B10 Mediaworx is my publishing company and I’m officially putting Effervescent Designs under B10 Mediaworx’s umbrella, because after all, Effervescent Designs does publish stuff.

I’m working on getting the last four designs out before the end of the year. I will also be selling off paper pattern packs on eBay, along with most of my physical inventory. Effervescent Designs will still sell the digital and paper patterns as long as B10 Mediaworx exists.

Let me confess: I don’t like it much anymore. I turned my hobby into a business and now I don’t like my hobby, the one of my heart and soul. I had decided to scale back a little bit, put up for sale those designs I worked on the first two years of Effervescent Designs’s life, because I have money invested in those. That will happen.

What will be changing (for now):

1. People come here for the designs, not the supplies; thus, I’m going to phase out the build-your-own kit program and will stop carrying supplies once the current stash is gone.
2. Other than the posted designs and release dates, I only have one more design for which I have paid a licensing fee for the art. It will be the last design Effervescent Designs puts out.
3. My publishing house, B10 Mediaworx, will be absorbing Effervescent Designs and transferring its location to http://b10mediaworx.com/effervescentdesigns at some future date (read: when I get around to it).

As long as I have print copies of my designs and you are willing to buy digitally, these Effervescent Designs will be around.

What was it Warren Buffett said? Fail early, fail often. I haven’t failed, but I grieve the loss of my enjoyment of my most longlasting and fruitful hobby. These changes are the first step in my attempt to get that back.

Curls, the middle violin below, is almost finished, and will be in the shop by the end of April, if not before.

Now, as for where I’ve been: Writing novels. Most stitchers I know are avid readers of various and sundry genres and non-genres. I write in what a friend affectionately calls the “soap opera” genre under the name Moriah Jovan. Thus, you will find two books in the store, which are the ones I was writing while I was AWOL from Stitchville. My next book doesn’t come out until April 24, 2011, so this year I’ll be adding more designs.

Trust me, only pen and paper could take me away from needles and thread.

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I’m completely overhauling the site here (again). For whatever reason, my database was corrupted, so I’m starting over again. Same theme, but a fresh start.

Until I get this site and the shopping cart up and running, you can still get patterns and goods at the original site.

I was so delighted I squealed like the fangrrrl that I am.

So in case you’re wondering, yes, I’m going to chart it. No, I’m not going to offer it for sale. This one’s for me, but I will post WIP progress pictures.

Thank you, Suzy!

Otherwise, I like space, freedom to move, less stuff, and decluttering. Decluttering is my life. I don’t think I’ll be truly satisfied until this house is empty and we’re sitting on mats and sleeping on low platforms. The older I get the more I’m attracted to that clean 1960s postmodern look.

Of course, this is a pipe dream. My kids have toys and outgrown clothes. Ick. I can’t wait until they outgrow all this crap and I can get rid of it to the first person who might give a hint of a whiff of a suggestion that they want it all. I have even discovered that my almost-5-year-old daughter’s behavior improves dramatically when her environment is uncluttered. She has a bed in her room. That’s about it.

My goal when I die is that I have very little of STUFF for my children to dispose of.

I think what will remain with me for the next little while is that yesterday, while filling orders, it occurred to me that this was the most fun I’d had working in a long, long while. I fell into bed last night exhausted and more satisfied with a day’s work than I have in a long time.

I knew I’d be bad at this blogging stuff. I always mean to keep a journal, but then I don’t and, well, you know, content is King. This post on craft is something I’ve been working on for a long time, trying to gel my thoughts and sift through how I really feel about it.

My question:

What’s the difference between an artiste and a craftsman, and is one better than another? I ask myself this on a daily basis because I finally came to the conclusion that I am not, and I am never going to be, an artiste. I’m a craftsman and I must be happy with that.

My original premise was as follows:

Artistes come up with original ways to solve the same ol’ problem. Craftsmen implement existing ideas.

Not sure I believe this now. I’ve spent the better part of the last year writing something that’s been cooking in my head for 14 years. It’s a riff off Hamlet, which was, in itself, a riff off someone else’s work, so is what I did art or craft? I took someone else’s framework and decorated it with vines and flowers and thorn bushes and other more savory and unsavory things, but in the end, I didn’t create the framework.

In terms of needlework, I’ve taken a completely unrelated art (pixel dollz) and translated it into fabric and floss and beads. Is that art or craft? Suzy’s skill at creating the dollz gave me the original framework. I just dressed it up with fabric and floss and beads.

I don’t have an answer to this question anymore. Yes, I used to, but now I think there has to be a measure of both art and craft (skill) involved in each, most likely at different percentages along the spectrum.

Not just anyone can do what Suzy does. I can’t. Not just anyone can do what I do. Suzy can’t. Is that a difference between art and craft (skill)? Dunno, but I will say this: Without Suzy, there would be no needlework dollz at all. At least, not from me, and I depend on her art to give mine wings. Perhaps I’m more craftsman than artist after all.