Wii Madness!!!

Ok.... so last week the Nintendo Wii was on sale at 3 major retailers here in Moncton last week and they were all having price wars with each other. We turned in all of our Zellers Club Z points and got $80.00 off the best price in town... so I talked the family into getting a Wii for my birthday next week.

Since we’re also going to be away next weekend at a church event, I talked them into letting me open my present a week or so early!

What a riot!! The girls and I spent the whole afternoon building our Miis and trying out the sporting games that came with the system. Then, when my Mom and John came for supper tonight, we made grandparent Miis for them.

We spent a whole hour playing Brain Academy as a family and my daughters ROCK!! I’m still the highest score in the family (the Dragon says ever so smugly!) but now after a bit of bowling and tennis with Nick, my hands hurt again.

I am typing this carefully in the basement while the upper floor shakes with Nick doing his boxing levels.

This is going to be GOOD CARDIO!!!

It Was Worth It...

I wish those who shared patterns illegally could understand just how much work goes into a design. It is over a year later than when I first hoped to release Santa’s Dragon and has been the most complicated design that I have ever created, as well as the largest.

Sore hands, late nights, fabric changes, braid colour changes etc. were all worth it when I walked into my LNS yesterday with the framed model and watched a bunch of stitchers gasp in delight.

Here for all you blog readers to see is the first peek at DD-98 Santa’s Dragon which will officially be released on September 25th when Sue Hillis and her cruise of stitchers jaunt into Moncton for the day while their boat is docked in Saint John. The bait of a wonderful cross stitch shop just an hour and a half away was enough for them to make the road trip. I can’t wait to meet some of them at Because You Count between 11:30 and 1:30!

Knowing that there were some people ready to steal this design as soon as it came out really made it hard to continue at some points when my hands and spirit were weary. Then I read a quote that spoke right to my very soul.

“Once you accept an artistic assignment from the great Creator, it’s yours. Nobody can take it away from you, unless, of course, you relinquish it. Nobody can duplicate your work because there’s no one in the world like you. They can imitate, but they can’t duplicate. Your work is born of your sensibilities, temperament, experience, emotion, passion, perseverance, attention to detail, idiosyncrasies and eccentricities. When you are authentic, so is your art.” -Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance

Pattern sharers may steal this design, but that is a risk that I have to be willing to take, even though what they are doing is WRONG. This design is one that I have wrestled with more than any other and one that comes from deep within. It is time to let it be seen by the world and hopefully be enjoyed by those who stitch it. I know it was worth it...

Now I just have to finish checking over the chart to make sure it matches the finished model. That’s one of perks and frustrations of being a designer that makes boo-boos as she stitches. If it still looks good in the model, I can just change the chart!