Tale of a Shooting Star…

Julie asked me for the name of the shop in Florida that I nearly purchased the Just Nan products from. Certainly, Julie! I exchanged several pleasant emails with Debbie at Needle Orts, Inc. She was lovely to deal with and very prompt. I have made a list of shops from which I will consider purchasing in the future as a result of this venture and I made a special note next to this shop as one I would definitely like to try. They are located in Altamonte Springs in Florida, Julie, so if they are anywhere near you, it might be worth the trip to check them out!

Thanks everyone for your input so far on shop selection criteria. As of last night, I was pretty sure I had it nailed down to a brick and mortar shop in Florida whose responses were quite quick, helpful and professional. She seems eager to seal the deal and told me that she’ll ship as soon as I call with an address and credit card number. However, I just got an email this morning that might change my mind. It’s from a brick and mortar shop in northern New Jersey that I actually dealt with before when I was looking for a limited edition WhimZi from Just Nan. I’m waiting to hear back from her on pricing now. If her pricing is close to the shop in Florida, then I’ll probably go with her, based on my previous experience with her.

To respond to a couple of your comments, I do try to see if a local shop (Strawberry Sampler, or Drema at Needlecraft Corner for Just Nan items) has the items in stock or can get them. I had also considered posting a list of the shops for input, like Jenn suggested, but if the shop in New Jersey gives me reasonable pricing, I will go ahead and deal with her. I should have thought to ask her first, but desperation and impatience makes a woman do interesting things.

And Anna, you are just BAD! Of course, if you were trying to entice me to go further into the rabbit hole, it didn’t quite work. I’ve just gone through several months of her blog archives and can’t find any evidence of her stitching of the square series. She is quite an impressive knitter, though, and all of her baking is making me horribly hungry.

Finally, in response to Outi‘s comment on my “on a roll” post: Thanks for the positive reinforcement! Ha-hah. I know you have to be just as far up to your eyeballs in stash as I am. Which reminds me, I owe you a package. Do you still want need Symmetry IV? Oh, and as for the smilies in the comments, I see what you mean. I have no idea why it displayed that way – truly bizarre. I guess it’s another addition to my big fix list. I swear that by the time I iron out this template, I might as well have created my own! But that’s a project for another day… Oh yeah, and the name of the completely finished Tiny Treasured Diamond is Ruby Heart. I could have sworn I had the name in there somewhere, but I had an issue with accidentally having multiple instances of that post in edit mode and overwrote some changes with others. I’ve now edited the post to add the name.

Edited to add: I just got off of the phone with the woman from the shop in New Jersey, named Where Victoria’s Angels Stitch and placed my order. She’s very pleasant to deal with, as I remember her being from before. Plus, get this, they are running a Superbowl Sale from today through Saturday, so I get a percentage off of my order! Squee! Plus, being a consummate salesperson, she politely asked if I needed the fabrics to go with the kits. Why yes, yes I do, you smart lady you! I’m quite happy now and would definitely recommend this shop to anyone. I really wish I lived closer to them because I would love to visit them in person! From what I have seen and read on their website, they are exactly the kind of brick and mortar store that I would love to own/run someday.

In the quest to assuage my obsession for most designs by Just Nan (hmmm… wasn’t I just talking about an obsession in my last post?), I’ve stumbled across a few things that I “just have to have.” You know what I mean. I’m not going to die without them, but I really have a bee buzzing around in a certain orifice that I would love to get rid of. One of the kinds of charts I tend to collect (and not just from Just Nan) are four season designs. I have Just Nan‘s 4 Wishes and, thanks to a recent splurge (the fact that I acquired it for 50% off didn’t hurt, either), I now have her Harmony sampler. Another series of designs by her that I’ve been hoping to slowly acquire is the In The Square series. Someone (and I’m so sorry, but I forget exactly whom) was kind enough to gift me with Spring In The Square a while ago. Then, while trolling eBay for rare Just Nan finds, I happened to snag Winter In The Square just the other day for a total steal. Two down, two to go in that series.

Wow, do I get off topic easily lately. At any rate, one of the other Just Nan series that I’ve recently decided I want to collect is the Over the Top! (and matching In the Tin!) series. Of course, me being me, I didn’t sign up either year of the series when they were announced. I’m just not good about mystery designs. If I’m going to invest in a design, I want to know exactly what it’s going to look like – every part of it. Which is smart of me because inevitably I don’t like one of more of the releases in any given automatic series. The problem with Just Nan automatics is that they sell out, and quickly. So, now that I’m going back and realizing that I would like a couple of items from both 2008 and 2009, I’ve created a bit of a challenge for myself. There are 4 out of the 8 produced over the 2 years that she ran this series that I want. The first was Jingle! When I saw that lacy design and the teeny biscornu that goes in the tin, I was sold. Finding it several months after it released was a problem, though. I think I bought it off of eBay. The next one I decided I wouldn’t mind getting my hot little hands on was Grow! Slightly less challenging to find, since it was only released in April 2009 and I decided I wanted it last month. eBay to the rescue again. Now I’ve decided on the last two tins in the series that I want – Hop! and Sizzle!. Just those two and I’ll be happy (until the thing comes along). The bad thing is that these were the first two in the series, meaning Hop! was released in the first quarter of 2008 (and I loved it when it came out; it almost, ALMOST made me sign up for the automatic) and Sizzle! in the second quarter of 2008. That makes it a bit more difficult. I thought that maybe eBay would bail me out again. Actually, even before that, Drema at Needlecraft Corner (love her shop, BTW) had Hop! listed at 50% off on her clearance page. Unfortunately, by the time I emailed her my order, she was out. Darn! The bay of evil? For once, not helpful. Can’t find it. And Google was worse than useless, so what is a girl to do?

