Taking A Day to Get Stuff Done...

I booked the day off on Subfinder today.  I had Dragon Dreams stuff that needed to be done and just couldn’t wait any longer.  Namely, uploading the new website and deleting all the old files from the server.

A month ago, I went back to my sketchpad and tried to figure out exactly what I needed to have on the site, what could make it more fun and more meaningful to navigate around and how I could get back to that feeling that I had when I first started the adventure of sharing my work with the world.  Back then the Internet was a smaller place and there were fewer people out there to talk to.  The kids I talk to in High School when I am substitute teach are SO much more wired into this cyber world than I ever thought would be possible, that I sometimes wonder about this brave new world out here.  It can be both a challenge and a blessing to reach a world wide audience from my dining room table and the laptop computer.

The one thing I have learned about websites is that they can never be static things.  They must grow and evolve and be interactive for people to have a reason to come back for another visit with you.  This won’t be the last overhaul I do to Dragon Dreams , but for now,just for a little while, I am going to sit back and enjoy the fact that the work is done... and wait to see what everyone thinks.

Let me know!

Home from Retreat...

It was a wonderful weekend that went by WAY to fast.  We saw old friends, made new ones, spent time stitching and knitting, ate well but not too much, exchanged ornaments,  laughed and cried as well as raised money for the fight against breast cancer.  Dwaggie and Sneaky came along to keep me company in the sleeping bag and I put the dragon pillowcase from one of my favourite Austin store owners (right Ginger?) on my pillow.

Friday night, we arrived up at Camp Wildwood in sleet and slushy snow that made us feel like we were stuck in a snow globe.  Mom and I found an empty cabin (Squirrel A) before Nick drove us up to the main cabin to unload the stitching gear.  We set ourselves up near the back in the room and greeting familiar friends before settling down to stitch.

I’d fully intended to give away the Perforated Paper Castle ornament that I taught in Toronto, but the more people asked to see it and exclaimed over it, the more I decided it needed to stay on MY tree.  Luckily, Jeannie had brought along some colours of perforated paper for me to play with.  Unfortunately, after a full day of teaching, picking up Bethany from volleyball practice, Nick from school and then rushing to get to retreat in bad weather, I forgot the sheets of blank graph paper that I usually bring along with me...

So I made my own.

FIrst, I sketched out the letters for JOY and stitched them in overdyed threads on the white paper.

Then, I flipped the paper over, borrowed a pencil from Mom and began to figure out how to create a geometric snowflake shape around the word.

I am not the most math gifted person, so I had to fudge things a tiny bit near the end, but soon the snowflake shape was designed for me to cut out.

I added a holly button to the front, some braid and beads to catch the lights from the tree.

Then I made my own cording for the top...

and hung it on the tree for the ornament exchange!!

During the weekend,  I also spend time knitting on Bethany’s scarf and raving about Yarn Harlot ’s pattern to people, stitching on 3 projects a little at a time, chatting with folk and not thinking much about any day to day things like cooking, laundry etc.

Erin texted me from the volleyball tournament in Saint John during the day.  They finished in 5th and she has some incredible new bruises from diving across the floor, but it was an odd tournament with 11 teams, so it came down to the win/loss ratio and the missed the playoffs by one more point scored against them than the other team.  Instead of being upset, she is already talking about the 16U tournament next weekend!

This morning, we all woke up fairly early, determined to cram in as much stitching as possible before we all had to head back to reality.  After a short worship service, I worked on an ornament for my step-dad for Christmas. It’s a beaded mandolin from Mill Hill and I think that once all the beads are on it will be incredible!

Mom worked on a little mouse ornament for most of the weekend...

and she managed to take a picture of me stitching too!

After lunch, we had our ornament exchange and I got a beautiful ornament that I will have to take a picture of soon.

We also raffled off 3 baskets of pink donated items and I added in tickets on the models for Wings of Courage and the pillow model from Dancing Dragons.  In all, we raised about $370 for the fight against Breast Cancer... not bad for a small group of determined, passionate stitchers.

All too soon we were saying our goodbyes, hugging and planning for the next retreat!

Getting SO excited about RETREAT!

24 hours from now I will be AWAY!

I really shouldn’t be this gleeful... the rest of the family has to go to Saint John for volleyball on Saturday and the girls sing in church on Sunday, so I will be missing some important stuff.  I will try to look like I am VERY miserable.  They will not see the dragon skipping gleefully on the inside of my head.

