The Bobbin Buzz & Stitchin' Bits

I received several emails after sending this mornings announcement about the changes to how our free designs are downloaded. Here's an example of the questions I received...

Will there be a way to preview the design? This email is only a link for the zip file. After knowing what the designs are I file them into separate folders by design type. Will the designs still be available on-line in case I am gone for more than 7 days and can’t retrieve it before it is no longer valid?

To answer the questions...

If you click the link in the email to www.thebobbinbuzz.com you will see the designs.

They are free to readers of Bobbin-Buzz for 7 days, but they are added to the library of the ATW website permanently. So if you are a member of ATW they are always available to you.

-- Larry

" i've learned that if you hoop just your stablizer, then spray the stablizer with Sulky KK2000. Place the fabric piece over the sprayed stablizer, and gently finger press the fabric out to all corners.. This will give you an almost pucker free embroidery design"

Here's a set of designs free from Nita and www.nitasplace.com

The links to download this set is in the email box of everyone that is on our mailing list. If you're not on the list, you can get on it for free here!

These designs were created by Nita Okeefe and are available for 1 week only to subscribers to the free Bobbin-Buzz / Stitchin Bits email list. If you'd like to get on the list, just click here!

Thank you's can be sent to Nita@nitasplace.com

Quite a few people jumped on the opportunity this week to join Nita's ThreadNest but there are still openings and it's not too late to join yet.

(In case you missed the article you can click here to read more about this!)

Although the retail price isn't yet carved in stone, it's very likely that these design sets will be selling in stores for VERY close to $100 per set. The members of NTN get BOTH SETS for the price of $44.85 (plus shipping) and as a BONUS get 15 mini-king spools of thread coordinated to the designs for FREE. This top-quality thread normally retails for $6 per spool but it's free as a bonus to members of the club.

Do the math and you'll see why the club is filling up fast! There are still openings for members but that WILL be cut off VERY shortly. Click here for more details!

Here's a picture of 12 of the 35+ designs in "Winter's Lullaby" digitized for the current members of NitasThreadNest by Holly Pike...

The SECOND SET of designs for the ThreadNest members this month is called "Country Winter Morning" digitized by Nita O'Keefe and here is the picture of that set.

Both sets AND the BONUS thread will ship around December 7th. Join now if you want to get in on this fun deal!

Still on Sale. The Christmas is for Kids half price sale has been extended through this week. There is still time to get this delightful set of designs!

Click Here For Christmas Kids

Redwork Ladies in 4x4 size can now be found in the store at this link. And at the same link is a larger set with 5x7 Redwork Ladies.

VISIT STORE HERE!

We are still continuing the introductory price on the Snowmen and Flakes. These great designs will be in the What's for Sale Department of our Store. Get your set of these designs today!

http://www.nitasplace.com/public/viewimage.cfm?ImgID=5003

Thread count is the number of threads per square inch in the fabric. It determines the quality and weight of the fabric.

Find out more about thread count here!

We have a Winner in the November Photo contest and it is .........

Donna Coffey

Donna, you have just won a 1 year membership to Nita's Place. Congratulations!!

See the winning photo here:

This one I wrote as a song, sort of to the tune of Oh, Christmas Tree. I introduced this at the Lady's Auxiliary Christmas meeting a couple of years ago. I hope you enjoy it!

http://www.nitasplace.com/members/925.cfm

This week's JoAnn's $25.00 Gift Card Winner from the mailing list is Marty from Alabama -- email address martydee @ bellsouth .net

The winner has 5 days from today to claim the card by emailing me nita@nitasplace.com or you may call me at 281-559-1465

This week's Sampler is Christmas Ladybugs. Happy Lady Bugs just looking to come and visit you for Christmas.

Ladybugs are now in the Nita's Place download library for members to download

The Christmas is for Kids half price sale has been extended through this week. There is still time to get this delightful set of designs!

http://www.nitasplace.com/public/viewimage.cfm?ImgID=5022

This has been a busy week for us. We have been trying to play catch up from our Thanksgiving vacation in KY. This week is shipping week for Nita's Thread Nest also. And of course it is the beginning of December and the Christmas holiday season and that makes things even busier. I have been working really hard getting designs done for Nitas Place and for the Thread Nest. We did try something new this week with the weekly sampler and it was a bit confusing for some of you. So, the links for this weeks sampler are back in the download library on Nita's Place. You will find that link below with the pictures of the designs. Thanks for all your comments.

