Hello to anyone who remembers my blog. It was called Needlepoint in the 21st Century and was carried on WordPress, separate from my store, NewNeedlepoint.com.
After 8 +/- years, NewNeedlepoint.com is beginning again. I have a new web store *platform* which means very little to most of us. Technically it means my store has a whole new configuration and operating system.
The main page *NewNeedlepoint.com* looks pretty much the same but you will find inside that the listings and the checkout process are different.
The first and very best change is that you do not have to start or have an account to purchase from my store. You do not need to remember a password, with no way to retieve if if you forget.
That whole thing has burned my butt since day one. When we were building the store it I told the web developers that I DID NOT want my customers to have to do an account to buy from me. I was told the software (the platform) worked that way and I had no choice.
I can't tell you (or really imagine) the amount of business this has cost me. Customers got frustrated and gave up. A few called me and I took their orders on the phone, most just went elsewhere.
Now, you can, if you like, have an account for fast easy access but you do not have to.
YOU CAN CHECKOUT AS A GUEST ON NEWNEEDLEPOINT.COM!! NO Password, NO grief.
I am so pleased by this, it is (almost) worth the enormous amount of work it took me to set up the new platform.
below is a page from Mira Silverstein's Out-Of-Print Book Bargello Plus
Also, and this does not affect anyone but me, the process of listing new items is much easier, more streamlined. I had to jump through many confusing hoops to put additional pictures in my listings, now it is easy.
below is Patt's expert stitching for Patt & Lee Design's Star Ornament #4. It comes with Patt's Stitch Guide.
OK, now to get into the NEW NewNeedlepoint.com. There are changes.
I can't stitch anymore, old age (no one told me it would be like this), much of the joy of listing and selling canvases & kits is gone. I still love the process of figuring and picking colors for kits but.....
I am, for the immediate future anyway, limiting the Canvases & Kits I sell to the original and so colorful hand painted designs from Laurel Burch.
I love these designs. If there is one you want and I don't have it listed, I can easily get it for you. Most of these designs are sold as Canvas Alone or as a complete Kit except for the few that come with Jill Rigoli's very good and easy to follow Stitch Guides.
As I writer this I notice that, of course, right now I have no Laurel Burch's with Stitch Guides listed. Go Figure. But I do have this amazing holiday sampler called Bounty of Bliss. I had one 2 years ago, it sold immediately and I have not been able to get another until now.
I am also going to keep listing The Canvases & Kits from Pajamas & Chocolate and Patt & Lee Design.
Pajamas & Chocolate is a brand new design label from Patt & Lee Designs. It is all Hand Painted, the next generation of Patt & Lee's well-known, original and colorful work.
I have known Patt since the very beginning of both our businesses. I saw this designs of her's, from what became the Patt & Lee Design line, on eBay where I was selling needlepoint canvases from my own stash and all sorts of other places,
I bought it and asked her if she would consider selling to the new web store I was planning. That was a long time ago.
I will also be listing just a few random other Canvases & Kits, I call them Odds and so they are.
The main focus of the NEW NewNeedlepoint.com will be Books. I have an extensive and always growing collection of new books on needlepoint and other stitchery techniques and design as they apply to needlepoint.
Books on GoldWork like New Ideas in Gold Work by Tracy A. Franklin
Books on Ribbon Work and books on Alphabets & Monograms, like Di van Neirkerk's Embroidered Alphabets with Ribbon Embroidery (how clever is this, one both for both categories, I do have my moments)
Color Theory, Color Work and Thread Painting like Trish Burr's Color Confidence
Bead Work and Bead Embroidery Like the A-Z of Bead Embroidery by Country Bumpkins Press
As well as the must have classic needlepoint books: Jo Ippolito Christensen's 2015 3rd revised edition of The Needlepoint Book
From the Royal School of Needlework, one of thier RSN Essential Stitch Guides: Canvaswork
Or just about any title of June McKnight's wonderful series of Needlepoint Books
Not to mention the best of the current *hit* books like Lynda Richardson's Stitches A La Carte
And that's just some of. I have been busily expanding my Out-Of-Print & Rare Books selections.
That is the subject of my next blog (coming soon to NewNeedlepoint.com. Remember those old advertising banners and movie previews....coming soon.......)
I, of course, have lots more to say.