We're in a magazine!

Classic Stitches asked if they could do a feature about One Off and I readily agreed to an interview with Eileen McCarroll Outram. However, although I am happy to chat about needlepoint all day long, it was a different matter when I was asked to talk about myself! The questions came thick and fast often about things I had never even thought about! "Where do you get your inspiration?" for example. I don't know - ideas just come. Sometimes quickly, sometimes they take months. "Why are so many of your design blue?"... They're not!! ...are they? Anyway, I babbled uncomfortably on for what felt like hours and that was that.

Then a few days later came the phone call. Something had gone wrong with Eileen's recording equipment and she had all her questions safely recorded and none of my answers! For a hideous moment, I thought we were going to have to do the whole thing again. Fortunately, that wasn't the solution. Eileen emailed the questions and I was able to type my answers. Phew! Although it was a long interview, I really didn't expect three pages in the magazine and I'm childishly excited about it - a little bit like seeing yourself on television!

How to read a needlepoint chart.

Recently, a customer ordered a Christmas Decorations needlepoint kit. Then a couple of weeks later she rang up to say she was a complete beginner and was having great difficulty making her stitching match the chart.  Normally, I say follow the printed canvas and use the chart only occasionally as a guide, but her problem went deeper than that.  She didn’t know how to stitch on canvas.  The chart confused her because she thought the grid represented the canvas threads.

It does look that way with vertical and horizontal lines and my instructions took it for granted that even a beginner would realise that one coloured square represents one stitch.

I did a little bit of stitching on a scrap of spare canvas, posted it off and she later rang to say now she could see exactly what to do.  I hope she has gone on to finish her little decorations and we have a new needlepoint devotee!

But all this got me thinking.  The ‘Friendly Instructions’ that go in all my kits and have drawn so many kind compliments did not address this fundamental problem.  I should make it clear that on the chart, one coloured square represents one stitch.  That has now been fixed!  It may take a while for future kits to filter through but this has never happened before so I hope we will be in time for the next one.