Several people have asked us for the redwork ladies that were the designs for the quilting swap a few months ago. Those are now in the store for sale. And there is a larger set with 5x7 designs for those who asked for them as well. You can find those in the store at this link.

http://www.nitasplace.com/public/department115.cfm

Our funny story contest has ended and we are still reading the stories. We did receive a lot of them and you will get to read them in the Newsletters to come. I will not be posting all of them on line all at once as there are just to many. The winner will be posted as soon as we have read them all and chosen one. Many of you have been asking me about the winner and I know you are all anxious. The winner will get this months shipment as promised. Please give us another day or so to get the stories all read and the winner posted.

That's all for this week!

Happy Stitching Trails!

Nita

Help yourself to this weeks Bobbin-Buzz Free design set - "Road Construction Embroidery Designs"! These are for everyone that is a subscriber to Bobbin-Buzz, our free weekly newsletter!

mcp1960 @ msn.com has just won a 3-month membership at ArtisticThreadWorks! You can claim the prize here... http://www.artisticthreadworks.com/prizeclaim before noon tomorrow.

Here's a picture of ONE of this week's design sets...

Members of ATW can download all of this week's new designs, along with more than 16,000 other designs in the "Design Library"... Join Here!

Holly and I are still visiting with Nita and CJ Okeefe in Texas. Our camper is parked in their driveway and we spend every day working together on projects that will be coming out over the next several months.

Nita, Holly, Sylvia, and Ina were all running test-sews for Fuwari designs at one time on machines. Wow! That's a lot of stitching going on, but they've nailed down exactly what each machine will do when used with different designs and it's been fun seeing the results.

Right now these are the machines that are here...

Babylock Ellegante
Babylock Elageo
Babylock EMP6
Bernina 200e
Brother 270d
Brother Inovis 4000
Brother 8200
Brother 8500
Brother ULT
Janome 350
Janome 11000
Viking Designer SE

... and there are multiples of some of these machines too! I'll be taking still photos and video footage soon and will include a look around the studio. It's kind of fun to look at the differences and similarities between machines.

It's also challenging to work with the different ways designs are fed into each of these machines. They use a combination of floppy disks, memory sticks, USB cables, compact flash cards, and proprietary memory cards too.

I can't wait for the videos we're working on to come out. I know some of you will LOVE these. But it won't be for a while still so I'll let you know when they're ready. Meanwhile, I'll post pictures of the studio as soon as I can get them up.

-- Larry

Did you know YOU can have your comments added to any of the articles here?

I've just turned this feature on about a week ago and many of you have already discovered how to use it. For those who hadn't noticed it before though, here's how it works...

At the bottom of each article you'll see a small horizontal line across the screen. Below the line are the words "permalink" and "comments". I'll explain both of these features.

The "permalink" allows webmasters to add a link to their site or blog that takes their readers directly to that article above the horizontal line. If you own a site and would like to tell your readers something that's on this site, just copy the permalink and add it to your page or your email.

The "comments" link allows everyone that is reading an article to comment on it. Just click the "comments" link and read any comments already posted and add yours too if you'd like.

(All comments are held for approval by one of us in order to prevent you seeing the spam that's also left as comments.)

Here's an example of a comment left by a reader...

"The new Christmas design set is very nice. When you say members can download the entire set ...is that free? How much does it cost to join? I have enjoyed your newsletter for a year or more. I have a Viking SE and I do some embroidering, not a lot, but I do enjoy it. I am not extremely computer savvy, but I am willing to learn. I am in my "golden" years and also have other things which take up my time. Can you recommend one of your DVD's which would help me. Thanks."

When I saw Marty's comment a couple hours later, I was able to leave an answer for her and I also emailed my answer to her.

So -- what's your comment?

You'll love this set of Christmas Holly designs to decorate your holiday projects or gifts. They are simple but beautiful.

http://www.nitasplace.com/sampler.html

This Merry Chrismouse is Half Price this week in the What's On Sale department at Nita's Place. You can also get this adorable design set at the link below.

http://www.nitasplace.com/public/viewimage.cfm?ImgID=30

A new sampler is UP! for you to download...

Readers of The Bobbin Buzz can download this set of designs for free for the next 7 days.

Members of ArtisticThreadWorks can download this set of designs any time, for as long as they are a member. It's a permanent part of our Members Design Library of more than 16,000 designs.

Have fun!

The Nativity 2007 design set at Nita's Place is at a special introductory price for non-members and is free to Nita's Place members. We will offer this special price to non-members until December 31. Use it this year for those last minute projects or get it at this special price to start your projects for next Christmas!

