Welcome to the first HAED News and website update
This will be updated weekly with news from the website about new charts, artists, sales, etc so please bookmark
Nashville Market Update
Nashville was a blast with reconnecting old relationships with fellow designers as well as shops! We arrived mid day Thursday and began to get set up and thanks to all the wonderful folks that submitted models we were thrilled with how things looked.
We spent most of Friday (set up day) arranging charts on tables and rearranging models at least a hundred times. Then it was off to the store to get coffee, cookies and treats to feed everyone. We arranged baskets and props of little fairies, doilies etc and a sign with our motto: “Do not follow where the path may lead go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”.
We then felt ready for the flurry that would await us on Saturday morning at 8am – but only find out that registration started at 8am and we were left wondering why everyone’s doors were still closed at 8:30. Whoops – off to read the materials again “oh yes, it starts at 9am!”…. *sigh*
Promptly at 9 the rush began and it was a flurry for the entire day and when 6pm hit we felt like a mere hour had passed. We were full of pride and joy at the comments on everyone’s beautiful work and handfuls of orders.
We then went out for dinner and came back to process orders as we had rented a printer to fill orders as a convenience. We quickly realized that we had far more orders than we could print in a night. At 2:30 am we gave up and hit the sack to try and get a good nights rest for the following day.
Sunday morning the alarm goes off and we quickly put on the coffee and met with some old friends such as Maureen of Heart’s Content, Lynda of Forever in My Heart, Pat of R&R Reproductions and many others. We even got in some shopping!
Our room was flooded quickly with folks that had settled on what they wanted for their shops and people picking up orders. It was wonderful and as the day wound to a close we were exhausted and exhilarated! We formed many new relationships and even will be doing some featured designs on hand dyed fabrics from R&R and Stitches and Spice. We also formed a relationship with Valdani Threads and will be featuring their gorgeous fibers in some original designs that are on the drawing board. The first up will be a series of seasonal designs featuring garden centers and elaborate borders with blackwork in color!
We are most grateful for being able to see old friends and getting caught up on some tragedies and triumphs that we had been out of the loop on. We were even surprised by two of our distributors attending the show – Ralph and Carol of Colray Crafts in Switzerland and Giovanni of Cenina s.a.s. BI Calugi in Spain. We were very honored that they traveled all that way just to see us. We had dinner with Ralph and Carol and have been collaborating on doing some kits here in the US to try and lower the pricing of our kits for our US customers. Currently the threads are purchased in the US and then shipped to Switzerland where they are assembled and then shipped back out to US customers as well as European. It makes more sense to manufacture them here and thus resulting in lower pricing of the kits.
We have been invited to attend the St. Charles show with much encouragement from Roz of Acorns and Threads from our old stomping grounds of Portland Oregon. We are considering further shows both retail and wholesale as time permits but keep in mind that it is difficult with the workload and having two young Daughters and now two Grandbabies (the most recent born Christmas Day).
We would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for the success of HAED and bringing your requests to shops around the world. We are and will remain forever grateful.
Michele and Bob
New Artists welcomed to HAED
There are two new artists to welcome to the HAED Community Steven Paul Carlson and Dennis Lewan , click their names to see their web pages at HAED and for their websites, we look forward to more of their lovely art being charted in the future
HAED Finishes
There have been a number of finishes framed in recent weeks, and they look wonderful!
QS SeaStar ( Becket-Griffith) stitched by sugar peanut
QS Red Witch ( Dillman) stitched by Jeanette
QS Bubblehat Witch ( Harrison) stitched by Jan
Faery Tales ( Christensen) stitched by Komari
As well as some lovely unframed finishes
Qs A Wolfish Friend ( Becket-Griffith) stitched by Dance72
Qs Tomboy ( Fenech) Stitched by Lisa
if you would like your finished work on the website or to see a wide range of WIPS please visit the HAED Official Bulletin Board
