Tales from Periphaeria

To add insult to injury I got sick and have slept through the weekend… Which meant that I simply couldn’t prepare the files for you before now. And then I realized that the alphabet in the sampler wont fit in the hollow space and had to modify the original slightly… which, of course, took some more time.

I am very sorry for this delay.

But, on the bright side… they are now ready! And you get slightly bigger chart than the previous parts. I saw no reason to leave that last ten-or-so rows for another month.

That hollow space at the bottom border is for your initials and year. You can use the given alphabet (included with the last part) over one OR use the backstitch alphabet of your liking.

*.pdf for part VIIII can be downloaded from here. (Please do not open the file before saving it to your own computer. You can save it like this: Right click, “Save Link As”/ “Save As” and then you just choose the location at your computer.)

If you are new to this project you can find basic information from here and first eight parts of this just checking previous posts.

Please, do NOT link directly to the files – also do NOT share the design through email, forums, blogs, photo hosts or through any electronic or physical media! If you wish to let your friends know about this stitch-a-long please give them a link to this blog.

If you enjoy the design please vote us at:

When you are done with part nine (or any of the parts), please, email a picture (periphaeria at gmail dot com) or post a comment with a link to your blog or online photo album so we can all see how beautiful your version is!

And remember… this project will be taken down 1st of January, 2012.

As you have noticed, there is a delay.

Usual reasons: work (all evenings) and health issues (winter is coming and I just can’t help it).

I try to get last part up during weekend.

Sorry.

Late again! Argh! I remember this on 30th, but when 1st comes I have forgot it… gah.

But hey, it’s here now and you all get to stitch! And guess what? There is only one part left after this!
Does the time fly or something?!

And I want to thank you all for sharing the pictures with me during the month, I just have been in brain fog and forgot to update them. (It’s this time of the year, my thyroid got upset again. But I try to update them soon!)

Regardless, prepare your needles!

*.pdf for part VIII can be downloaded from here. (Please do not open the file before saving it to your own computer. You can save it like this: Right click, “Save Link As”/ “Save As” and then you just choose the location at your computer.)

If you are new to this project you can find basic information from here and first seven parts of this just checking previous posts.

Please, do NOT link directly to the files – also do NOT share the design through email, forums, blogs, photo hosts or through any electronic or physical media! If you wish to let your friends know about this stitch-a-long please give them a link to this blog.

If you enjoy the design please vote us at:

When you are done with part five (or any of the parts), please, email a picture (periphaeria at gmail dot com) or post a comment with a link to your blog or online photo album so we can all see how beautiful your version is!

And remember… this project will be taken down 1st of January, 2012, so make sure you have got all the parts!

Would you like to stitch without having to spend money for the supplies and the design? Would you love to be an important part in bringing a new cross stitch design to market? Would you love to work with a cross stitch designer? Would you be able to stitch against deadline?

Would you want to tell your significant other that you just have to stitch because you are actually working?

I have the solution for you: I am in dire need of model stitchers!

Since Periphaeria Designs was born my life has changed so drastically that I just don’t have time to stitch much, but as I did and do design and have wide design stash just waiting to be stitched I need your help.

If this sounds like something you might want to do here is how it goes with me:

1. I will provide you with everything you need to stitch the design: fabric, floss, needle and the design. After you are done you will get to keep the chart and leftover materials.

2. You commit to stitch the design and return it to me by mail. You don’t need to finish the item, I will do that.

3. You commit to keep track of how much floss you use and report that to me and look for charting errors in the designs, of which you will inform me.

4. You are not allowed to publish pictures about the design before it has been published. Which means no WIP pictures, but I will provide you with picture (and the design in its official form) after the launch.

5. Naturally you will not share the chart itself with anyone, not in printed or electronic form, not prior or after the design is published.

6. I am not able to pay actual money, but you get project supplies for free, keep the excess floss and there is also fame: you will be credited in the design information as a model stitcher.

7. I may ask progress pictures from you to be sent through email.

It may sound awfully strict, but actually isn’t.

If you find yourself interested I would love to hear from you at periphaeria (at) email dot com (at and dot written as corresponding symbols).
Please include also the following information:

1. Link to your blog (I love a stitchy blog as much as any other stitcher!) or online photo album – or attach some pictures to the email – containing your stitching work.

2. Are you able to stitch

1. using silks or specialty fibers
2. with beads
3. on linen
4. over one, and on how high counts?

3. How fast stitcher are you?

4. Do you have time constraints (family, work etc.) or do you have nothing but time in your hands? (This is not a selection factor per se, I just need to know.)

5. Are you confident stitching big projects, especially under deadline?

5. What is the highest count you can work on? (I use fabrics up to 40 count.)

Please note that you have to be able to stitch on evenweaves as I never use aida in my models.

I am especially looking for people who could do big projects in reasonable amount of time when needed, but do also need stitchers for small projects.