This set is free to Nita's Place members for the month of December only. So download it NOW if you're a member of Nita's Place. (Look in the "Bonus" folder of Nita's Download Library)

http://www.nitasplace.com/public/viewimage.cfm?ImgID=5118

From a post in our Computer Help Forum...

"The other day I went to back up my external hard drive onto a dvd and when I turned it on, the computer only read L:Local Drive, instead of L:Seagate. Ok, so I clicked on it and a small window came up and stated hard drive not formatted, do you want to format it now? I clicked no. Is it dead? It turns on and makes a sound like it is trying to work, however, I can't get it to give any info. When I click into properties, all I get is a solid blue pie chart. I went to Seagate.com and they have a program called seatools. do you think I should try this? or what can anyone suggest. I really don't want to lose my most recent designs. DRAT!!!"

(after trying a few things to recover the data, the follow up post includes this one...)

"I went to seagate online and found a data recovery software demo. It is finding a lot of the files and it will be worth the 129.00 or so to get them back. I spoke in an online chat with Seagate and they told me it could cost anywhere from $799-2400 to recover the files. Whoa. I think I'll stick with my bright ideas of just searching the web and do it myself. Thanks for your help, Larry and I hope this works and I can get the files put on a dvd QUICKLY!!!"

I don't mean to NAG but this brings up a really important point... if you don't backup your embroidery files, it can cost you a LOT of money to replace them. You may be able to have a service recover those files for you at anywhere from $800 to $2,400 cost, or you may have to re-download those files, costing you hundreds of hours of your time. And in many cases, the places you bought the designs from will not let you re-download them for free. We DO allow you to do that, but some places don't. If you lose the design, you have to re-buy them, adding even more expense to the process.

How do you make backups? There are 17 articles about how to backup embroidery designs on the ATW website!

(Here’s the winning story from our Funny Story Contest at Nita’s Place…)

Boy do I have a story to tell! I can laugh about it now but not at the time that my incident with my embroidery machine happened! This story will also hopefully give you ladies out there a friendly warning about what not to do in certain situations with your embroidery machine!

My hubby and I have taken in 23 cats from various elderly neighbors who have had to be put into nursing homes or foster homes. So, on this particular day, I was busy embroidering various cat designs on a sweatshirt! I have a Janome MC 11,000 and all of a sudden it made a noise and stopped.

I tried turning the fly wheel and it was frozen! I knew that there had to be a mess of thread in my bobbin casing but I also found that the thread on the spool wasn't moving either. So I had the bright idea to open the side of my machine and take a look to see why the thread wasn't moving through the tension spring or the needle.

I moved in very close and was bent over so close that my chest was on the hoop. What happened next was a very big surprise! As I was looking, one of our cats had decided to get up there with me and somehow had hit the start button! To my surprise, the machine took off and I had a hard time trying to get the machine turned off.

Needless to say, that the left side of my chest (no need to name body parts here) had several stitches in it! I yelled for my hubby as I was too stunned to think straight at this moment! I was bleeding like a stuck pig (no pun intended) and what my hubby thought was the best thing to do was raise the presser foot and he pulled out the top and bobbin thread a little and snipped them off.

I have always heard that as head cut bleeds profusely but let me tell you other parts can too! I immediately called my Doctor's office and explained to the receptionist that I had a problem with the left side of my chest, that I was bleeding and that I needed to see the Doctor. She wanted to know how I got hurt and I told her that I wasn't going to say!

I did get in to see the Doctor and when he took a look he burst out laughing to which I took offense. He explained to me that he had heard stories of these types of injuries from other Doctor's but that this was a first for him in 30 years of practice. The Doctor had to remove the top stitching (the bottom bobbin thread had come undone on its’ own)! I was treated for my wound and the given a lecture on the merits of turning off the machine whenever working on it.

So, ladies please when working on your machine DO TURN IT OFF! In my case, I'm still not trusting with it turned off so I always unplug the machine! I hope you get a chuckle out of this and also learned a lesson to boot!

(The author of this story has won a membership to NitasThreadNest!)

EDUCATION. Frequently Asked Questions of 2007

Q. Does it really help to put thread in the freezer?
A. No. That is a bad myth. If you have heard from your friend's aunt's sister-in-law's cousin's neighbor that it really helps, let them believe it. Refrigerators and freezer dehydrate everything and there is no benefit to thread.

