.GayAnnRogers.com
JANE on my yellow navigation bar.

Hope you will join us in this new Jane Austen Adventure.

Gay Ann, most excited about it all!

E-Week, My Annual Sale of Needlepoint Patterns Starts in the Morning

It is E-Week Eve, the night before my biggest sale of the year begins on my website and MacSoph (my trusty little MacBook Pro) and I are just putting the finishing touches on the Sale. If I can stay awake till midnight tonight, I will post it. If not, first thing in the morning.

MacSoph and I have been working on the sale behind the scenes for a month now and it is exciting to see the sale materialize. I've been clicking through it and checking all the bits. My sale this year is a mix of patterns from my archives and new projects I have made during the year: Samplers, Girls, Geometrics and Sewing Cases.

Just a couple of evenings ago I finished the last of the projects, the smallest one I have ever made. It took me a little over an hour to stitch; it took about 8 hours to write the instructions. Ce la vie!

Highlights this year? a large sampler fully kitted with beads and threads and congress cloth. This sampler is probably my single most frequently requested patter in the last two years and I decided this is its year.

Mary and Bess are in the sale. They are my miniatures of Mary, Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick. I decided to tae orders on them for delivery next May 1. It will give people a chance to save the money for them and me a chance to make the kits. Each of the kits takes me about 2 hours to put together, so it is nice not to have to rush.

A sewing case, the single most detailed one I've ever made. The instructions for it are 91 pages long. There's a novelty sewing box and there's the little project I just finished making. Also a novel thimble ornaments where I did a bit of engineering and am happy and proud to say it worked.

Now that the General Sale is almost finished and set to go, you'd think MacSoph and I would have some time off, but not so. We have to work on a tradition at E-Week, our Saturday and Sunday Early Morning Sales. At 8:00 California time on both Saturday and Sunday mornings, I will start opening Surprise Windows and I will open one window each 15 minutes until the morning's 8 windows are open. Yes, 16 of them in total, so MacSoph and I still have a lot of work to do.

And then following E-Week, Kate will sponsor E-Week's Annex; she offers beautifully-made kits to go with my patterns. Annex starts on October 26 and will last this year until election eve.

So the next few weeks will be very busy times on Queendom Website and its inhabitants.

Since MacSoph and I moved to our New Castle (aka our new website), I've inherited a little avatar. She's been on my website for a few months now, typing away furiously. This morning, when I checked, she wasn't there. Her handbag was, with a note that said she was tired of so much work and she'd gone stitching.

Watch for her. I have a feeling she'll turn up.

She's a lot smarter than I am, because what I'd like to do is have a week with my needle. I keep telling myself it won't be long till I can join my avatar.

Gay Ann

For quick reference: www.GayAnnRogers.com
www.QueendomWebsite.com will carry you there too.

E-Week's History

I've decided MacSoph, my trusty little MacBook Pro, is a good sport to put up with her life right now, for she seems to have very little rest. My Apple tutor Julia has always told me that computers are like people, they need 8 hours a night rest. Alas, it is likely that MacSoph will be sleep deprived for a while this month.

The good news for MacSoph and me is, we are indeed making progress mounting our big yearly needlepoint sale called E-Week and as we work away, I can't help but reflect on E-Weeks past.

E-Week began life in 2007 as 'E-Merchandise Week' (named after Merchandise Night at EGA's seminars), when I posted a small string of projects for sale on this blog.

I remember my first E-Week well. I wrote right here that along with several patterns for sale,  I planned to post a few kits left over from seminars very very early one morning and I'd leave them up for the week. It turns out that some people had stayed up all night checking this blog and the first kit lasted 53 seconds. They were gone in 10 minutes. I think we crazy stitchers just like to shop and we like a bit of excitement.

That's how Early Morning Sales were born. As I've never removed any of the posts from my blog, I suspect the notices of my first Early Morning Sales are likely still archived. As time permits I'll have to check and see.

It was less than 6 months after my first E-Week that my little laptop then called 'iSoph' crashed and we took her to the Apple Store's Genius Bar. I remember the kid behind the Genius Bar asking if I had backed up the computer; I  remember replying, 'Back up? What's that?'