I took a deep breath yesterday and did something that I would never in a million years have thought that I would do. I became a spammer. I went to Just Nan’s website, found the page that listed all of the shops that had signed up to carry the 2008 year of the series, copied out every single email address and sent an email to every stinking one of them, pleading to see if anyone had the kits for both Hop! and Sizzle! Now, to be smart and hopefully not trigger people’s spam filters, I broke the list up into small chunks, by first letter of the shop name and where it appeared in the alphabet. And, of course, I put them all in the BCC field because I’m not stupid enough to let any of them see how desperate I truly was.

I didn’t expect to harvest much from the fruits of my labor. First, the delivery error messages rolled in for those shops who either went out of business, changed their email address, had full inboxes, etc. But then, within several minutes of those, I started to get actual responses. And, much to my surprise, they were not all negative! I’ve had several people actually respond that they have both of the kits that I’m looking for. Now the hard part is deciding to which shop to throw my business. So far, none of the positive respondees are shops that I have ever patronized before. What criteria do I use to choose, at this point? Seriously, do I go by the quality of their website? Not all of the responding shops have a website. Do I go off of the wording of their response? That’s awfully subjective. I really don’t know where to go from here. I guess I’ll start asking for pricing and see who comes out on top? I’ll be curious to see if any of them will cut me a deal on inventory that’s over a year old (meaning they are paying taxes on it), or if they will detect blood in the water and go for full price? I’m hoping that if everyone comes back at full price, I might be able to get a little bit of a bidding war going on. Because, yeah, I’m cheap. I’ll admit it.

So, it all comes back to the title of this post. I might not have liked casting out such a wide net, but it has certainly yielded unexpectedly positive results! And if you have an opinion on how I should select which shop to purchase from, please let me know!

Seriously, I think I might just be on a roll here, not just from a blogging standpoint, but from a stitching one, as well. I pulled out a little kit two nights ago that literally had 2/3 of the stitching completed on it and had been languishing somewhere in a ziploc bag for years.

So, I present to you Friendly Frosty. He’s from a Mill Hill Tiny Treasured Diamonds ornament kit. I have a thing about Mill Hill beaded ornaments. I mean, really, a very serious thing. Some might call it an obsession. You should see my collection. But, here’s one of them stitched up at least.

Sorry, the image is a little wonky. It’s been stretched in a hoop for years, so the fabric wanted nothing to do with laying down flat on the scanner. He’s not exactly stitched as charted. They had all of the black french knots for his facial features bumped down a row from where they are and it looked ridiculous to have his mouth up again his scarf. Oh, and stitching french knots over top of beads? Yeah, not so much fun. Thankfully, the straight stitch (that is also on top of the beads) seems to be staying put just fine. We’ll see how they hold up to years of use on my Christmas tree.

I also have another finish, though it’s not really a stitching finish. Whilst digging through the basket sitting next to my stitching area that contains a bunch of completely abandoned and forgotten projects projects quietly waiting their turn in the spotlight, I found yet another Mill Hill Tiny Treasured Diamonds ornament kit. Except, to my incredulity (I actually had to check a dictionary to make sure I wasn’t just making that word up, BTW), it was actually almost completely finished. And I don’t just mean that it was almost completely stitched. No, it was not only completely stitched, but 3 of the 4 sides were stitched together and the tassel and hanger had been added. All I had to do was stuff it and sew the last part closed. Honestly. What is wrong with me that I never managed to get that done? It probably took me all of 10 minutes. Sheesh!

So, here’s another TTD named Ruby Heart, but in its completely finished state:

If you’re curious as to the actual depth of my Mill Hill ornament obsession, you can check out some of my previous finishes. I have at least 5 out of the 6 of each of the series spanning, oh let’s see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 years so far. And I have two more years that I’m thinking of buying, as well. I’ve actually finished the first year of Tiny Treasured Diamonds, am more than half way through the second year of TTDs, and more than halfway through the first year of Charmed Santa Faces. Hmmm… looking the collections up on Wichelt/Mill Hill’s website, I might actually be missing at least one collection of TTDs (at least that I’m interested in; the ones they’ve put out in the past few years hold no interest for me). Now I have to go home and take an inventory of what I have to see what I’m missing. See, I told you I had a problem!

I received a lovely email from Outi yesterday informing me that I was drawn as the lucky winner of her blog giveaway commemorating her 2000th entry. I’m so surprised and so excited, especially since I wasn’t sure if I had even entered! LOL. I can’t wait to find some time and materials to stitch up the designs, which are designed by her alter ego Lady Periphaeria and unpublished, so they are only known to me and her. Yeah, I’m a brat. Sorry. No wait, I’m not… (sorry, that is)