Stitchtastic Newsletter May 11 - Emergency Edition

	Corsa's finished Spring Cleaning is done (well, nearly) and I've finally finished my Vauxhall Corsa design. It was a great stitch, although I must admit I'm looking forward to stitching something that's not in grey! Apologies if the picture looks rather creased, I haven't had time to iron it yet but I promise I will. Remember, if you'd like to display your stitched versions of our designs, ironed or unironed, feel free to post them on our facebook page, www.facebook.com/Stitchtastic. My Vauxhall Corsa design, finally finished! Emergency Stitching We all owe a debt of gratitude to the emergency services in one way or another, and what better way to say thank you than by stitching them a tribute? We have a wide range of 999 designs (the phone number, not how many we've got!!), whether you'd like to stitch for a friend, a relative or a hard working police, ambulance or fire officer. Firstly, here's our ambulance design. It's colourful and bright, with plenty of blocky bits for the easy stitching evenings in front of the TV. It uses 19 DMC colours and when stitched on 14 count aida it measures 14.3" by 9.6". The ambulance kit costs £35.95, have a closer look at http://www.stitchtastic.com/product/paramedic-ambulance-cross-stitch-kit.aspx . Next, we have several designs for the hard working police force. Police cars are well catered for in our range, with 2 designs to choose from, a Mondeo car and a Volvo. The Mondeo kit costs £29.95 and uses 12 DMC colours, measuring 11.6" by 7". It's a real action design and will impress any high speed police driver! The second police car is a Volvo and the kit also costs £29.95. It measures 13.4" by 9.5" so is the slightly bigger of the two designs, using 20 DMC colours. If your police friend or relative is a little more on the daring side, perhaps they'd appreciate our riot Transit van design, which measures 12.9" by 10.4" when stitched on 14 count aida. It uses 14 DMC colours and costs £35.95 for the kit. Remember, all of these designs are also available as charts for £10.95 each. Our final emergency service designs are for the (supposedly) hunkiest of all, the firemen (perhaps you know differently!). OK, that's a terrible cliche and there are fire officers from both genders, not all of whom are hunky(!) but there's no harm in a little cliche to sell cross stitch, is there? We have 2 fire engine designs, both available as kits and charts. The London fire engine design costs £29.95 and is very striking and colourful. It uses 15 DMC colours and measures 13" by 9.4". Slightly larger is the Dennis Firetruck design, measuring 14.3" by 9.6". It uses more DMC colours, 24 in total and is the more expensive of the two at £35.95. Hopefully one of our emergency service designs will fit the bill for your emergency service worker. If you are that worker and you're stitching for yourself or your crew, we'd love to hear from you and you would definitely be featured in an upcoming newsletter! Very colourful - you wouldn't miss this coming towards you! Mondeo Police Car - super fast! The more sturdy Volvo Police Car. I predict a riot! London's burning.... Mummy, why are all fire engines called Dennis? New Design Preview Especially for you newsletter readers, a preview of our newest design, not even released yet, but I wanted to have something of a teaser in the newsletter for our faithful followers! The brand new number plate design follows our transport range but provides an opportunity for stitchers to personalise a design for anyone of any age. It's based around the modern GB number plate design and the kit comes with a full alphabet and number list so that stitchers can make an individual number plate for their loved ones, which could be used as a door plate or as a label to personalise a drawer, cupboard or just as a fabulous piece of stitching! As with all of our kits, the design comes with Zweigart aida and DMC threads, using just 4 colours. The completed number plate will obviously vary in size if you wish, depending on the size of the name, but the average should be approximately 11" in width with a height of 2.5". The kit is also a bargain, with a price tag of around £9.95. This design is so new that it's not on the website yet (as we've not quite finished it!) but rest assured our newsletter readers and facebook likers will be the first to know when it is ready. Coming soon, our new personalised number plate design. Facebook milestone As I'm writing the