I walked out that day with a new MacSoph and a receipt for One-to-One Lessons in the Apple Store and by October 2008 MacSoph and I mounted our second E-Week on our newly minted website.

Now we are working on our 6th E-Week. My original little MacSoph has retired and my present MacSoph, a much more powerful machine, has taken over. It's been an eventful 6 years and it's true that E-Week has evolved from those early days.

Now, for example,  Early Morning Surprise Windows open at a more civilized hour (8:00 a.m. California time) and in a more orderly fashion, once each 15 minutes, on Saturday and Sunday of E-Week.

Last June MacSoph and I moved from our old website to a New Castle. For practice we held a small Castlewarming Sale in August to see if we could navigate well from the New Castle. We survived, indeed we flourished and we are now quite at home in the New Castle, but we decided we needed an overflow website. We renamed our Old Castle 'Stash Castle' and we navigate back and forth now between the castles.

This very morning MacSoph and I started work on E-Week's 2012 Surprise Windows. We have Practice Windows in place on Queendom Website and soon we will have the real windows up on both  Queendom Website and on Stash Castle too. We decided to post them on Stash Castle so that we have a back up.  In case the windows won't open on Queendom Website on October 20 and 21, we can flee over to Stash Castle and open them from there.

Yes, in the last 6 years we've learned a thing or two about Back Ups.

Gay Ann

Needlepoint's Creative Process

I swear, the traffic on Saturdays is getting worse than on the weekdays.

I thought this yesterday as I was on a simple drive home and was stalled in traffic.  A trip that should have taken 20 minutes took me well over an hour, but it turns out it wasn't time ill-spent and it adds an odd but all too common small twist on Needlepoint's Creative Process.

The reason for my errand where I got caught in a traffic snare was a trip to Michael's. I had had an idea how to solve a problem for one of my E-Week offerings and I went to Michael's looking for a ring or a belt buckle or something that would act like a hanger. I wanted a simple way to hang a long length of ribbon on a wall, something like a bell-pull hanger.

E-Week, my big big sale of the year, starts on October 17,  just a little over a month away and given where I am in the process (not far enough along), it is nearing time for a bit of panic.

At Michael's I surfed through the store and gathered up a small cache of paraphernalia that I thought might work for my chore: some silver rings that looked like wedding rings, a small square plaque with my initial 'G' (I usually prefer an 'R' but they were out of 'R's), some slightly larger decorative rings and a  couple of extra lengths of ribbon. I paid for my small cache and headed home.

That's when I got caught in the  traffic snare. So there I sat, creep, crawl, creep, stall, creep crawl, creep stall, with nothing to do other than watch the road ahead and either panic about wasting-time-in-traffic-which-I-can-ill-afford-because-I-have-way-too-much-to-do or reflecting on what I'd just bought. More productive to think of what I'd just bought.

 My mind drifted over my small cache and I tried to figure out how I might put it together . I was thinking up all the alternative mixes, as in 'I could use this with that, I could attach it in this or that way' and so forth. This went on for at least a dozen cycles of trying to get through the stoplight at the bottom of the hill.

And then it came to me, a great idea how to do just what I wanted. I mentally clicked my heels together and thought, yessss!!

Of course, my idea involved none of what I'd just bought.

But this I have learned: if I hadn't bought my cache, likely I wouldn't have thought up my idea. Maybe if I hadn't been caught in traffic on the way home from buying that which I will now likely never use, I never would have thought up my idea.

So one of my important remaining tasks for E-Week got solved by buying a bag full of odds and ends that I will likely never use and getting caught in traffic long enough to figure out that I would never use what I just bought.

Go figure. But that's the way it often works.

Castlewarming Party and Needlepoint Sale on Queendom Website

It is the happiest feeling! I feel like MacSoph and I have truly settled Queendom Website in our new home. We just finished putting up our first sale from Muse and it is working grandly!

We made this sale to test whether we could work Muse well enough that we could do our big fall sale, E-Week, from it. In many ways E-Week is my Ring of Fire in that it is large and sometimes difficult and I need to be at my best for it, and so does MacSoph.

