First of all, Book 14 – Reflecting Love’s Charms is now available. You can go straight to Amazon to purchase it by clicking on the book’s cover.
I’m pretty excited about having this finished. During the weeks leading up to publication, my mind is set firmly on the task and it’s difficult for me to do much creative writing. Once it gets out into the world, my mind releases it and all of a sudden, story lines start flowing again.
No worries, though. Book 15 (no title yet, are you kidding me?) is already underway and will be published September 25th.
Last year, I re-discovered my passion for sewing. When I was pretty young, I learned to sew on an old treadle machine that my mother found. She figured I couldn’t get it moving fast enough to really hurt myself. Mom hadn’t learned how to sew until she was married. Dad’s sisters taught her and she took to it like she took to every other creative thing she did – mastery in no time at all. When we were children, our Christmases were incredible because of the things she sewed for us. I had the coolest fake-fur maxi coat that I wore for years. Carol remembers an amazing white floppy dog that Mom made. There were so many great things that came from her sewing machine. And the frogs? Oh, Mom made a bunch of those.
But alas, for me, life took over and things got in the way. Literally. My sewing machine (actually, Mom’s sewing machine) kept getting pushed further and further back, until I just quit looking at it. But oh my goodness, how I loved to sew.
One day last year, an incredible deal showed up on Amazon and I grabbed it. A new sewing machine came into my life and it was all over. Love had bloomed. Fabric is everywhere I look nowadays. I’m so happy, it’s just silly.
Another thing that I always wanted was … an embroidery machine. Last year it was a ridiculous idea. Since it had been at least fifteen years since I’d last done much sewing, I needed to find my confidence again. But I started researching the machines anyway. You know, just in case something ever showed up.
Last week, something interesting showed up. How many of you got funds from Amazon for that Apple class-action lawsuit? The amount I got was a big deal (we shouldn’t discuss my reading habits). I didn’t want to fritter it away on things that I’d buy anyway and considered just what I might desperately want. I remembered. And I grabbed it.
Believe it or not, that crazy machine showed up yesterday, right while I was in the middle of desperately working to get the email newsletter put together, a vignette written and the book formatted and published. Are you kidding me? What’s a girl to do?
I didn’t leave it in the box, but brought all of the bits and pieces inside and placed them around me, to taunt me and push me into working as hard as possible to finish that book. Then I put the machine together and stared at it. What in the world had I done? I know nothing about embroidery, except that I want to be able to do this.
Today has been an adventure. The first thing I learned is that I don’t even know what I don’t know! I’ve watched videos on YouTube (some of these people crack me up). I’ve read blogs and yes, I’m the chick who reads her manuals.
Other than what came in the box with the machine, I have very few tools to actually do any embroidery. Stabilizer? Well, there’s some interfacing in that drawer. It will at least allow me to do something. So I tried it out on a piece of fabric that will be beat to heck by the time I’m finished with it.
I got so overwhelmed this afternoon, I finally had to take a nap so my brain would shut down (okay, the nap was imperative since I was up so early chatting with readers who were looking for the book – I’m a night person!).
It’s good to learn new skills, and this is going to be a blast. I have lots of ideas and plans – only a few which will probably come together. Pretty soon there will be just as much thread in the house as there is fabric – I’m sure of that.
So many things to create! No reason to stop now!