Q. How about the newer slick, coated lint-free cotton threads?
A. They are fine for hand work but not for machines. Whether they are coated with silicone lubricant gel, wax, starch, or other substance, the coating will rub off in your machine wherever the thread makes contact. Tension discs can be over-lubricated with silicone or gummed up with wax and starch.

This week's JoAnn's $25.00 Gift Card Winner from the mailing list is finally-04 @ hotmail.com

The winner has 5 days from today to claim the card by emailing me nita@nitasplace.com or you may call me at 281-559-1465

klb @ speednetllc.com has just won a 3-month membership at ArtisticThreadWorks! You can claim the prize here... www.artisticthreadworks.com/prizeclaim before noon tomorrow.

Help yourself to this weeks Friday Freebie design set - "Fancy Poinsettias"! These are for everyone that is a subscriber to our free weekly newsletter here!

Only a couple of weeks left to take advantage of the introductory price on the Snowmen and Flakes. These great designs will be in the What's for Sale Department of our Store. Get your set of these designs today!

http://www.nitasplace.com/public/viewimage.cfm?ImgID=5003

I hope everyone is enjoying the the Christmas Holiday season. It has been a very hectic month here with all the goings on. My sister, Annette is visiting us for the month of December and has been learning how to run the embroidery machine and getting addicted to it like all the rest of us.

We have also been getting all the Thread Nest shipments of designs and thread out the door. Last week, we took a day off and went to "Dickens on the Strand". That is a weekend in Galveston, Texas where everyone dresses up in Dickinsean style and they have all kinds of parades and events. It was cool to see all the costumes going by...

Then we went to a place called Fishermans Wharf for dinner...

... and our table was a window seat and right outside was the tall ship Ellysia. We watched the crew swarm up to the masts and sails and it was fun to just watch them go. There were lots of vendors on the streets and costumes from other areas as well.

We had quite a nice time watching them.

In a few nights we will go back to Galveston to see the Festival of Lights at the Moody Gardens.
This is where they string hundreds of Christmas lights up all around the gardens and by the Gulf waters. ALL the lights are sea legends and animals all decked out for Christmas.
I hope all of you are enjoying the holiday buzz of getting ready and shopping and so on. And that you all take a minute to remember the "Reason for the Season"

Until next week:
Happy Stitching Trails,
Nita O'Keefe

www.nitasplace.com Home of Fancy That Designs. Nita's Place-It's THE place to be.
www.nitasthreadnest.com Thread with the Best from Nita's Thread Nest.

Available now in the Christmas section of our Store is the Christmas Holly Monogram. This is a must have for making those special holiday gifts!

http://www.nitasplace.com/public/viewimage.cfm?ImgID=5119

Here's a picture of ONE of this week's design sets called Holiday Snowmen In Blue...

Members of ATW can download all of this week's new designs, along with more than 16,000 other designs in the "Design Library"... Join Here!

It seems like Christmas is coming in 11 days whether we're ready for it or not! :-)

Holly shops for presents for everyone on our list. I shop for something for her. This works for me! Probably sounds familiar to many of you eh? I finished my "shopping" a couple weeks ago although I've been telling Holly I have no idea what to get her... LOL! I'm assuming she won't read this so please, don't anyone tell her.

But along with Christmas shopping, we've been busy with all kinds of projects here too. We just had some photos taken on Wednesday to use in some packaging we're putting together.

Here's a couple of the photos we'll use in the literature...

Holly Pike

Nita O'Keefe

Nita and Holly

And here's one of me we'll use too when needed...

Larry Pike

As I said the photos will be used in packaging and advertising coming out in 2008. The problem is that 2008 is now only 17 days away. Hard to imagine!

-- Larry

NitasThreadNest and ME&Thee Inc have negotiated an agreement with a major international distribution company. The ThreadNest Signature Design Collections will be available in 2008 in over 1,000 dealers around the globe.

Because of the terms of our agreement, the ThreadNest design sets will NOT be sold online EXCEPT to our ThreadNest members. Also, the number of memberships available will be strictly limited to remain within the terms of the agreement.

There are still a few membership spots available but we are NEAR capacity now. Once we reach our limit, we will only be able to take on additional members when an opening is created by a departing member.

Current memberships will not be affected by any of these changes! If you are already a member of the the club on December 31st 2007, then your prices will not be changed by this distribution agreement. Membership is currently $44.85 per month (plus shipping) and this price includes both sets of designs. The thread colors (15 spools per month) that the sets are coordinated with will still shipped to our members each month as a FREE BONUS.

