Goodbye TW

It’s a sad day for cross stitchers.  Teresa Wentzler has just announced that she will no longer be designing, and that all of her designs are now officially out of print.  TW Designworks is closing its doors.  You can read all about it here and on her blog here.

There are a lot of designers who’s work I really, really like: Jennifer Aikman-Smith of Dragon Dreams (who is only doing a little bit of designing these days), Thea Dueck of Victoria Sampler, Lynn Nicoletti (who has been ill for a while and isn’t designing much), Kat Rocha of Cross Eyed Kat, Laura Dickson of Enchanting Lair, among others.  But, honestly, my cross stitching heart belongs to Teresa Wentzler.  And, I hate to admit, but reading that she is giving up designing has made stitching seem a little less fun for me.  It’s not like I don’t have enough TW designs to last me the rest of my life (and still a few more to buy from PatternsOnline *cha-ching*), or that the other designers I like haven’t got great things to stitch.  It’s just that there won’t be any more TW designs to look forward too.  No Spring and Summer mini samplers, no giant Illuminata, no more TW dragons with their twisting tails.  (And not chance in hell that I will ever score a copy of You Were Hatched now.)

My stitching will go on, but there will always be an empty spot for TW.  She is a lovely lady, whom I’ve had the pleasure to meet a couple of times.  I wish her all the best in whatever she decides to do next.  I will hold out a little bit of hope that she will pick up her designing needle again one day.

In the meantime, I think I will look over the TW’s I have started and pick one out to work on once my current projects are done.  It seems only right.

And, on a happier note, I have three people to PIF!  Zeb of geekchixxx, Debra of  Debbie’s Stitch and Stuff, and Kat of Kat Gets Cross Eyed (and Cross Eyed Kat).  I’ll be sending you ladies an email later this evening, once I get Baby Man to sleep.

Here are the rules for the PIF again, as a reminder:

1. Send no less than 5 stitching related items per person within the next 365 days.
2. Items can be DMC, other threads, stitching needles, straight pins, buttons, scissors, ribbons, etc. – a combination of items such as 3 threads, 1 pack of straight pins and 1 pack of stitching needles or just 5 threads.
3. The items must be new and not used. (Send things you’d be happy to receive.)
4. If you win, you must be willing to post this PIF on your blog and do the same for at least 2 people.