Phew! I can stop pacing and sweating. I can breathe without gasping. My heart rate can slow to its normal 92 beats per minute. The new patterns arrived from Cardinal Press.

After 20 minutes of struggling and failing to open the box, Mike came to my rescue with a sharp knife. Through my blurry, sweat-stinging eyes, I somehow managed to find relief. The patterns looked good.

The colors are good. The charts are clear. I used a whole different method of inserting the charts into the pattern layout because all of a sudden, inexplicably, the old method didn’t work. I asked Jim, my Cardinal Press contact, to personally take a look at the charts and make sure every 10th line was bold, and all the lines and symbols were clear. He did. They were. And that, friends, is why I have my charts printed 6,000 miles from where I live. I have been happy with every single job Cardinal Press has done for me. I’ve used dozens of other, closer printers, and I can’t say that about any of them. Unfortunately, there is a cost issue threatening this happy relationship, but I don’t want to think about that just now.

So, we have 3 new bookmark patterns to take to the TNNA NeedleArts Market in January, and a reprint of Looner Night.
Looner Night pattern, Funk & Weber Designs

I won’t post images of the new patterns online until February, at the earliest. Attendees of the NeedleArts Market get the first look and a chance to have the patterns in their shops before others–that’s one benefit of attending such shows. Part of me wants to share them with you first, though, since you were here for the lengthy development and stitching stages, so maybe I’ll poke a hole in my plan and look the other way as something leaks out. Not now, of course. I’ll be at least a little sneaky, maybe slipping a random, unidentified image into some blog post. Oooooo…and I’ll make it a contest! The first person who finds the leaked image and writes “BOOKMARK!” in the comments will win a copy of the pattern.

It’s official. That is a real contest. I love contests!