I Hope You Dance

I took this picture of My Treasures Workstation (pattern by Just A Thought from Judy Odell) while it was on display during the 2007 National Counted Cross Stitch Show (NCCSS) competition.

Interestingly, this piece received both my highest score (from Betsy Evans), as well as my lowest score (from infamous pottymouth Eileen Bennett). The difference between the highest and lowest scores was 14 points, and based on the two judges' comments, their scores were based specifically on the workmanship of my stitches.

Tags: Just A Thought, Judy Odell, My Treasures Workstation, National Counted Cross Stitch Show, NCCSS, Betsy Evans, Eileen Bennett, unfair judging, Independent Needlework News

And Around We Go (originally posted on CraftGossip 7/19/07)

My job as the Needlework Editor at CraftGossip.com is one job (my bosses are in Australia).

My job as Show Director for the National Counted Cross Stitch Show (NCCSS) was a second, entirely separate job (my boss was located at Rockome Gardens in Arcola, IL, USA).

There was absolutely NO connection between the two other than that I utilized my CraftGossip blog to advertise the NCCSS -- at no cost to Rockome Gardens, by the way -- because it fit in exactly with the job description for my CraftGossip blog. Without me and my CraftGossip blog, the 2007 NCCSS would have completely failed because there was NO OTHER ADVERTISING FOR THE SHOW WORTH MENTIONING (although I did get us a spot in The Gift of Stitching online magazine ... which Butch Phillips apparently thought so unimportant, even though it would have hit our TARGET AUDIENCE of stitchers, that he couldn't be bothered to pay the $40 fee for the one month spot available).

Butch Phillips, the self-titled Mayor of Rockome Gardens, according to his TV commercials which must have cost thousands of dollars to make and air, clearly does not understand anything about paid blogging or Internet marketing. He has several times made the erroneous statement mentioning CraftGossip as a "pay for hit site," and made it sound like I receive $1.00 for every hit or something equally ridiculous! I don't even receive $.01 per hit, and that is because CraftGossip is NOT a pay per click program. Pay per click advertising is a type of Search Engine Marketing ... and CraftGossip is NOT -- you guessed it! -- a search engine. Rather, to the best of my understanding, it is an affiliate (have you checked out CraftBits yet?), and specifically, a revenue sharing program which uses contextual advertising.

A lot of people seem to think I made a great big bunch of money from CraftGossip because of NCCSS-related posts, and that:

1. It was a conflict of interest.

2. I should be paying Butch because it brought so much traffic to my site.

3. I really shouldn't complain about not getting paid by the NCCSS or Rockome Gardens because I made enough already through CraftGossip thanks to Butch.

The truth is CraftGossip is a fledgling craft-related blog site, and I was lucky to get in on the ground floor as one of their first editors. I signed up on one of the last days of January 2007. I have not yet received a payment from CraftGossip, and that is because less than $50 is due me at the moment. As soon as my earnings total $50, I'll receive payment.

If people really think I don't deserve to be paid for my work AFTER THEY HAVE READ ALL THE FACTS, I'll determine how much of my current earnings balance was earned through NCCSS-related posts, and then send Butch a check for 90% of whatever that amount turns out to be. I'm willing to do this not because I'm already rich off of CraftGossip, but because 90% of very little is still hardly anything.

So my answers to the above three points are:

1. None of my bosses at the time minded, so it was not a conflict of interest.

2. Butch hired me knowing ALL ABOUT CraftGossip, and with the full intention of using it as a resource to advertise the NCCSS. I was more than happy to do that, as my CraftGossip blog wouldn't begin to earn money without Internet traffic, and a link from Rockome Gardens' website to me here on CraftGossip would have been very beneficial. Butch was to link to my CraftGossip blog immediately after he hired me; that was part of my CONTRACT with him. He failed to meet his contractual obligations and didn't link to me until approximately seven weeks afterward. This lengthy delay caused me to lose out on a significant opportunity to develop an audience for my CraftGossip blog -- some portion of which would still be regular readers today, which is called a "loss of future income" in legal terms. Butch is lucky I'm not presently planning to sue him for that loss of future income, but then, I'm still attempting to collect what I was owed to begin with from him.