There is something incredible about getting away with a bunch of creative women, especially stitcher.  For most of the weekend, I will wander around a huge room where there will be a fire going and little circles of chairs and stitching nests, ott lights and power bars, snack bowls and coffee mugs... and most of all LOTS of stitching projects to look at.

This is one of the only times I stitch OTHER designers’ stuff for MY enjoyment.  You see, when  I stitch my own models, I am REALLY slow and I know how it is going to turn out.  I am such a visual person that I very rarely have something turn out drastically different from what I envisioned. Well, except for the sunburned princess, but I have paid Erica to be quiet about that one.  I probably owe another installment of that hush money soon!

I love getting away to stitch as much or as little as I feel like, get in touch with myself in long journal entries, go for walks, chat with my Mom and other great women, raise money for Breast Cancer and have someone ELSE do all the cooking.

It is a little piece of Heaven and I can’t wait.

I just have to teach High School all day tomorrow.....

A Wonderful Time at the CreativFestival...

I arrived home safely despite some VERY bumpy turbulence on the way home and dragged my suitcases to the basement Sunday night before falling into bed.  Unlike some of the wonderful stitchers I spent time with this past weekend, I had the luxury of not having to go to work early Monday morning!  As soon as the kids were on the bus, I went home and crawled back into  bed to catch up on some of the sleep that I missed over the weekend.  Then Nick came home sick from work and hour or so later and I have switched into nurse and mom mode ever since.

What wonderful memories I have!  From getting fabulous ideas from stitchers (I’m already doodling my “muddy” little dragon) to hilarious giggles over chart symbols, the weekend was full of wonderful memories.  I’d also like to thank all the friends (rather than students because that is what you’ve become over the years!) who jumped in to help snip floss, collect class fees and pass things out to make up for Teresa’s hands not being there and having extra things to kit up.  You were my guardian angels and I appreciate the help more than I could ever put into words!

To Karen and Erica who went above and beyond, I owe you more thanks than this dragon has words for.  I would have been totally lost without your support , thoughtful gestures and helping hands.

The photos of the class models (including the two of Teresa’s that I had with me) are up on the website under the secure links we discussed in our classes.  If you have any trouble with the URLs, just e-mail me to double check how they are listed and that way you will have your photo reference to work from.  Remember that if you run into any problems or have questions as you stitch the pieces, I am always just an e-mail away.

Finally, to all those of you who traveled from near and far to share time with me this weekend, I send tired but big dragon hugs to all of you.  You truly are the reason I just can’t walk away from designing things to stitch... you are all far too much fun to spend time with. I’m already planning new things for next fall!

When You Can’t Control How Life Unfolds...

It’s really late back home.  I don’t sleep well on the road and a warm bath didn’t do much to soothe the jangled nerves, but I’m going to crawl into bed soon.

Today didn’t unfold the way I’d planned and I am worried about Teresa, who should have been here in the hotel room in Toronto giggling with me instead of lying sick in bed at home.  As challenging as it was to have to think about adapting things for the rest of the weekend, I’d still rather be me than be barfing!

It really was the moment of truth today to see if I could put my Inhaling Creativity  explorations into practice.  Funny how sometimes we learn things just in time to really use them!

Now if only I could get all these ideas out of my head so that I can get some sleep!

Get well soon, Teresa!!

Pattern Hoarding and Pre-Toronto Chaos...

There’s something about getting ready for the show in Toronto that makes me feel so alive in a total panicky kind of way.  I usually have dreams about showing up at the wrong room or with the wrong supplies, but there is something so satisfying about watching the kit pieces come together as they take over my living room.  Erin and Bethany have a 5 day Thanksgiving weekend this year since the next 2 days are Curriculum Development days.  Teachers have been given a lot of new course materials to integrate with very little preparation or time to review the materials, so they will be doing some workshops and fine-tuning things. Rather than begrudge the fact that they aren’t in school, I gleefully informed them that they could work for me!  Kit assembly requires many hands and someone to double-check the counting, snipping etc.  Bethany worked for an hour tonight and actually enjoyed herself!  We’ll see how long that enthusiasm holds up when we have to put floss on card!

I didn’t teach this week in order to get everything ready, knowing that I’d want a bit of family time for Thanksgiving, so I actually got time to catch up on e-mail and business stuff, but that also allowed me to discover a disturbing trend.