newsletter, I've just had a quick look on facebook (in between looking at pictures of me as a teenager, chatting about what's for tea, all the other random things we all do on facebook!) and noticed that we've reached the milestone of 100 likers! I don't know if there's an official phrase for 'those who like our page', is it fans? Anyway, that's not the most important issue here, I want to thank those of you who have 'liked' our page and to encourage more of you to join in! Have a look at www.facebook.com/Stitchtastic or follow the link on our homepage, www.stitchtastic.com. 100 Stitchtastic facebook fans! Next Month Next month we're going to pay another tribute, but this time to the brave men and women of our armed forces, with some versions of their vehicles that they may not have seen before.... See you then! See you then! Questions or comments? E-mail me at sarah@stitchtastic.com or call +44 (0) 114 2353958 Until next time Sarah Designer

Newsletter April 11 - F1 Special

	Show's over Apologies for the slight lateness of this newsletter but we've just returned unscathed from 2 of the major stitching shows of the year - Stitch & Craft 2011 at Olympia and Sewing for Pleasure at the NEC in Birmingham. It was fantastic to meet so many stitchers, and particularly great to meet existing Stitchtastic customers who came back to say hi, to look at the kits they were working on already finished, or simply to have a browse for their next project. As for me, I'm ready for a rest and a bit of stitching myself, I have hardly had any stitching time over the last couple of months whilst in show-mode, so over the next few days I want to finish the Vauxhall Corsa I've been stitching since Christmas and make a start on my next project, which I think will be a Mini. However, there's the small matter of spring cleaning first! If you'd like to see my Vauxhall Corsa when it's finished, have a look at our facebook page,www.facebook.com/Stitchtastic. It will also be in next month's newsletter, hopefully!   It's a feat of engineering, fitting everything onto our stand at Sewing for Pleasure. New Formula 1 Season Another delayed event this year (probably a little more popular than our newsletter but you never know!) is the beginning of the Formula 1 season. Did you get up for the first race? We did, before going to Sewing for Pleasure at the NEC. And what's more, after an alarm / changing the clocks fiasco, we ended up getting up at 4am instead of 6am! Oh, well, at least we didn't miss the race! If you enjoy the racing, why not have a stitch whilst watching? Especially good for the slightly more straighforward races, or if someone at home is a bigger fan than you and you are forced to watch it, a Formula 1 stitch could be a fantastic addition to your memorabilia or just a colourful way to pass Sundays until November! We have number of Formula 1 designs, here are just a few. For the full range, have a look at http://www.stitchtastic.com/catalog/cars_f1.aspx . First of all, a design that splits people right down the middle - our McLaren Hamilton / Button design. Whenever I show this to customers at shows, they are always very definite as to whether they would want to stitch Lewis Hamilton or Jenson Button. I like both myself! Whether you have a definite preference or whether you're happy to stitch either as a present for a fan, you'll find this a really straightforward stitch, plenty of blocky areas to stitch in front of the TV but some challenging bits to for when you want to use your brain a bit more. The Hamilton / Button design costs £29.95 plus £2 p+p. It measures 13.8" by 9.1" and uses 12 DMC colours. Next, a blast from the past with a car from one of the larger than life team principals of the last 20 years or so - an F1 Jordan car. Eddie Jordan always brightens up any race day and his car is certainly as bright as they come! Measuring 20.6" by 8", this design uses 13 colours and is very effective when finished. It also costs £29.95 +£2 p+p. One of our biggest designs is another McLaren Car, measuring 15.3" by 10.6" this is stitched on 18 count aida and uses 19 colours. This comes from approximately the Alonso McLaren era and will certainly delight any serious F1 enthusiast. The kit costs £35.95 plus £2 p+p. Finally, one for the younger enthusiast, a more general F1 car based around the Ferrari design, the Pole Position design always goes down a treat with kids / nieces and nephews / grandchildren - the list goes on. The design uses 21 DMC colours and measures 14.3" by 9.2" when stitched on 14 count aida. It also costs £35.95 plus £2 p+p.   