The Dragon Finds Her Voice Again...

My grandmother always told me that if I couldn’t say anything nice... I shouldn’t say it. With the recent upheavals in the needlework industry and the strength of the Canadian dollar hurting the fact that most of my income comes in US dollars, I haven’t really felt like I had much to say that was positive. I did promise that Dragon Musings would be a look inside the head of a designer and a realistic look into my life... but I just couldn’t bear to whine and complain when I am still SO much more fortunate that many on the rest of this planet. Watching all of the natural disasters around the world has convinced me that snowstorms really aren’t that awful!

The second thing that helped me find my voice again was spending time teaching at the Creative Sewing and Needlework Festival up in Toronto last weekend. It will now be known as the CreativFestival, which is probably more appropriate. It now encompasses everything from quilting and needlework to beading, basket weaving, scrapbooking and much more. While a few people lamented that there just wasn’t enough needlework, I thought that the strength of the show was the ability to reach out to such a wide audience of creative people. Seeing the faces of stitchers who have not only been students over the years but also become friends, reminded me of all the best this industry has to offer. Giving a lecture on how to not only improve the look of your crafts, but also understand why taking the time to craft is SO important to our spirit and our health, was a vibrant reminder to me to heed my own words and treasure my own calling.

In getting the website overhauled and broadened to reflect the true scope of all that I do, I have taken my stand that what I really do as an artist, is to try to create images that reach out and speak to people. Sometimes, it will be with a needle and thread, while others may be with painted rocks or watercolour illustrations.

The Ebay auction for the first two wizard rocks, Orion and Malachai, go live October 19th (Items #7358945644 and 7358947574) . It will be fun to see what the response is to them, if any. Like any business person, I need to constantly perfect and adapt what I do... or be open to new markets when a pathway narrows or a door gets slammed in your face. If you never take the risk of spreading your wings... you will never get the joy of knowing what it means to fly.