The Monday “What have you done lately?” accountability post, where I announce my Needle and Thread: Stitching for Literacy program promotion goal for the week and fess up on last week’s goal.

Due to having no internet connection for most of the past week, I did not accomplish as much as I had hoped. I’m still not online.

We stalled on the baseball bookmark patterns. We have some questions about ground materials we need to answer before continuing. I can probably find answers when I get online again, but until then…I’ve switched to the 2009 Bookmark Challenge outreach pattern.

For the past two years, Arctic Needle, Funk & Weber Designs, and Arctic Needleworkers (the Anchorage EGA chapter) have offered a bookmark Make-It/Take-It at the main branch of the Anchorage public library during the Needle and Thread: Stitching for Literacy Bookmark Challenge. We’re offering another one this year. I’ve designed this year’s outreach pattern out of my friend Beck’s head.

I was kicking around some ideas with her, and she came up with this one. It’s related, and fits my theme perfectly, but it’s not what I was originally thinking. I love it! I think I’ll use it as part of a larger pattern that I will publish. I love the theme, and it lends itself to many interpretations.

I’ll show you the design when it’s stitched, but I wanted to let you know that I will make this pattern available to anyone doing an outreach program during the Challenge, and that includes you. If you will teach someone (or two?) to stitch a bookmark, I will supply this pattern. Send me an e-mail (jen at funkandweber dot com) letting me know your plans. The person(s) you teach does not have to donate his/her bookmark. Nor do you, for that matter. We should all have hand-stitched bookmarks.

This week’s goal will again be to finalize the baseball bookmark pattern(s).