Just before I left for Charlotte, 4 new designs came out. There are three new scissor fobs in the monthly series and a new band sampler inspired by motifs on antique household linens from various Greek Islands. Check out the catalog pages 1-14 and 23-27.

Charlotte market was a great experience for me. I really enjoyed meeting with several contacts from manufacturers who have supported me during the past year. Also, I enjoyed meeting some of my favorite designers in person and have a look at their new designs.

I talked to Zweigart and they will release some beautiful fall colored linens/evenweaves. It will be nice to use those colors for some new designs.

Wichelt has more colors in the Country French linens coming out. I hadn't tried these linens before but they are gorgeous. Very soft and wonderful "neutral" colors which would be great for samplers but also for more colorful designs.

WDW has several new threads coming out, including a holiday series. It will be wonderful to use these in upcoming designs.

Gentle Art had sent me their new colors in the Shaker Collection and the Presidential Blue one a few months ago and Presidential Blue is already used in the September Computer Scissors Fob. The other colors will appear in the last 3 of the monthly scissors fobs.

The Threadgatherer is releasing a whole set of new colors, I believe there are 15 or more colors coming out. And what great colors they are! Working with overdyed threads is a real pleasure and personally I love the subtle color changes.

Just Another Button Company has added some new buttons to their collection. They also had several monthly scissors fobs charts in their booth. I was so thrilled to see that.

And the best news for me is that Norden Crafts will be my US distributor. I had the chance to talk to Kris and Dave on Sunday and it was great to talk to them in person. I hope that by September/October the first charts will go to Schaumburg, IL.

After 4 days at market I spent another week in TN with stitching friends, some of them I met for the third or second time. We had a wonderful time, stitching, chatting and shopping. Each of us had a small round robin set up and we managed to get 6 of them completed while we were in TN.

Back in the Netherlands I have been busy working on the next set of releases. You can expect by early September the last 3 monthly scissors fobs, the Christmas 2002 sampler and ornament and of course the Autumn Sewing Roll. Pictures of the Autumn Sewing Roll are right next to this text. I am very excited about this kit as the threads are wonderful, especially the overdyed Gloriana silks. I met Anne in Charlotte and she is a very talented woman. Just wait till you feel how soft the silk is.

For now I'll be busy working on the Christmas sampler and ornament. The ornament is all graphed and waiting for some threads to arrive, the Christmas sampler is drawn on paper and needs to be graphed and stitched.

I hope that you are enjoying the rest of the summer and that you still have time to stitch,

Annemiek