Tomorrow morning (that is, Saturday morning August 4) is our big test, for at 8:00 a.m. sharp California time we begin opening 5 Surprise Windows.

Surprise Windows and Early Morning Sales are an on-going tradition at E-Week. There for two mornings I open a series of 8 windows with surprises behind them. To manage them, MacSoph and I need to be our very most nimble selves.

If indeed we succeed in opening them, then we will congratulate ourselves, spend the following two days celebrating, and on Monday morning start preparing for E-Week. We will know then that we can do it all.

If you would like to take part, go to Queendom Website right before 8:00 a.m. California time on August 4: www.GayAnnRogers.com/index.html

So what's worth coming for? A sweet little freebie that is a small thank you for putting up with our transition in the last year, and a glance toward E-Week, now just about 2+ months away. E-Week starts this year on October 17.

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It has been a little over a year since I found out that Apple is discontinuing iWeb as I knew it; just about a year since I learned that Adobe had planned Muse. It has been a year of learning and moving.  I've learned about C-Panels and FTP stuff, and other stuff I'd never thought an aging lady could learn, but here we are, with all our ducks in a row, at least until tomorrow morning.

If indeed our Surprise Windows open successfully, you will hear MacSoph and me shouting in joy across the country, and then the celebration! An afternoon and evening of stitching, nothing but stitching! I plan on stitching and chatting and partying in my general classroom at Shining Needle Society.

If you would like to join our party, join Shining Needle Society and ask to be in my general classroom there. To join, write to Kate Gaunt who is director: KateGaunt@aol.com. Membership is free and we plan to revel into the night!!

Wish me luck for tomorrow morning and come party with us tomorrow afternoon and evening.

Gay Ann and MacSoph

A Dress Rehearsal Sale of my Needlepoint Patterns

MacSoph and I are finally (FINALLY!) settled into Queendom Website's New Castle and we are happy there. A bit wobbly but basically happy, with the distinct feeling that we will grow more competent with experience.

It is with experience in mind that we are having a small sale on Friday, August 3 and Saturday, August 4. We decided we need to try a small sale before we are centered in the ring of fire that my big autumn sale called 'E-Week' can become.

So on Friday morning, August 3, early as can be, we will post a small selection of patterns for sale in hopes that someone will want one or two and click on the buttons to see indeed if she can navigate through the sale items and if our PayPal buttons and email buttons work well.

This Dress Rehearsal is also our chance to try out Surprise Windows of the sorts we have on Saturday and Sunday mornings at E-Week. There will be four windows for Saturday morning, August 4 at 8:00 a.m. sharp, California time, and MacSoph has already got quivering keys over the idea of how speedy we must be to connect everything in a short time.

We will see how we do, MacSoph and I, and if we do OK, we will head into the E-Week Season with much more confidence.

Right now, on Queendom Website's Home Page are four 'Practice Surprise Windows'. If you travel to Queendom Website's Home Page and practice, you will find they take you to faraway places, each window.

People have been emailing me to ask, what am I selling? Well, it's a secret! It will be here soon enough.

Meanwhile, all next week, if you click on the Practice Surprise Windows you will find tiny hints behind each.

If you do travel to click on the Practice Surprise Windows, will you let me know if you find any irregularities? Write to me: GARRogers@earthlink.net. This time it is all about MacSoph's and my practicing our skills so that we are indeed swift of key come E-Week in mid-October.

Gay Ann

Summer Needlepoint Loafing

Every morning first thing in the morning I think to myself, OK, today diligence will reign and before I fall asleep tonight I will have made significant inroads into my too-long To-Do list.

Such was my resolve yesterday morning. I'd had a nice holiday on Wednesday and my plans were to conquer The To-Do List on Thursday.

In reality what happened doesn't set a good example.

On Queendom Website I have a new mystery. It's 'Jane'. I've asked my followers to guess who Jane might be and a number have written guesses; one suggested to me that the Guesses might in fact be a Wish List. Interesting notion. Has anybody guessed the identity of 'Jane'? Maybe. That's all I'll commit to right now.