3. Many needlework designers work two jobs -- their designing job, and their "paying job." I was working two jobs also -- my CraftGossip job, and what was supposed to be MY paying job until I do actually bring in enough to comfortably rely on just my CraftGossip earnings. Butch stiffed me. It's similar to working one job during the week and a second one on weekends. I expected to get paid for both, and I trust I will eventually get paid by CraftGossip -- but Butch stole from me. I was NOT a willing, informed, or consenting VOLUNTEER for either CraftGossip or Rockome Gardens' NCCSS. CraftGossip knows this and is honest. Butch took advantage of me and is dishonest.

If you still don't believe me, consider this: Would I post this here on CraftGossip where my bosses will see it if it weren't true? It IS true. I already asked for and received permission to post this from Shellie, and of course I'll be hanging onto her email.

Tags: Butch Phillips, pay per click, Search Engine Marketing, CraftGossip, Rockome Gardens, National Counted Cross Stitch Show, NCCSS, paid blogging, Internet marketing, pay for hit site, affiliate, revenue sharing, contextual advertising

Impeach Him!

Can you believe this post from the Mayor of Rockome Gardens, Butch Phillips? (I'm leaving his grammatical and other writing errors intact, by the way, even though it pains me to do so on my own blog, LOL. For clarity's sake, his comments are in putrid lime green.)

Setting here logging on to my email and finding 43 emails in the NCCSS folder, I thought to myself what now. This time I am excited about seeing all the posts, The show has gone extremely well, I would like to thank TONYA and ANGIE who without them this show would not have happened. I would even like to thank Stacy for the start of the process. Yes it was a struggle and yes I stepped on a few toes, but I think it is safe to say that with the excitement for next year I am here to make this statement very plain.

It is SOLELY due to the ethics of Angie Miller (whose family were the PREVIOUS owners of Rockome Gardens), that I received a check signed by Larry Daily (one of the new owners of Rockome Gardens) for less than half the amount owed to me by Rockome Gardens for the work I performed on behalf of the NCCSS.

But Butch is such a sleaze he can't even be bothered to give me any credit when he THANKS people.

Without me, this show would have been dead in the water. The pages and pages of information I put up on the web about it at CraftGossip are the ONLY way stitchers could find detailed information about the show, and everyone -- from Butch, to Angie, to Tonya (hi, Tonya!), to Larry and the other new owners of Rockome Gardens, to the designers who were vending and/or teaching at the show, to all the stitchers who attended -- KNOWS it.

I could have taken all that information off CraftGossip when I didn't get my first paycheck from Rockome Gardens. But I didn't because doing so would have hurt the show's outcome. While I wouldn't have minded hurting Rockome Gardens' income after they couldn't be bothered to pay me, I did NOT want to hurt the designers' businesses any further than they'd already been harmed by Butch's refusal to properly advertise the show in the first place. (Here is where the importance of the fact that I'm a stitcher -- or at least, I was ... my heart is too broken for me to feel much like picking up a needle right now -- cannot be denied. First and foremost, I wanted this show to succeed BECAUSE I AM -- or was -- A STITCHER. That was the main reason I wanted and took the job as Show Director just two months before the show was to start, KNOWING everything was in a huge state of upheaval and I had a huge mountain to climb -- and convince a whole bunch of other people to climb, too.) So instead, I put up a truthful disclaimer about my own experience with Rockome Gardens and the reservations that caused me to have about the show, withdrew my personal endorsement of the show, and kept stitchers as well informed as I could of the goings-on at Rockome Gardens once I was no longer in the loop myself.

The show would have done better if Butch had done HIS JOB and kept his LEGAL CONTRACT with me to advertise my CraftGossip blog so people would have known when they came to Rockome's website where to go for information, but the show did amazingly well this year -- IN SPITE OF BUTCH'S NEGLECT, and BECAUSE OF MY DEDICATION. In fact, Donna Heidler of Simply Old-Fashioned told me it was her best show ANYWHERE, EVER. There were 229 entries entered into the competition, which was about half the number entered in the last show held (the twentieth anniversary show in 2004) -- not bad at all considering the two year hiatus or the fact that I only had two months to get the word out about the show and had my BOSS, of all people, working against me!

The 2008 National Counted Cross Stitch Show will even be better, YES IT WILL RETURN. I plan on recruiting Angie and Tonya and Connie to be a part of the team.

