Tuesday, March 06, 2007

OF SUNFLOWERS AND PATTERNS AND SUNNY DAYS (PLEASE)

Those  of you in sunny climes take note: your northern sisters are in desperate need of a little sunshine. I'll keep feeding our senses with every summery, sunny day image I can find including this celebration of all things sunflower from my Tuscan adventure. The design 'Field of Dreams' stands amid a field of sunflowers lifting their little faces to soak in the rays.

At last the change detection, automatic subscription business is functioning. Here's how it works: you'll see on the left-hand side of the page a little box labeled 'Change detection'. This is software that sends you automated notifications any time I update my blog. All you do is inset your email address in the box followed by my website address (the string that appears in your browser when you're here). You will be then sent an email confirming that you've signed up along with a code to paste into the little box that will appear. Peter (my web maestro) will be working on it a bit more but otherwise, that's it: done. Super easy and much better than RRS in that it doesn't take a degree in webology to figure it out.

Also, all comments appear at the bottom of the page, two postings down.

My book is coming along. I'm now writing up the patterns and trying to keep myself from making up new ones. This has become an unexpected habit: I design a scarf and think, 'Oh, wouldn't it be good to make an evening purse to go with it?' Yes, well, if I do any more of that I'll never get this baby to print so no evening purse until after the book. As it is, I'm up to a 100 pages, most of which are color, making me think it will cost a fortune to print. However, it will be offered bot as a PDF download and as a DVD so multiple options will exist.

I'm also offering my patterns in print for those of you with pesky printers or who would just prefer to receive patterns the old-fashion way. All this is through Lulu.com and my storefront's at: http://www.lulu.com/jane23 This will be where I'll be posting all my print patterns, DVD's and the book. It's a print-on-demand company, the new world of publishing, with a distribution network that will go through to Amazon.com and Borders online. I'll be adding each of my patterns over the next few weeks and eventually DVD versions of pattern groupings. The Organic Knitting book may go the more traditional publishing route but that's a good year away so I won't think about it, at least not every day.

Above, a Renaissance lady wears the Amber & Onyx wrap, proof that my persuasive powers are not restricted to this century. On the otherhand, I'm having dreams of being attacked by some ancient version of Paint Ball compliments of Leonardo, Titian and the gang.

More news of up-coming workshops in the 'Events' section, by the way. Guess I'd better get back to work on the new Florentine Scarf lace design (half scarf, half necklace) for the book. Ciao!

Amber & Onyx by the Arno