Lewis - stitched!   Stitch Jenson for his second McLaren season.   The distinctive livery of the old Jordan team.   An authentic, detailed McLaren stitch.   Pole Position - where all drivers would like to be!   Stitchtastic Stitchers - calling all men! A plea this month - we'd love to feature some stitchtastic designs stitched by our male stitchers. We always to chat to a large number of male stitchers at the stitching shows, so we know you're out there - get stitching and sending! One of our current male stitchers is Harry from Norway, he and his wife Joey have featured in previous newsletters and we're very grateful for all their hard work. Harry has even appeared in his local newspaper in Norway showing off some of our designs. Unfortunately it was in Norwegian so I'm not entirely sure what it said! The pictures looked great though. Here's a picture of the London Black Cab Taxi that Harry stitched. At least, I think it was Harry, Joey, sorry if this one was actually you!   Harry's fantastic stitched Black Cab Taxi. Stitching show review Yes, I know I've mentioned the shows already, but I had to mention the strangest experience that happened during Sewing for Pleasure, I wonder if any of you who visited were taken aback by this too? As you can imagine, it's a very busy day at the stitching show and you have to take opportunities when they arise to pop out for any errands / lunch etc. I had left our stand briefly to pop to the loo and as I walked out of Hall 12 at the NEC, I was confronted by one of the most surprising sights I had ever seen - over 100 Star Wars Stormtroopers! For those of you who don't know, a stormtrooper is a character from the Star Wars films, they were enemy soldiers and not quite what you would expect to find standing outside the NEC on a Saturday afternoon! With the stormtroopers was Darth Vader, then rather more strangely, Indiana Jones, a few assorted Ghostbusters, Xena Warrior Princess and last but not least, the Stig! After being a bit of a geek and taking a few photos, I found out that there was a memorabilia exhibition on at one of the other halls and lots of enthusiasts had come along dressed as their favourite character, which certainly brightened up my afternoon! I had a little look around the exhibition, but it wasn't as much fun as Sewing for Pleasure - I suppose it depends on what you're into.....!   I didn't expect Stormtroopers to be stitchers!   Some say........he loves to cross stitch! Next Month Next month we will pay tribute to a fantastic group of people through the medium of stitch - the heroes of the emergency services. Fire engines and police cars here we come! We'd like to feature those male stitchers too, so please send in your pics. See you then!   Questions or comments? E-mail me at sarah@stitchtastic.com or call +44 (0) 114 2353958 Until next time Sarah Designer

Stitchtastic Newsletter March 11 - Beat the price rise!

	What's happened to all the cotton? A serious note to start our newsletter this month. As you may have read, cotton prices have gone through the roof over recent months. At a trade show in February, I chatted with the DMC VIPs, one of whom had come over especially from the USA to meet with all of us UK cross stitch manufacturers and to talk about the price of cotton. If you'd like to know more, have a look at http://realbusiness.co.uk/sales_and_marketing/cotton_prices_at_record_high , for an in depth look at the issue. Now as you can imagine, cross stitch manufacturers do use rather a lot of cotton-based products, from our threads to our fabrics so this price hike has unfortunately meant that we will have a small price rise at the beginning of April. Having absorbed the VAT rise here in the UK, we simply couldn't continue with the increases in all of our raw material prices. So, firstly, apologies for the rise, but secondly and more importantly, you have one month to get your Stitchtastic orders in before the price rise!   