The Summer Of Buzz art exhibition at the Art House in Southampton opened yesterday. and my bee embroidery is there, which is exciting! It's on until the 28th September and is well worth a visit (I can also recommend the Beany Nachos and the spicy rum....).
If you want to download a free pattern for my bee, it's available on Craftsy and Payhip. Let me know if you make it and I'll feature your version in a future blog post.
A tale of crafty endeavours, garden battles and feline intrigue
Showing posts with label patterns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label patterns. Show all posts
Pattern Celebrations!
I just added up my free pattern "sales" for the last tax year on Payhip and Craftsy, and I had over 500 downloads, which I'm very excited by! By the far the most downloaded was Buzzzzz, which seems very appropriate for this time of year as cherry blossom is appearing and there are random bees buzzing around. People think I'm strange for talking to bees, but it makes me happy....
Truly nasty tax changes that will probably affect YOU
There are scary new EU VAT tax changes coming in on 1 January 2015 which will affect you if you run a business selling digital products from anywhere in the world, if you sell to countries in the EU.
They will definitely affect you if you live in the EU and buy digital products (ebooks, music, craft patterns etc) as at best prices will go up to include the VAT, and at worst you won't be able to buy from many sellers as they will exclude the EU to avoid dealing with these new laws.
Many businesses are simply closing down at the end of this year, so even if you aren't in the EU or have a business that sells to the EU, you may still be affected.
In short, it will affect hundreds of thousands of small businesses, many of which will be forced to shut.
Here is an excellent resource of what's happening and how you can get involved campaigning against these changes.
There is also a good write-up of the issues by What Delilah Did here.
There is a petition to try and suspend these changes for micro-businesses and sole traders here - please sign it!
Here are some businesses that are either closing completely or stopping selling their digital products from the end of the year, so this is your last chance to support them:
If you are in this position and want me to add your site to this list, leave a comment.
I will be taking my monster Halloween pattern off sale from Etsy and Craftsy at the end of the year, and waiting to see what happens (so frustrating as I had many plans for new patterns for next year). Currently HMRC are saying that manually emailing PDFs to customers won't get caught up in the tax changes, but they keep changing their minds on it so I don't want to risk it. Here it is to jog your memory in case you want to buy it:
They will definitely affect you if you live in the EU and buy digital products (ebooks, music, craft patterns etc) as at best prices will go up to include the VAT, and at worst you won't be able to buy from many sellers as they will exclude the EU to avoid dealing with these new laws.
Many businesses are simply closing down at the end of this year, so even if you aren't in the EU or have a business that sells to the EU, you may still be affected.
In short, it will affect hundreds of thousands of small businesses, many of which will be forced to shut.
Here is an excellent resource of what's happening and how you can get involved campaigning against these changes.
There is also a good write-up of the issues by What Delilah Did here.
There is a petition to try and suspend these changes for micro-businesses and sole traders here - please sign it!
Here are some businesses that are either closing completely or stopping selling their digital products from the end of the year, so this is your last chance to support them:
- http://www.thewritersgreenhouse.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/introducing-story-elements-complete-set.html
- http://newmamawelcome.com/
- http://andstitches.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/final-sale-on-zine.html
- http://www.headtrash.co.uk/programmes/audio-programmes/calm-in-10
- http://thepillowfort.co.uk/2014/11/magazinehiatus/
- http://deliciousdoodles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/closing-down-sale.html
- https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Snappyscrappy
- https://penwrangler.wordpress.com/
- https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/208269753/peacock-kumihimo-bracelet-tutorial
- https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Genniewren
- http://blog.followthewhitebunny.com/2014/12/saying-goodbye-to-digital-patterns.html
- http://teasemade.blogspot.co.uk/
If you are in this position and want me to add your site to this list, leave a comment.
I will be taking my monster Halloween pattern off sale from Etsy and Craftsy at the end of the year, and waiting to see what happens (so frustrating as I had many plans for new patterns for next year). Currently HMRC are saying that manually emailing PDFs to customers won't get caught up in the tax changes, but they keep changing their minds on it so I don't want to risk it. Here it is to jog your memory in case you want to buy it:
Jeremy On His Halloween Travels
Halloween Monster Embroidery Pattern!
I have a new embroidery pattern available! Yaaay! This pattern shows Jeremy's response to his first Halloween (it isn't celebrated in his home dimension and it was his first encounter with pumpkins).
It is available on Craftsy, and includes suggested stitches and DMC colours along with instructions for tea-dying. This is my first non-free pattern which is quite scary/exciting...
You can also see the original textile portrait that Jeremy patiently sat for at Mad's Monster Emporium, along with portraits of his friends.
Update: pattern is now also available on Etsy.
It is available on Craftsy, and includes suggested stitches and DMC colours along with instructions for tea-dying. This is my first non-free pattern which is quite scary/exciting...
You can also see the original textile portrait that Jeremy patiently sat for at Mad's Monster Emporium, along with portraits of his friends.
Update: pattern is now also available on Etsy.
Exciting news about my embroidery patterns (exciting to me, anyway)
My bee/flower pattern is currently the second best-selling free embroidery pattern on Craftsy! I have no idea where it was featured, but lots of people seem to have downloaded it yesterday.
It was originally part of the Bugs & Fishes flower tutorial linkup, there are loads of other lovely tutorials and patterns here.