Any questions? Want to try your luck? Just email me! (Only emails. Comments regarding model stitching will not be answered – I need you to be able to understand directions, you see. )

I’ve a nasty cold at the moment so the second part of “Star Sampler” will be couple of days late as I simply can’t sit upright…

My apologies.

I have to apologise for being distant at the moment. As some of you know I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism last summer and it my doctor has been tweaking my medication up, up and away ever since.

Thanks to this cold winter my dose got, once again, too low, which means that I am not at all awake or able to think much… To be honest: I am zombified and I need to work, so that’s all I can do. Nothing more and even work is hard at the moment due complete lack of energy and cognitive skills. (I haven’t been stitching in weeks! That *is* serious!)

My dose was upped today (thank G-d for my brilliant endocrinologist!), but it will take some time before I am back to more or less normal.

Since the birth of Periphaeria Designs my life has been full of surprises, good and bad ones. One could almost think that I am jinxed.
In this entry I wish to be able to explain what I want to tell you, to explain my absence and everything else.

In general life has turned 180 degrees since 1st of March, 2007, and even there has been bad things it’s, in the end, all good.

In spring 2007 I started to feel out of breath when walking, woke up catching breath and was incrediby tired all the time. I went to a doctor and after arguments with doctors and some vigorous testing I got preliminary diagnose of asthma, which was later confirmed.

Year after this I started to sleep 16 hours a day, my skin and hair got dry, started to gain weight, my memory got worse and worse, had no energy not interest to anything nor ability to concentrate.
I knew it was classic example of hypothyroidism, but my doctor disagreed and prescribed anti-depressants because of the “normal range” my thyroid hormone levels were in.
I can’t say that it was all bad, my dose was so high that it would probably had woken the dead even. But, I got some of my energy back. Still, those physical symptoms remained.

During that summer I was blessed and met my now Husband and that, of course, was good for my health, but as I was madly in love only thing I could think of was Him, not PD, stitching or designing.

During that fall I got a job and everything seemed to go swell. And still I didn’t feel like everything was in order with me. I was continuously tired (at this point quitting those anti-depressants actually helped me to feel a bit better), barely had the energy to work and concentrate on our long-distance relationship.

I was sick all the time and every little cold turned into bacterial infection, but no doctor paid any attention to that. Not even after 14 courses of antibiotics in one year. And no doctor or nurse believed me when I told them that I gain weight even I barely eat. They just thought that I am lying – because my thyroid hormone levels were still within normal limits it couldn’t be hypothyroidism in their opinion, even by now my mother had been diagnosed with it.

This March Husband and I got married, after a long fight with bureaucracy and that is when I finally realised that I have to find a good doctor, someone who would be willing to test the thyroid medication with me because I knew that if I have untreated hypothyroidism it may lead to childlessness – and my list of symptoms had got longer and longer, and by then I had about every acknowledged sign of hypothyroidism, just excluding abnormal thyroid hormone levels.

I June I saw an endocrinologist whom I knew understands thyroid illnesses in deeper level and doesn’t religiously obide “normal values”.
And that man saved my life by prescribing me thyroxine based on all the symptoms every other doctor had disregarded!

My dose has been upped during the summer, along that I have slowly begun to feel more alive, and now we seem to have found the optimal medication level for the time being which I can tell from my well-being.
I can’t say I have completely recovered as it’s possible that I have lived over two decades with dysfunctional thyroid, but I am slowly getting there: I sleep less, have evergy to stitch after work at least some days, I lose (!slowly, but still) and can control my weight and… I DESIGN!

Which means that I am back! (Not that I went anywhere, but I hope you can understand that simply surviving through a day has been hard enough for me last two years… )

There will be new desings every now and then (I am still in recovery mode so I try to respect my body with enough rest and low levels of stress), and there will be all kinds of nice little surprises for you, my dear stitchers – and that’s sooner than later.

Nothing drastic though, just that I simply don’t have enough time at the moment to get ornament set out this year in time for stitchers to have time to stitch them for this holiday season. Therefore I have decided to be nice to myself, stop stressing about them and publish them 2009 early enough to give you all time to stitch the whole set.

I can promise that you will love them and the set is well worth the wait! Their form is a bit unusual and gives a wonderful twist to the set.
But, you will see them in next year, I promise!

Hello again after a long, long time!

I have had yet another bout of health problems during this spring and summer, not forgetting the fact that I have found myself a muse who has taken quite much of my free time (but he’s worth it) lately. But, the health problems are hopefully all gone for few decades now and I am back!

Many stitchers are very fond of their stash and collecting new one, myself included, and I found myself from thinking today that I could really use Stash Addicts Anonymous support group.
This thought wanted to manifest itself as a design, or rather three of them, and I am sure you will enjoy these little simple designs.