This is hysterical, especially considering the email I received from someone who stated that everyone knows I'm Coni (who was brave enough to write a comment on this post, which was originally posted on CraftGossip, expressing her displeasure with the NCCSS this year). If Butch actually is planning to hire me under a different name because he doesn't know it's me ... Shoot, it would almost be worth not getting paid a SECOND time just to pull that one over on everyone! Pull my finger!

We will have the dates posted in the very near future, This group will remain active and I invite those positive and the negative to share constructive improvements so we can work even harder to make it better together. I would hope that the posts would be on our group here or sent to me or Angie and not posted on pay for hit sites. I do not have any association with any pay for hit site nor do I support these sites.

Well, Butch is certainly correct that he did absolutely NOTHING to support me, not even to honor his LEGAL AGREEMENT with me. However, he did have a BINDING oral and WRITTEN (by email, yes, but still written) CONTRACT with me to honor, and that contract included linking to CraftGossip ASAP after I was hired on April 7th. Butch failed to complete ANY of the things he agreed to do as payment for the work I contracted to do. I completed all the work I agreed to -- and more. No amount of Butch's revisionist history -- or perhaps he's more comfortable calling it a historical re-enactment, which they do so much of at Rockome Gardens now -- will change the fact that he DID HAVE a LEGAL OBLIGATION which required of him not only an an association with but support of my blog on CraftGossip. He can criticize my blog all he wants, but at least I'm trying to make an honest living (I would have succeeded at that if Butch had actually paid me in full for the work I had done), rather than stealing from other people by breach of contract or making promises I don't keep, like Butch.

And here for the edification of all is Maggie Pringlemeir's response to Butch Phillips, which he would not allow through to the Rockome list. (I'll keep Butch's comments in the putrid lime green, and Maggie's will be in royal purple for clarity.)

Note to the list ..

I sent a message on June 15, wishing all of you much success for this show .. but my message was deleted and was never posted. This may well be an exercise in futility, but I'm going to step up and respond to Butch's comments, particularly since he SAID he WANTS the negative ones to be posted here.

Butch ..

I'll never say anything behind your back that I will not say directly to your face .. so .. since you said that you want truth and open honesty .. here it is.

"I would like to thank TONYA and ANGIE who without them this show would not have happened. I would even like to thank Stacy for the start of the process."

What about HEATHER? The woman you contracted with BECAUSE she had a highly visable public website to help promote your show? You may remember her .. she worked a couple of months for you putting in 18 to 20 hour days. Stacy, for her own reasons, had to back away. Heather worked her own health into a frazzle. Can't you find the courtesy in your heart to thank her publicly?

"This group will remain active and I invite those positive and the negative to share constructive improvements so we can work even harder to make it better together. I would hope that the posts would be on our group here or sent to me or Angie and not posted on pay for hit sites. I do not have any association with any pay for hit site nor do I support these sites."

Truly amazing .. since the reason you "hired" Heather was for the exposure of that website. Today I spoke directly with her and asked her point blank .. somewhere, somehow, down the line, you should be generating "some" income from the number of hits your website receives, right? THAT HAS NOT HAPPENED YET. YES, at some point in the future .. that theoretically should happen. It is PAID FOR by the ADVERTISING on the website. It does NOT come out of the person who visit's checkbooks or their pockets in any way. ALL companies advertise .. even Rockome spent HOW MANY thousands of $ on a non-descriptive advert on national programming. Apparently, Butch, you see the value of name recognition and were willing to dip into your pocket and pay for it as a business expense. That is PRECISELY what advertisers do. But they do NOT charge those who SEE the advertising for the privilege. For you to infer otherwise is misleading and an insult to the intelligence of every stitcher involved, period. For someone NOT affiliated .. you certainly wanted Heather to spend hours getting the show information, class descriptions, and other important data up and out there. THAT, she did. She honored the terms of her agreement with you. Step on toes? There are words for what you did .. but I won't use them on this list.

"I plan on recruiting Angie and Tonya and Connie to be a part of the team."

Like many others .. I'm curious WHO Connie is. Yes, it's apparent that I have intense loyalties to my friend Heather. She has NEVER lied to me, never cheated me, never told me anything that turned out to be a half-truth. In the years I've known her, when she says she'll do something .. I could ALWAYS count on her to follow through. I still can. ANY employer with a lick of sense in his head would recognize those qualities and work hard to coax her to come back and be involved with this show, rather than use this forum to take not-so-subtle snipes at her. Even with the harsh feelings and how badly she was treated, Heather still cared enough about this show to come, to speak with Angie several times and to make many suggestions about how to make the next show a better one. She genuinely CARES about not only the BUSINESS of the show, Butch, she cares about the PEOPLE of the show. She cares about the integrity of the judging process and the standards.