My friend Natalie came up with the idea of 'Jane' and it is all I can do to keep from working on Jane. Yesterday I succumbed. I spent the entire day working on my Jane plans. By early evening DH put in his two cents and I went back to the drawing tablets. I sketched my way into the wee hours last night, with all the mess of linen, threads, pencils, sketches, books, xeroxes, cards etc. surrounding me.

That's the trouble with my job: the most engaging captivating part of my job is the invention. The imaginings, the puzzles, the what-might-be's, the dreams, and right now I am in High Dream mode.

Meanwhile the 'To-Do' list grows longer. Queendom Website still needs a lot of attention, Stash Castle (my old website) is in disarray and badly in need of decoration and organization, E-Week is only 3 months away, I have a stack of instructions to write, and then there's my New Year's Resolution of cleaning up my hoarders mess. Not to mention my Elizabeth class at Shining Needle Society and my General Classroom there too. And I can't forget the daily slog of homework from my Apple University lessons. See, it goes on and on and on.

So this morning I am filled with remorse that I loafed away an entire day immersed in Jane Dreams.

Really? Well, most of me feels remorse; a part of me enjoyed myself hugely.

Last night I tucked Jane and all her trappings away in a box and put her out of sight, so that I would tackle Work instead of Temptation today.

Sigh, it was a lovely day.

Gay Ann

Queendom Website and Stash Castle

Slowly MacSoph and I are settling. We returned to our old site yesterday and redid much of it. MacSoph and I had the idea of turning it into Stash Castle, thereby moving all our stash (such as eBay auction recommendations and auction results there.

Of course, soon as we had a part of the work completed, we went shopping and found a few goodies worth writing about. Couple of very nice thimbles, and a few thimbles for fledgling thimble collectors too. We still have to do cameos.

After posting the thimbles and a needle case, we went back to work and established a quick way to travel between the two sites. I posted buttons on Queendom Website for a quick trip to Stash Castle, then just close Stash Castle and you are back on Queendom Website.

It will eventually all come together, in fact I don't think it will be long now.

Soon as we are even 80% settled MacSoph and I are planning to have a housewarming party with a couple of surprises.

Soon, very soon.

Gay Ann much relieved that this stressful year of shopping for a new Castle, moving and settling in is almost behind us. Long may Adobe be happy with Muse!

Wonderful Whitework Embroidery!

I can't help it, I just love beautiful examples of whitework embroidery! I love the fineness of the tiny stitches and the beautiful motifs, and lately one such example fell into my lap.

I have been collecting bits and pieces of lace and whitework for a new mystery, and as a part of these pieces, I bought a large but somewhat tattered handkerchief. The handkerchief is large and plain except for an embroidered motif in each corner and truth to tell, I was somewhat disappointed because the shapes of the motifs weren't what I had hoped for.

Disappointed until I checked the quality of the embroidery when disappointment turned to excitement. For the motifs are among the best quality whitework I've seen in a long time.

This morning I posted two photos (one a closeup) of one of the corners, a sprig of pansies in pulled thread and with padded satin leaves, on my website.

I hope you will travel there and see if you don't think the pansies are worth the trip.

For quick reference: www.GayAnnRogers.com/index.html
When you arrive, click on 'Collections' on the yellow navigation bar.
And be sure to scroll down on the page to see the closeup.

Nice, very nice treat, on an early Sunday morning in July.

Gay Ann

Welcome to Queendom Website's New Castle

Here's a new URL that will take you directly to the New Castle:

www.GayAnnRogers.com/index.html

www.GayAnnRogers.com  will also work.
If you type the URL and your computer adds '/site_2.html' you need to eliminate this.


You can also visit the Old Castle by going to www.GayAnnRogersAnnex.com

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MacSoph and I have a TON of work to do still and you could help me greatly.
If you visit Queendom Website, will you click through the pages and let me know if you encounter any irregularities? And I will welcome any suggestions.

The New Castle is a work in progress and I am learning as I go.

Well, it has been a long 10 months, and it has certainly had its ups and downs, but we're here.
Whew!!!

Gay Ann