Putting the rug back where it belongs!

I'm happy to say I have been able to spend the first couple of weeks of the new year putting the rug back where it belongs!

If you read my post here you will remember that the rug was pulled from under my feet when my Craftsy Store disintegrated before my eyes! (By the way, you probably know that 'Craftsy' no longer exists as it is now called 'Bluprint', a name which conveys very little to me to show it is a place where I would find crafty things! Oh well!)

Thank you so much for the overwhelming support you, my lovely blog friends, showed me with your kind words and your support in purchasing my patterns. 

All my designs are now available for purchase on my website 

It took me almost two weeks to get all those Paypal buttons up and working, only to discover (thankfully early in the piece) that they didn't work on IOS mobile phones using Google!!! A quick search of the internet and an easy solution was found and it was then just remembering to alter the codes each time to suit. I'm hopeful they work OK on Android as I have no way of checking that!

I decided it was time to give the website a fresh new, simpler, look and I don't think you can go past pink polka dots and daisies! I thought again about culling some of my older patterns, but every time I think about it, someone buys one of them, so I decided to leave all the ones that were on Craftsy available on my website. There are 40-50 of my published designs that I have never offered for sale, either because I think they look dated, or they were made with fabrics that don't really fit my style, or because I wasn't really proud of them, or I just didn't think they were worth offering. 

But you know how it is when you go back looking through photos and the cogs begin to turn. Some of these rejects are actually not too bad at all. In fact, some of them are quite good! So the plan is to rework a few of them with better drawings and modern fresh fabric. I am even getting excited about stitching again, after being in the doldrums for three or four months and hardly touching a needle and thread!

There is still a way to go in getting that rug back in place. The next job is to open an Etsy store where I will offer a selection of my patterns. Then I will get my free patterns organised as most of the links to those now no longer work. Some of my formerly free patterns now have a small charge. So you can see that I'm making the most of having my world turned upside down!

Our daughter from Japan was with us over the Christmas holidays and our grand-daughter visited us as well, so we spent a Mother/Daughter/Grand-daughter morning and made one of these lovely envelope clutches. Daughter and Grand-daughter learned how to make them at a Kimono factory last year, so it seemed appropriate to make mine from a Silk Obi that I had. The bonus was I could use the obi silk back for the lining, so the colour matched perfectly. 

I thought you might like to see some medals which I have just recently received on behalf of my father. He served in the Army in World War II in Papua New Guinea. He didn't meet me till I was seven months old when he came home on leave.

He died in 1972 and subsequently in 1975 the Australian Government issued an Australian Service medal to all those who had served their country in the forces between 1945 and 1975. I only found out about the medal issue recently so I applied and in due course these lovely medals arrived, inscribed with his name and Service Number. 

 

Now I'm really getting all nostalgic!

Until next time,

Val