I really wrestled with the shift my work had to take towards illustration as it became almost impossible for me to do trade shows alone with degenerative disc disease.  I actually shipped a box for Toronto up to  Erica today rather than have too much weight in my suitcase when they asked me to do a book signing for Owen & the Dinosaur in the Kid’s Zone at the CreativFestival.  While I may not be publishing as many patterns, the older designs that I spent 16 years of my life creating are still out there for stitchers to enjoy.

This week, several e-mails from stitchers overseas and in the USA revealed a rumour that “Dragon Dreams is no longer selling to shops”.  When that showed up in two separate e-mails, I was floored!

See this? 

This is just what I keep in my office close at hand in case a shop or distributor needs something quickly. 

I also pay for a self-store every month for all the boxes of printed patterns that used to take over my basement.

Honest... the dragon is NOT hoarding her patterns!

So, if your local shop is having trouble getting their claws on a design for you, tell them to give me an e-mail.  Only THREE of our 98 published patterns are getting close to being out of print... and they are the least popular of all my designs.  I will happily send them to shops who have customers with specific requests or just thought that a design had gone out of print.

The only thing that I won’t do is sell directly to stitchers.  Call me old-fashioned, but I spent too many years of my life at trade shows building relationships with store owners to suddenly become their competition.  I fully understand that many of the new designers feel the need to have both a retail and a wholesale presence out there.  I chose to head more into the Children’s Book Illustration and teaching.  We all have to decide what is best for our businesses, our families and ourselves... but I’d hate for stitchers to think that I’d taken a torch to all the patterns that I spent so many years creating.  Until those printed patterns run out, they are still IN PRINT.  Trust me...  I will NEVER, EVER run out of StormBringer patterns.  I had to print 3500 to get that printer to take me on and I’ve sold less than 1,000.

I know that some people believe that you are only as fresh as your last piece of work, but I also believe that classics stand the test of time.  I know that every time I read A Wrinkle In Time to my kids!

What brings me a lot of joy right now is getting ready to teach pieces at the CreativFestival.  I was going to keep my 3-D Perforated Paper Castle Ornament under wraps until next week, but I am just so tickled with how it turned out, that I have to show you.

I am NOT the best person at 3 dimensions...  I almost failed sculpture in Fine Arts.  Yet, I wanted to come up with a cool ornament for a tree that wouldn’t require a lot of finishing.  Perforated paper seemed ideal, but I also wanted it to have some SHAPE.  The results were even better than I’d hoped for.

Here is the front...

and here is the back side with the year.

Is is just me or is this too cool??

I can’t wait to get together next weekend with stitchers, friend and other creative people who understand the importance of being Creative in a ready-made world!!!

Musings From A Morning Walk...

I was only mildly disappointed that the phone didn’t ring before 7 am with a substitute teaching job this morning.  After all, it is only the second week of school here and not many teachers are sick yet.  I also have plenty to do getting ready for the CreativFestival in Toronto next month, so I had plenty to fill my day.

I did, however, start the morning with an hour’s walk in Mapleton Park which begins at the foot of our street.  At 6’5”, I am less afraid to walk in the park alone than some of my friends during daylight hours. I make a point of not wearing headphones, carrying a cellphone and staying to the main paths.  There are also few people on this planet who can keep up to my long natural stride without breaking into a run, so I truly enjoy walking at MY pace.

I was musing over what I had learned with the Doodle exercise for my Inhaling Creativity blog when it suddenly struck me.  My walks in the woods alone accomplish the same thing for my body that doodling does for my brain!  My lungs are pumping in and out, my feet are moving and I am staying on a fairly wide path, so my brain is able to detach a bit and think things through, just like when I am doodling - the hands are busy playing but the brain gets to wander ever so slightly and creative ideas can spring forth.

I also tend to carry a camera with me in case I see something interesting that will illustrate what I plan to blog about, need to take a reference shot for an illustration or see some colours that I want to find floss equivalents for.  Today’s walk was a bit of all 3.

Paths can be a wonderful metaphor for our lives.  Sometimes, the path we are meant to take can seem so clear that it is almost blinding...

Other times our lives are a blend of shadow and dappled sunshine along the way...

There are also people, events and moments that come into our lives like beacons or some elusive white stag that we chase...

and I also spotten my first Type A personality, overachieving tree trying to be the first one to turn colours!

So the next time you walk down a path, no matter where you are, take a moment to really look at it to see if it mirrors where you are in your life right now or where you would like to be.

But watch out for tree roots and rocks...  I looked pretty silly stumbling when my mind wandered a bit too far!