Promises, promises...

So the good news is that this blog is now ten days old and I haven't run out of ideas yet, not anywhere close. Oh, no, there are many things planned for this little spot of netspace.
The bad news is that I'm still working exclusively on the Help Japan bat and keyrings, so I can't actually put any of these plans into motion until they're finished. Working on it, I promise. However! Today I'm going to tell you what I have planned. Aside from finally finishing that bloody squid.

First of all, this place needs a banner, a proper one. One made in cloth and stitches by me, so I'll be designing and making that, and putting it in place.

Second, Sara at The Split Stitch has a lovely little easter sampler which you can download for free and which I certainly will - as you can see from this WIP picture, it is most egg-sellent (pause to be pelted with rotten eggs) and versetile. I am thinking of doing it in appliqué and embroidery, with plenty of nice glittery beads and sequins to set it off with.

Sara's work, not mine. My french knots aren't anywhere near this neat.

Also, I should be showing you Stuff That's Been Inspiring Me Lately - I could do that now, except that I think we need a day for it, maybe Thursdays, for no other reason than that's flea market day here in my town and that makes it a fitting day in my mind to throw a bunch of links and pictures at my readers, plus you get to hear me gush about what bizarre thing I found on the flea market/at the antique shop/wherever. So there.*

I almost forgot! There will be tutorials on this site in future. Free charts, patterns, all that kind of thing - I'm not going to give up the Psychotoy pattern but frankly, that one is so unbelievably simple that I'm stunned nobody's worked it out themselves yet. But there will be other animal toys, and dolls, and cross stitch charts, and other embroidery charts - all kinds of cool stuff, as well as the reviews of magazines, books and craft equipment that I mentioned before. One thing you're going to have to bear with me on, though, is that my computer graphics skills are minimal at best and I don't have a charting program, so these will mostly be hand-drawn. I will test them myself and if they are not clear they won't be here.

Is that everything? Pretty much, I think. Glorious June weather here in England - funny really, since it's only April...

* - Today it was a bat netsuke. It's got a very cute face and it's made so that when it's attached to a string, it naturally hangs upside-down. I'd squee, but I'd die of shame.