October

Well.

October was an …ummm… interesting month.

A really nasty bug kept me home from the Creativ Festival in Toronto.  While I was severely bummed out about it, Jennifer and Erica (they both blogged about their experiences at the Festival) were able to heroically rescue the situation so that most classes were taught in my absence.  My grateful thanks to them both, and to the students who signed up for my classes!  A note to those who are waiting to receive the remainder of cancelled class kits: I am waiting for the official class lists to arrive from the show office.  As soon as I receive the lists, I will mail out your missing information!  Thanks for your patience!

After recuperating sufficiently from the above mentioned illness, the next task was my annual studio move into our house for the Winter.  While moving *out* of the studio space is not a happy occasion for me, I must admit, it went quite smoothly.  Nothing was dropped/broken, no muscles were overly strained, everything I moved *fit* into the space allocated, and the weather cooperated.  Practice makes perfect they do say.

And then it became necessary to face something.

I’m good at putting off things I don’t *absolutely* HAVE to do immediately.  Procrastination is an art, and, I admit, I do it pretty well.  Thing is, I also am loathe to give up hope when there is the tiniest spark remaining that some “thing” could maybe work out after all.  Add to that the knowledge that I am going to disappoint people in the process of doing/facing the aforementioned “thing”, and I’ve got very good reasons for…well… not facing reality.

For several years, I’ve been able to successfully avoid making a decision about my business.  It’s limped along now for 5 of the last 11 years (TW Designworks came into being in November, 1998.)  Every year held *just enough* hope so that I could  talk myself into staying the course for *just one more* year… maybe next year will be better…

But this year has left no doubt.  The time has finally come:  TW Designworks will be closing.  Distributors are being notified that all TW Designworks patterns are now out-of-print (effective immediately).  An announcement has been posted on both the main needlework page of the website, and on the TWBB which gives basic information about the closure, and the resources that will still be available to stitchers.  It’s been a difficult decision, but one I could no longer avoid making.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to meet and work with so many wonderful people in the needlework industry.  It has been an amazing journey to imagine and create needlework images for stitchers to enjoy.   Thank you for allowing me that honor for all of these years!  I wouldn’t have traded the experience for anything.

Just because I won’t be designing needlework anymore doesn’t mean I’ll be disappearing!  My business might have bitten the dust, but my creativity hasn’t!   I’ll still be blogging, so drop by when the spirit moves you!