It was originally part of the Bugs & Fishes flower tutorial linkup, there are loads of other lovely tutorials and patterns here.
Flowery Crafty Tutorial Linkup
Here are the other tutorials that appeared on the Bugs and Fishes tutorial linkup. I am definitely going to try a few of these.
Dandelion Puff Embroidery Pattern - Hugs are Fun
Paper Flowers - Life is Like a Triple Chocolate Cookie
Super Cute Scandi Style Embroidery - Hoogally
Felt Flower Brooch - Little Black Duck
Buzzzzz - Unexpected Kitty
Felt Pansy Bookmark - Grace's Favours
Flower Power - Pickle-Lily
Easy Love Heart Cozy - Sara's Texture Crafts
Thank you so much Laura for arranging this, it was a lot of fun.
Dandelion Puff Embroidery Pattern - Hugs are Fun
Paper Flowers - Life is Like a Triple Chocolate Cookie
Super Cute Scandi Style Embroidery - Hoogally
Felt Flower Brooch - Little Black Duck
Buzzzzz - Unexpected Kitty
Felt Pansy Bookmark - Grace's Favours
Flower Power - Pickle-Lily
Easy Love Heart Cozy - Sara's Texture Crafts
Thank you so much Laura for arranging this, it was a lot of fun.
New embroidery pattern - Buzzzzz
I'm taking part in another tutorial linkup organized by Laura of Bugs and Fishes, this time the theme was "Flowers" and here is mine:
It was really fun to design and make, I used water colour crayons again but this time I used calico rather than cotton, after the trouble I had with my "Monsters Deserve Love Too" pattern where the water colour ran outside the lines. Here it mostly stayed where I intended it to, but gave a rougher effect due to the texture of the fabric. I also used clear seed beads for patterns on the flowers, but I think they also look like raindrops. I have been drawing this bee since I was a teenager (although normally he has a few legs the other way around) so I love the fact I can now share him!
You can download the pattern for free here. If you have any trouble, contact me (unexpectedkitty [at] gmail [dot] com) and I'll email you a copy of the PDF. Please note that when you first view it in Google Drive, the main picture will look really horrible (due to something weird to do with Google) but when you download it everything should be fine.
If you make this pattern, I'd love to see it! Email me and I'll put your version on my blog if you want.
I'll post details of all the other tutorials in the linkup when I have them, I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone else has come up with.
Update: here are the other tutorials.
It was really fun to design and make, I used water colour crayons again but this time I used calico rather than cotton, after the trouble I had with my "Monsters Deserve Love Too" pattern where the water colour ran outside the lines. Here it mostly stayed where I intended it to, but gave a rougher effect due to the texture of the fabric. I also used clear seed beads for patterns on the flowers, but I think they also look like raindrops. I have been drawing this bee since I was a teenager (although normally he has a few legs the other way around) so I love the fact I can now share him!
You can download the pattern for free here. If you have any trouble, contact me (unexpectedkitty [at] gmail [dot] com) and I'll email you a copy of the PDF. Please note that when you first view it in Google Drive, the main picture will look really horrible (due to something weird to do with Google) but when you download it everything should be fine.
If you make this pattern, I'd love to see it! Email me and I'll put your version on my blog if you want.
I'll post details of all the other tutorials in the linkup when I have them, I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone else has come up with.
Update: here are the other tutorials.
New embroidery pattern!
I've just released my second embroidery pattern on Craftsy. It's called "Monsters Deserve Love Too".
It's free on Craftsy here.
I'm aiming to do another monster pattern in the next couple of months. I'm going to do some more practising with the watercolour crayons - they're a nightmare when you're trying to get them to stay in one place. My boyfriend paints Warhammer models and he was way better at it than me (compare the top of the left tail with the top of the right one!). I do like the subtle effects they can give though. Maybe they are better kept as background washes. I'm also going to do more practice with drawing using a tablet, my Gimp/Inkscape/Paint experience with this pattern was very swear-inducing and I can't seem to draw a non-wobbly line on paper.
First Ever Unexpected Kitty Embroidery Pattern!
I'm expanding Unexpected Kitty to include embroidery patterns, and here is the first one (am very excited)!
You can download "Festive Wanderers" for free here. If you make it, I would love to see it.
Do you have any tips on using metallic thread, other than "don't bother"? I used it as a single strand blended with white for the snow, which was bearable (ha ha) but the stars led to much swearing. I'd like to try Cosmo Sparkles thread as I've heard it's much easier to use than DMC, but it seems impossible to buy it in the UK.
This is part of a craft tutorial Christmas link-up organised by Bugs and Fishes. Later this week I will put up the details of all the other tutorials.
Update: look here for the rest of the Crafty Christmas tutorials!
You can download "Festive Wanderers" for free here. If you make it, I would love to see it.
Do you have any tips on using metallic thread, other than "don't bother"? I used it as a single strand blended with white for the snow, which was bearable (ha ha) but the stars led to much swearing. I'd like to try Cosmo Sparkles thread as I've heard it's much easier to use than DMC, but it seems impossible to buy it in the UK.
This is part of a craft tutorial Christmas link-up organised by Bugs and Fishes. Later this week I will put up the details of all the other tutorials.
Update: look here for the rest of the Crafty Christmas tutorials!
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