Past design sets are now available only to members and only for a limited time. These design sets are slated to retail at MUCH higher prices once they reach the store shelves. If you're not already a member of the the club then and you want to join, please don't wait.

I picked this photo as a "weekly photo contest winner". Thanks for sharing with us Sue! You've won a 3 month extension on your membership for posting this photo!

Here's a bit of the story that goes with this photo...

" I've been taking orders on these like crazy. I put the vitals on the tummy. An ATW mini heart on the bum, and another ATW mini on one foot. "

Thanks to all of you who post photos regularly in the photo gallery. It's hard to pick a winner every week because there's so many great ones to choose from. Members of ATW can post their photos in our photo gallery with more than 25,000 other embroidery project photos!

This question came in my email today...

"Could you offer any suggestions the best way to photograph an embroidered design without it looking washed out of overexposed. What is the best lighting. I just wanted to take some sample pictures. Thanks! -- Gail"

The answer is YES! Here's the one secret most people miss when it comes to taking embroidery pictures... Lighting is the most important factor in getting a great photo!

Get plenty of light on your embroidery and your camera has something to work with. If you don't get enough light, you'll end up with blurry or dark, low-contrast pictures.

Here's an example of a well-lit photo...

Nita and Holly have been digitizing like mad for several days now on Fuwari designs. They have a BUNCH of new sets that will be on store shelves beginning in early 2008. So it's digitize/test-sew, digitize/test-sew, digitize/test-sew... (repeat!)

Here's a picture of one of the new Fuwari designs that will be out in the stores next year...

But seeing a photo of a Fuwari design doesn't really do it justice! It's a "touch thing" and you have to see it in-person to actually get an idea of just how cool Fuwari really is. I hope you get a chance to meet Holly or Nita at one of the many embroidery shows across America in the coming year.

We've also been working on some other projects together that will come out in stores in 2008 (see this article for more details) and some more projects that we can't let out of the bag YET, but will as soon as possible. :-)

Look for "Me And Thee Embroidery" logo on your dealer's shelves soon!

Quite a few people jumped on the opportunity yesterday to join Nita's ThreadNest but there are still openings and it's not too late to join yet.

(In case you missed the article you can click here to read more about this!)

Although the retail price isn't yet carved in stone, it's very likely that these design sets will be selling in stores for VERY close to $100 per set. The members of NTN get BOTH SETS for the price of $44.85 (plus shipping) and as a BONUS get 15 mini-king spools of thread coordinated to the designs for FREE. This top-quality thread normally retails for $6 per spool but it's free as a bonus to members of the club.

Do the math and you'll see why the club is filling up fast! There are still openings for members but that WILL be cut off VERY shortly. Click here for more details!

Here's a picture of 12 of the 35+ designs in "Winter's Lullaby" digitized for the current members of NitasThreadNest by Holly Pike...

The SECOND SET of designs for the ThreadNest members this month is called "Country Winter Morning" digitized by Nita O'Keefe and we will have a picture available for this second set soon.

Both sets AND the BONUS thread will ship around December 5th. Join now if you want to get in on this fun deal!

Here's a new PHOTO GALLERY from Dickens On The Strand 2007...

http://www.artisticthreadworks.com/public/1919.cfm

-- Larry

You'll love this set of teddybear designs to decorate your holiday projects or gifts. They are free to readers of the Bobbin-Buzz and Stitchin Bits for the next week.

(They are free to MEMBERS of NitasPlace forever as part of the membership!)

http://www.nitasplace.com/sampler.html

This week I am putting our New Year's Designs on sale. Click the links below...

Holly and Nita are digitizing and working on sample projects this week. All the design sets going into their Signature Collections and their Fuwari Collections will have examples of how the designs can be used on the front cover of their cases. This means a LOT of stitch-outs still need to be completed and photos taken of every project as it is finished.

Having been in business for over 6 years now, we know what work is, but preparing for retail distribution adds a whole new dimension to what we've done in the past. Along with this work, everyone still has their normal stuff to do also. Digitizing, handling customer support, etc. I'm thinking we'll need a vacation when this prep work is done!

I went to JoAnn's a couple days ago to buy a dressmakers form. The clerks always have surprised looks on their faces when I come into one of their stores and shop. Maybe I don't look like the "normal" JoAnns customer! LOL!

I'll post project photos as they are completed so you all can see what they look like.

-- Larry

Special Sale Price on Snow-Buddies designs until 12/29/07! Great designs for projects all winter long. Save big on this set. Normal price $24.95 / SALE PRICE JUST $7.97 for the set of 16 designs!