Our most popular camper van designs, for the next 4 weeks part of our £27.95 range. Lorries and Vans...finally! Well, I've been promising to take a look at our lorry and van designs for several months now, and here they are. (For our US readers, you may prefer to call them trucks.) To start with, our most popular lorry design. The Eddie Stobart design is our best selling lorry and definitely the biggest and most colourful! Measuring 13.9" by 8.7", the design uses 20 DMC colours and certainly shows off the striking livery of an Eddie lorry in our trademark caricature style. The kit is priced at £33.95 for the rest of this month. A surprisingly popular design next, the Tesco fuel tanker. When I designed this, I wasn't expecting it to be a particular best seller, but it has proved me wrong! It measures 13.9" by 8.7" and uses 11 DMC colours. The kit costs £27.95, until the end of March. Let's move on now to look at vans. The Transit van must be the most popular van in the UK, and we have 2 available in stitched form on our website. Firstly, if you know a white van man (or woman), they'd love this take on their vehicle of choice from the rear, measuring 13.7" by 9" and using 16 colours. It's priced at £27.95 during March. The Transit is also available as a Police version, ready for any emergency. It measures 12.9" by 10.4" and uses 14 DMC colours. Finally, take a look at the DAF 92 Truck Rig, which I'm sure would appeal to any trucker. Measuring 11.7" by 13.9", it uses 15 DMC colours and is currently on sale at £27.95. There are many more designs in our lorries and van section, have a look at http://www.stitchtastic.com/catalog/caricature-lorries-vans.aspx for those I couldn't fit in here.   Second month running for this stitched Eddie picture!   Surprising popular for a petrol tanker.   Stitch the transit for your very own white van man.   The Police Transit van is ready for anything.   Our DAF 92 design, one of a number of truck designs in our range.   Stitchtastic Stitchers This month marks the return of Margaret, one of our previous contributors. Her father in law is the stitcher in the family and completed the brilliant Caterham 7 design pictured here as a Christmas present for Margaret's husband from him and his wife. Margaret says they're all very pleased with the way the design has come out - I think it looks fantastic!   Thanks to Margaret's father in law, this stitched piece looks amazing. Stitching show time It's now crazy time at Stitchtastic, as it always in in March. Following a very busy and successful trade show in February, our attention turns to the 2 major retail fairs in March, Stitch & Craft 2011 at Olympia, 17th - 20th March and Sewing for Pleasure at the NEC, 24th to 27th March. So if you're visiting either of these shows, what should you expect? Lots of people, lots of gorgeous products to look at and plenty to spend your money on! Here's my quick guide to visiting craft shows. 1. Wear comfy shoes. You will walk around a great deal and there are not that many places to sit, so wear something that won't give you blisters / leg ache. 2. Make a list of what you want to look at. Even if you're not sure what you're after, at least write down some vague ideas, even if they just say 'new projects to stitch'! 3. Set a budget, but as part of that budget have some pennies set aside for surprise purchases. You will see something you love and that you're not expecting to buy, so ensure you know what you want first, then work out how much you have left for gorgeous unexpected things. 4. Bring some snacks. Lunchtime can get very busy, so either eat your lunch early and then top up in the afternoon or leave your lunch until a bit later than usual and have a quick snack to keep you going mid morning. (Doesn't have to be fattening, an apple will do!!) 5. If you're travelling by train, know what time your train home will be and stick to it! The trains around rush hour can be packed, especially at Olympia. If you're driving (more common at the NEC), try to avoid rush hour too as the M42 can be murder! 6. Take as many catalogues / info leaflets as you can, then revisit online all of those stores you didn't have time to buy from when you have a little more spare cash. 7. More importantly, enjoy yourself! Go with a friend if you can, or if you don't have a stitching friend, take someone who would enjoy a trip around London or Birmingham and send them off for the day whilst you enjoy the delights of stitching!   Come along and enjoy yourself at a stitching show this Spring. Next Month I have to be honest, right now I'm so busy preparing for the shows that I haven't a clue what will be in next month's newsletter! It may be a little late due to the shows, but I promise it will be filled with many more of our bright, colourful designs and maybe a star stitcher or two - could that be you? See you then!   Questions or comments? E-mail me at sarah@stitchtastic.com or call +44 (0) 114 2353958 Until next time Sarah Designer