Which brings me to one other comment. I've seen the original post from Coni and recognize the name from other lists I'm on and involved with. Some of you seem to think that those coments were written by Heather with a fake name to hide behind. Let me assure you that the woman exists and that SHE wrote the note herself. Many ofher comments were totally valid. The promotion of this show SHOULD have begun as soon as Butch took over .. not 8 weeks beforehand. Heather was set an impossible task working with people that she knew actively disliked her and tried to block her every positive or constructive move .. and yet .. she came in and did an amazing task. When she pulled back and away .. didn't any of you realize that she had TRIED to go through the appropriate private channels, and was ignored, the same as I was? Shame on all of you who said mean things about her. Just remember .. what goes around, comes around and karma can be severe. Heather deserves an apology from many of the people on this list. I hope she receives them. And knowing her, if she does, she'll post a thank you for that.

Truly, I'm GLAD the show went as well as it did. I know that Angie worked her tail off, too. Start making plans and doing the scutwork NOW for the next show. As Coni said .. get the information about the local Guilds and contact them to get the word out. That cannot be done in a whirlwind of a few weeks, it requires time to do that groundwork.

You have a unique opportunity right now. It's very rare for a show that has died to be resurrected. You have a good chance of doing that. If you can, it will not only be good for Rockome, it will be good for the stitchers and the industry. I wish all of you well with your efforts.

Maggie Pringlemeir, D Div, PhD
DrMaggie @ aol.com

I'd post Butch's response back to Maggie, but as that was in private email to her, instead I'll just post MY response to him here:

As I said above, I could have removed everything from CraftGossip when I didn't get my first paycheck from Rockome Gardens. I didn't do that because I did NOT want to hurt the designers' businesses any further than YOU, Butch, had already harmed them by your neglect and refusal to properly advertise the show in the first place. Instead, I put up a truthful disclaimer about my own experience, withdrew my personal endorsement of the show, and kept stitchers as well informed as I could of the goings-on at Rockome Gardens once I was no longer in the loop myself. That's a long way from trying to give the show a black eye or derail it. If the controversy this created helped give me any income at all (as if that were any of YOUR business, Butch), I damned well deserved it, you lying thief -- and it brought more income to you, too, because it brought the curious stitchers who wouldn't have come at all this year to Rockome Gardens just to check out the show for a day. So thank the controversy YOU created; I think that was your intention all along. All I did was SPEAK OUT and make it public -- and in doing so, I at least doubled the income the NCCSS brought to you and to each vendor. Now I expect my cut, and I still expect the rest of what you owed me to begin with IN FULL!

Tags: Butch Phillips, Larry Daily, NCCSS, Rockome Gardens, National Counted Cross Stitch Show, breach of contract, CraftGossip, Maggie Pringlemeir

Listen to the Jerk

Too bad he wouldn't help me advertise the National Counted Cross Stitch Show this well.

Tags: Butch Phillips, NCCSS, Rockome Gardens, National Counted Cross Stitch Show

Ethics and the Needlework Industry (originally posted on CraftGossip 6/5/07)

Linn Skinner has an interesting post on her blog about what needlework designers get paid for teaching. Be forewarned, though, if you're a needlework instructor but Linn doesn't think you're in her rank (and I agree: few are), you may well be offended.

Anyway, the reason I mention her post is because I find it very strange: Her description of how a needlework instructor's fees are handled for a consumer show, of which the National Counted Cross Stitch Show is an example, is not at all in agreement with what she said just a few short weeks ago in writing to Butch Phillips and me when I was the Show Director for the NCCSS.

In fact, her post seems purposely directed as a personal attack on Maggie Pringlemeir in response to Maggie's comments about how poorly her own contract negotations with Rockome Gardens were handled by Butch Phillips.

