Hair relieves stress. I started this portrait of Syd Barrett in the fall of 2002 when my father entered the hospital and subsequently, a coma. My favorite thing to embroider is hair, and Syd was a perfect subject. There's no mapping it out, I just make it up as I go along. Zone out, stitch and see if dad wakes up (he did, three weeks later). Click Syd for a closeup.

You know those piles of discarded, embroidered pillowcases you find in flea markets? Yeah, I know. I pick them up too, thinking how cute they'd look on my bed until I see those icky, brownish-yellowish stains. You know they won't come out in the wash. But what about that needlework? Isn't it a shame to see it languishing? Well, I had me an ideer. I took a set of horribly stained vintage pillowcases with lovely pink lotus flowers and recycled them into pillows! All you have to do is carefully cut off the ends of the pillowcases, sew them wrong...

Patterns make good donations. I was recently asked about donating to a craft group in Atlanta, and I gladly obliged with instruction sheets and some patterns. Stephanie of Violet Designs kindly put up a photo gallery of their SnB. Get a load of all these happy gals sitting around stitching with my transfers! I get such a thrill out of seeing pics like this, it'd nauseate you.

Remember my survey? Well, over a thousand of you kindly filled it out, and made no bones about what you want, and don't want. Paypal, check. A new shopping cart? Check. More embroidery. More patterns. More kits. More more more. Mind if I take a snack break? Did you see the cute stitches on the homepage? Huh? Oh, congratulations Anna!, You looked lovely last night.

Who is this boy, and why is he clutching my pillow? That's what I wanted to know as I flipped through the latest issue of BUST magazine. Editor/Publisher Debbie Stoller informed me that he is Sondre Lerche and he "just grabbed it off our couch" clutching it for the photo shoot. Neato! I designed that pillow a couple of years ago and gave one to Debbie as a gift. Can I have it back now? Oh~ when you get the latest issue of BUST, don't miss the coverage on the Austin Craft Mafia on page 20!