What a better way to announce your stash addiction than stitching one of these, or all of them? And after that stitch some as gifts for your stitching friends and justify yourself some lovely stash shopping as you surely need some beautiful fabrics and floss for these…

I have also designed two related sets of designs, which I will publish later this year/ during this year as complimentary designs, so stay tuned!
The easiest way to stay tuned is to subscribe to Tales from Periphaeria’s feed and/ or subscribe to Periphaeria Designs‘ newsletter (subscription form can be found from the main site).

Until next time: happy stitching!

I have just got the questionable honour to report my first copyright infringement to a $SERVICE_PROVIDER. Does this mean that I am famous now?
I knew, when getting into designing, that there will be people who will steal from me like that, people who won’t respect my right to my intellectual property as I know there are designers who are so plagued by this phenomenon that they use most of their days reporting infringements and not doing what they are good at and what they love: design.

If you purchase my designs, never share them with anyone and respect my copyrights I thank you. If you have the mental spine to preach for the artist’s right for their creation, I am more than thankful, as the world needs you, us, needlework designers need you to help us to spread the knowledge.
If you purchase my designs and “share” them, or if you only stitch my designs without paying a dime of the think of this: would you steal the fabric and floss you use? No, because it’s a crime, as much of a crime as is stealing the pattern, stealing those few cents from the artist who created the design you love to stitch.

To end this with a funny anecdote: Guess was I amazed when I read the latest The Gift of Stitching and noticed that Helga Mandl’s design published in the magazine uses exactly same clover than a design combo I have designed a while ago and which I am currently model stitching for St. Patrick’s Day?
Great minds think alike, it seems and I had to send a courtesy email to Helga right away, just in case there won’t be questions of imitation. (In this case it’s fortunate that motifs, like clovers, can’t be copyrighted as such, only the final design.)

Yes, I am publishing a set of St. Patrick’s Day’s designs soon!

I am happy to announce you that I have set a date for the next launch!

The Date is 14th of February, which is also the day when I am going to announce the lucky winner of the little competition. Currently my goal is to launch six new designs (the fourth model is about half stitched so with luck there may be more), a not-so-small-surprise and a complimentary design.
The complimentary design has been designed to celebrate Periphaeria Designs‘ first anniversary and it will only be available a limited time (from 14th of February to midnight 31st of March (GMT+2)) so mark your calendars – or, if you are not subscribed yet, subscribe to our newsletter!

I’m eagerly waiting to celebrate the Valentine’s Day with all of you! Until then: happy stitching!

For the understandable reason of having health problems (and then I got a trainee position which has meant even less time for designing or stitching) new designs have been nowhere to be seen.
I DO miss launching the new designs and therefore I decided to leave the current Design-In-Progresses be in the DIP pile and concentrate on a completely new set.

That seemed to be a good idea as the urge has come back and I am eagerly awaiting to be able to launch new designs during the first months of the coming year. (One reason for this urge is that I have been inspired by someone and my creative juices are slowly starting to flow.)

And to give myself yet another incentive to reach my goal I will thereby announce a competition!

The spiel goes like this….

1. How to join?:
   The only thing you have to do is to join Periphaeria Designs‘ mailing list and have your hopes high! If you already subscribe to the newsletter you don’t have to do absolutely anything. It won’t get easier than that!
2. The Prize:
   One of each of the designs to be published in the next launch. (In *.pdf format.)
3. The competition runs…:
   From now to February 1st and the lucky winner will be announced in Valentine’s Day, 14th of February, when I will send the winner an email.
   IF I don’t receive a reply from the winner within one week new name will be drawn, so use such an email address you read frequently to ensure to get your possible winnings in due course.

It is THAT simple and everyone has as good probability to win than the other stitcher as I will use an impartial Lady Fortuna, Random.Org, to choose the number of the winner (all the newsletter subscribers have a subscriber number and that will be used as your lottery ticket).

Feel free to spread the word (with link to this entry) to your stitching friends, in blogs and on forums.
I keep my thumbs up for every one of you!

As those of you who subscribe to Periphaeria Designs‘ newsletter know I have been under the weather for some time due health problems.
Now I have the diagnose (which is not the final diagnose, I can get the final diagnose in spring 2008 – if the medication has an effect on me) of asthma bronchiale, but as I need to give some time for the medication to kick in and recover my ability to function normally I suspect that what was meant to be the November launch will become the December launch.

If so it is an unfortunate event, but based on the GP’s reaction when he read my peak flow charts my asthma is on the severe side, and the lack of oxygen has taken its toll which means that I really need to give myself time to recover before I can give the stitching world new designs to stitch.

But, as promised, there will be designs from Periphaeria Designs for you to stitch in future, and I am sure that when I get myself back to health I will also spend quite some time designing all those new ones I haven’t had the energy for during the summer.

—————-
Listening to: Karunesh – For The Joy Of All via Last.Fm.

I will be offline from 6th to 14th of August as I take my dears with me and head to my mother’s cabin for some peace and quiet (and loads of stitching time!).

I will answer emails and handle the orders when I come back.