As an aside, Maggie's contract with Rockome was not necessarily going to be the same as Linn's, nor was that any of Linn's business. Individual interests are the point of contract negotiation. Maggie had needs she stated upfront which had to be met before she could or would sign a contract with Rockome, and as Butch Phillips never bothered to contact her, a contract was never signed. The verbal promises Butch directed me to make on his behalf to Maggie will never be tested because Maggie chose to listen to and trust me, instead of trying to "shoot the messenger" as so many others have. Maggie recognized that since Butch had already renegged on every promise he'd made to me, he couldn't be trusted to keep any of those he'd made to her, and ESPECIALLY since he hadn't even bothered to make them directly to her HIMSELF but had instead used me as his surrogate.

Back to Linn ... What she said then was this:

Rockome gets instructors at a discount rate.

I will be teaching in Kansas City the weekend after Rockome and my usual fees prevail there. I am compensated for air travel, shuttles to and from all airports, lodging and meals, kit costs and $100.00 per student for a 6 hour session. I do not pay for use of a facility and I require a minimum of 12 students for a booking.

At Rockome I will be teaching 7 hours per day on two days, provide a kit at my expense ($35.00 wholesale cost), pay for my own travel, lodging and meal expenses and will be paid $75.00 leaving me a very small profit. I have agreed to teach the class with no minimum as to attendees.

I accept this as a marketing expense and hope to make up the difference with sales in my booth.

So, which is it? Is the NCCSS getting needlework instructors at a discount or not? Why has Linn's explanation of how these fees are handled at a consumer show changed so dramatically in such a short period of time? Is Linn grinding an axe of her own, or are there other people at work on other issues behind the scenes at the NCCSS? Or both?

There is a far bigger discussion these questions should lead us to ... a discussion about why so many people say needlework, and cross stitch in particular, is "not doing well" right now. I have plenty of my own thoughts on that larger discussion, as I expect you do also. I would love to hear your thoughts ... and I'm even going to give you a chance to post them before I post my own. :) Let's get some discussion going here.

I think these types of questions and their answers are very relevant to the needlework industry -- and very important to its future. There are people watching how all of this plays out who are just as disappointed and heartbroken as I am at the lack of honesty and ethics in this industry. We have known about it for a long time, and we have chosen to overlook it, but that choice is no longer possible. Today more than ever before, people want to spend their money with people and organizations whose overall ethics (and agenda) they agree with, believe in, and support. And there are certainly enough choices today and enough opportunities, especially with the Internet, that customers can not only find an agreeable choice, but also do the necessary research to determine which of the available choices is the option that best matches their own requirements.

The world has been changing around the needlework industry for a long time now, and in my opinion, it's long past time that the needlework industry get with the program, clean up its act, and stop treating its customers like we're stupid -- because we most definitely are NOT stupid.

Tags: Linn Skinner, NCCSS, National Counted Cross Stitch Show, Butch Phillips, Maggie Pringlemeir, needlework industry, ethics

A Charlatan Exposed (originally posted on CraftGossip 6/3/07)

It took Butch Phillips over seven weeks to put a link to CraftGossip on Rockome's website with regard to all the work I was doing for the National Counted Cross Stitch Show (NCCSS). He kept saying his "web guy" had so many other things to do that putting up one link, which would have taken about thirty seconds, just wasn't on Mr. Phillips' list of priorities.

However, Mr. Phillips has managed to remove that link after only a bit over a week has passed. Don't you think this proves he could have put UP the link a lot faster than he did?

By the way, putting up that link to me on CraftGossip was part of my initial payment agreement with him. Because he'd renegged on ALL of that payment agreement, I had stopped working for him by the time he finally did get around to putting up that link. He has yet to come through on any of the other elements of our payment agreement, and, of course, there is no way to calculate the amount of traffic and revenue I lost by his not linking to me much earlier as he should have done.

Meanwhile, all the work I did for him remains intact and online on CraftGossip, and stitchers continue to visit that information. I hear that enrollment in classes and Country Evenings is up to 200 individual students -- and that's thanks to the hard work and long hours I put in ... But I'm not asking for thanks; I'M DEMANDING THE PAYCHECK TO WHICH I'M ENTITLED.

I still haven't received it. I'll let you know if and when I ever do, and what had to be done to get it. My complaints to the Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) for non-payment of wages, as well as for not being paid even minimum wage or overtime wages as the law requires, were mailed last week. The laws IDOL enforces will require that I be paid significantly more than Mr. Phillips and I had originally agreed to, so he would have done well to have just paid me back when he was supposed to, or at least when I first began asking for it.

