Finished stitching - now what?

Somehow, in the middle of a hectic weekend, I managed to finish stitching Blue Thing #3! That only leaves one blue thing left to work on, which is the sweater! Yay! I also managed to get my photography done and my virtual booth set up in time (not early, but on time). I still have to stretch Blue Thing #3 and frame both #1 and #3 for chart photography, work on the three new charts, print charts for a new order that came in, order bags, and some other things that I know I'll think of along the way. However, the most important stuff for the online show is done! So be sure to check out my booth at http://www.needleworkshow.com starting Wednesday night! Meanwhile, it is time to get to work on some new designs!

This weekend, I had an interesting experience. I went to a National Portfolio Day with my sister, who is interested in attending an art-centric college. Now, this is not something I had ever seen before, having majored in engineering in college. So imagine, if you will, a hotel ballroom filled to the brim with budding young artists, toting portfolios of their artwork around, some large boxes, some small, all waiting in lines to have their art reviewed by representatives of different art schools. I'm still a bit fuzzy on how this all fits into the whole process of getting into a college, except that each reviewer took notes on the budding young artists after critiquing the work. It did lead me to wonder what there was a review group for budding cross-stitch designers? Would we still get diversity or would the review group look for the same things? Would it help turn away people who aren't ready yet? In fact, we do have a review group - the end consumers who buy product and before them, the shop owners and the distributors who decide what goes into the marketplace. Our reviews are done by the toughest critiquers of all - marketplace economics - where a bad design review doesn't just get hurt feelings, it can loose money.