Monday! Things! Hugo! Embroidery! Coffee!

This will, more (more embroidery) or less (shoes will come tomorrow - they deserve their own spot)
, be the blogpost I intended to do on Friday... so here goes:

After my long Hugo ramblings, I did some more reading, and I'm obviously notthe only one trying to see the kerfuffle as the basis for a new awareness of the Hugo, and maybe dragging it into the Century of the Fruitbat (or whatever we have, currently). Ken Marable has made a blog to collect recommendations for things you consider nomination-worthy for the Hugo, for all categories, and open for everyone - or, as the blog itself puts it, "The Non-Slate: Just Fans Talking about What They Love". Go read his post about the blog and moving forward - I think it's a wonderful idea, and I'll make sure to visit the site.

In embroidery kit news, I've hit a snag - I have planned and put together the materials for a first batch of embroidery kits, and intended to make nice, colourfully illustrated instructions to show precisely what to do and how to do it. However, the kit will come at a price, as there's a lot of work involved in preparing the materials, and there's quite a bit of material cost as well. Making an appropriately small print run for a batch of instruction booklets would sort of still be possible, but rather in-efficient, and would add unneccessary costs. So after figuring this out, I'm now planning to make a general how-to booklet with instructions that will be part of the kit or available separately, plus an extra sheet of kit-specific information.

Work in progress. I've come a lot further since, though!

Unfortunately, the kit was on a deadline before, as I want to get it ready for the Nadelkunst. With the original plan, that deadline was sort of not too bad... but with the change of plans, the writing project has now grown considerably. Which means I'm now trying to get it all put together in time. Frantic typing, emailing, picture searching and embroidering ensues. Wish me luck. (Also, I am having lots of coffee and chocolate. Always helps.)