Tags: Butch Phillips, NCCSS, National Counted Cross Stitch Show, Rockome Gardens, breach of contract, Illinois Department of Labor, non-payment of wages, minimum wage complaint, overtime wage complaint

Copyright Violations -- One Example (originally posted on CraftGossip 6/2/07)

As you all know, I was the Show Director for the Rockome Gardens' National Counted Cross Stitch Show (NCCSS) from 4/7/07 through 5/30/07. Because the management and owners of Rockome Gardens refused to pay me for work performed, I resigned from that position.

I am the Needlework Editor on the Needlework Blog on CraftGossip.

Since 4/7/07, I posted numerous items on CraftGossip related to the NCCSS, including detailed NCCSS class descriptions.

I have contacted Yahoo to remove the YahooGroup located here because my copyright has been violated by Adana Adams. Every last one of the NCCSS class descriptions I wrote and put on my CraftGossip blog has been copied word for word and put into Word format on that YahooGroup by Ms. Adams.

The original class descriptions I wrote are all easily accessed here.

I am the author of the unquoted portion of each of these documents, and that content belongs solely to me.

With Rockome Gardens Mayor Butch Phillips' permisson, I quoted from the 2007 NCCSS Show Book; that content, of course, belongs to Rockome Gardens and the NCCSS.

CraftGossip is the only location on the Internet where all NCCSS information is supposed to be available with the possible exception of Rockome's website. Rockome's website is linking to my CraftGossip blog even now after I am no longer the NCCSS Show Director partly because this is the only site where that information is available to the public, and partly because their linking to my CraftGossip blog was part of the original payment terms of my contract for working for the NCCSS.

The pictures belong to the individual designers whose classes are being advertised.

At no time has anyone asked for permission to use MY writing on the YahooGroup Rockome_NCCSS, and I have not even been credited for it.

I first became aware of these multiple copyright violations through this message posted by Adana Adams, who is a moderator in that group, and who has violated my copyright in the past such that I have learned to keep tabs on her:

From: adana69

To: Rockome_NCCSS@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 11:26 AM

Subject: [SPAM] [Rockome_NCCSS] Re: I created albums for each teacher....

Thanks Cindy for all the work you've done on the site to get it up to speed. Let me know if I can help you in any way.

I worked into the night uploading, downloading, formatting and inviting stitchers to the group and see this morning that several have come onboard. WELCOME!

This morning I uploaded class pictures in the photo section of the site for some of the instructors. If I didn't do your section and you would like me to, please contact me. If I did your section and you're not happy with it, please feel free to delete what I've done or ask me and I will.

I've also put all the class info with pictures (from another site) into word documents and uploaded those to the file section. Again I've only done certain instructors (please don't read too much into this as I'm willing to do more but only if asked).

Also in the FILES section you'll find the forms needed to enter under 2007 ENTRY FORMS along with other misc information. I'd like to thank Butch for his efforts in getting this site up and running and for the access he has given myself and others.

Adana
adana69 (at) yahoo.com

In her message, Ms. Adams says: "I've also put all the class info with pictures (from another site) into Word documents and uploaded those to the file section." Her words, "(from another site)" are the only credit she gives me for the work I did in authoring those documents; this is NOT proper credit. Furthermore, Ms. Adams never requested my permission to use the work I created in this way.

I do not now, nor will I ever give permission for MY writing to be used on the Rockome_NCCSS YahooGroup by Ms. Adams or anyone else ... or anywhere else by Ms. Adams.

Just to be clear, please compare Ms. Adams' document titled "MARY KNAPP.doc" with the corresponding post I made on CraftGossip. Please skip down to the second class, Night Fire. “Fire up with this 4-way Bargello using warm colors and beads. A bright star in the dark night you create with silk floss on black congress cloth ... ” is in quotes, as I put it in quotes while typing it because it is from the 2007 NCCSS Show book.

However, the text which follows shortly afterward is NOT in quotes because it is my own writing. It is MY copyrighted writing, and this can be proven by the fact that my inadvertent spelling error wasn't even corrected by Ms. Adams ("simply" should have been "simple"):

Isn’t this simply beauty just lovely? I think it would make a lovely holiday piece if you didn’t want to hang it up year-round, and it really looks like there isn’t all that much stitching to be done … So if the black seems intimidating to you, don’t let that get to you. Give this one a try; I bet you won’t be sorry!

Every last one of the files Adana Adams put up on the Rockome_NCCSS YahooGroup describing the classes being offered at the NCCSS is a copyright violation of my writing on CraftGossip. By doing so, she has not only stolen my work, but she has also stolen potential readers -- equating to potential dollars -- out of my pocket.


I have already made appropriate legal contacts to protect my copyrights.

Tags: CraftGossip, Adana Adams, NCCSS, National Counted Cross Stitch Show, Rockome Gardens, Butch Phillips, breach of contract, copyright infringement

Caveat Emptor re: NCCSS (originally posted on CraftGossip 5/30/07)

I regret to announce I have not been paid once cent by Rockome Gardens for the work I have done. Sadly, it has become clear this matter will not be resolved except through legal channels. Therefore, I am resigning from Rockome Gardens and the National Counted Cross Stitch Show, effective immediately, and cannot currently endorse the NCCSS as I had previously.

I certainly hope it is not the case, but based on my own experience, I don’t believe the teachers will be paid by Rockome Gardens either. However, at this point, it does appear all the teachers are still planning on showing up at the venue; they feel an obligation to the stitchers who have signed up for classes and Country Evenings. As of the last count I was given, it was shaping up to be a very good year, with class enrollment almost quadrupled in a week and a half.

As far as I am aware, stitchers to whom refunds are already due have not received them, although Angie Miller is not behind on paperwork (as Butch Phillips had told me to say she was if anyone asked ... ). Again, I hope it is not the case, but I have no reason to believe such refunds will be issued.

The competition awards are also significantly under-sponsored as of today's date. I have serious doubts that Rockome Gardens will be able to come up with the nearly $7500 in sponsorships needed for those awards in the fifteen days which remain before the show begins.

I've already heard plenty of criticism about being truthful regarding this experience. I based my decision to come forward on the fact that teachers and stitchers who might find themselves out money in a few weeks time would have had good reason to be upset with me for NOT informing them I thought there was a problem earlier, especially if I could have saved them from losing any additional money they might not have spent in the interim. That people like to shoot the messenger is certainly true. :( I believe I had an ethical and legal obligation to make this information public. I did so only after numerous attempts to work privately with Butch Phillips to obtain my paycheck over a period of three weeks, and then following several more days of trying to obtain my paycheck after making the designers involved with the NCCSS aware of the situation. If you think my making this public is unprofessional, I remind you that when I started working on the NCCSS I promised to communicate with everyone -- and no matter what, to tell you the truth. I have done exactly that even when it has most definitely not been beneficial to me -- and those kinds of ethics are what define a professional -- and a reporter.

Tags: Rockome Gardens, NCCSS, National Counted Cross Stitch Show, Butch Phillips, breach of contract, non-payment of wages, Illinois Department of Labor, ethics

The Finish!

I updated the picture which was originally here with a better one, which I took of My Workstation while it was on display during the 2007 National Counted Cross Stitch Show (NCCSS) competition. Interestingly, this piece received both my highest score (from Betsy Evans), as well as my lowest score (from infamous pottymouth Eileen Bennett). The difference in scoring was LARGE, and specifically based on the workmanship of my stitches, which is what makes it so very strange. You WILL see further discussion about this on INDEPENDENT NEEDLEWORK NEWS at a later date; right now, I am still working on my research for that post.

Today was a beautiful, sunny, and warm day here. I took advantage of the good light to take some better pictures, so now I can share my finished Workstation with you.

Here's a good picture showing the largest hedebo loop I've ever made, LOL -- the ribbon from the base goes through the hedebo loop and is then tied in a bow to keep the Workstation closed.

Here's a side view of it closed ... You won't get a back view because I managed to glue my hinge on a bit crooked. ;>) Perhaps someday when I locate my glue gun, I might fix that part (which would also keep the base more securely attached than I think it is right now).

This is the Workstation opened halfway, with the pin cushion removed. My pin cushion is a bit lumpier than I would like, but that is one of the things that makes it mine!

Next is a closeup of the hedebo loop used to keep the needlebook closed.



Here is a closer look at the needle pages -- already in use, too!



And last, but not least, a picture of the Workstation opened all the way.

This truly was a joy to stitch! The finishing was much easier than I had thought it would be; Judy's instructions made me feel like I could do anything I set my mind to, and the other stitchers in the class were an invaluable resource, too. I am thoroughly looking forward to finding out what Judy's next class offering will be!