(ATW Members: Take an extra $2 off!)

A new sampler is UP! for you to download...

Readers of The Bobbin Buzz can download this set of designs for free for the next 7 days.

Members of ArtisticThreadWorks can download this set of designs any time, for as long as they are a member. It's a permanent part of our Members Design Library of more than 16,000 designs.

Have fun!

I got two emails yesterday that were strikingly similar...

Two people had joined our ArtisticThreadWorks website and each had sent me an email that went something like this...

"After reading Bobbin-Buzz for several years, I've finally joined ATW as a full member. I'm so looking forward to everything the site has to offer..."

I get that type of email about 2 or 3 times a week and I usually just smile and send back a note saying "Welcome" and telling them to let me know if there's anything they need. But getting two of these emails in one day was kind of a "bonk" on the forehead, so I picked up my phone and called them both.

Besides saying "Hi" and getting to know them a little, I was curious why they had waited "for years" to join.

The first lady said basically, she wasn't really SURE if it would be as good on the inside as it looked from the outside. She said she's so used to advertisements on TV saying thier product is wonderful, only to be disappointed after she got the item in the mail. She described how she had ordered a die-cast model car as a gift for her husband. On TV it filled the screen. When it came in the mail, it didn't fill the palm of her hand. With experiences like that, she'd been skeptical for years about just how good a membership would really be to our site.

The second lady said she had hesitated because she rarely spent money on herself. She would buy things all the time for her husband or her kids or grandkids, but she would always put off buying things for herself. Her husband had bought the embroidery machine for her two years ago at Christmas and she hadn't really learned to use it yet and only had the designs that came with the machine. She wasn't really sure what she needed to get started using the thing. I got really excited at what she had her hands on and told her how to get designs from our site into her machine with a memory stick.

I made a note in my calendar to follow up with a phone call to each of them a month from now to see how they're progressing. I want to know if the first lady thinks she got her monies worth from a membership. (I'm pretty sure I know what the answer will be - click here for what I think she'll say!)

And the second lady... I want to be sure she's started using that Janome machine instead of leaving it lonely on the table of her room. (That's just not right!) I also gave her the phone number for the local UnRavelers group in her area so she could go out and have a cup of coffee with the great gals in her area that were already having fun with their machines. I think we might have rescued her too!

I understand why both of them had hesitated to join in the past...

To the first lady, I could only say, here's what others have said about their ATW membership. (Click here)

To the second lady, I could only say "Isn't it time for YOU?"

Just 11 days left to get the special introductory price of the Nativity 2007 Designs. They will be at this price until December 31. Get yours today!

http://www.nitasplace.com/public/viewimage.cfm?ImgID=5118

A new project was given to our members this week. Days of the Week Hot Mats and Ornaments. Members can download them at Nita's Place or at the links below. They come in 4x4 and 5x7 sizes.

4x4 size at http://www.nitasplace.com/members/952.cfm

5x7 size at http://www.nitasplace.com/members/953.cfm

Only a one week and 4 days left to take advantage of the introductory price on the Snowmen and Flakes. These great designs will be in the What's for Sale Department of our Store. Get your set of these designs today!

This week's 3-month membership Winner from the mailing list is Carol from Florida -- email address crfajf75 @ aol.com

The winner has 5 days from today to claim the membership by emailing me at webmaster@nitasplace.com.

Nita's Happy New Year Designs are half price this week in the What's On Sale department. You can also get this design set at the link below.

http://www.nitasplace.com/public/viewimage.cfm?ImgID=3399

Help yourself to this weeks Friday Freebie design set - "Nativity Redwork Quilt Squares"! These are for everyone that is a subscriber to our free weekly newsletter here!

Here's a picture of ONE of this week's design sets called "Snow-Friends"...

Members of ATW can download all of this week's new designs, along with more than 16,000 other designs in the "Design Library"... Join Here!

Here's a discount coupon for Our Store!

It's gives you our "Redwork Musical Instruments" design set at $6.97 instead of the usual $15.00 price! The coupon is valid through Dec 28th only!

Here's the set that's on this special sale...

To Get This Special Price: When you get to the checkout lane -- enter the coupon code 797 in the "Referrer Code" field. You'll see the discount in the review screen before you finalize your order.

Here's there the coupon code goes...

The more I thought about the conversations I had on Tuesday, the more it bothered me!     In case you didn't see the Wednesday article I wrote, I refer you back to this one titled "Isn't It Time For YOU?"

What bothered me about these two conversations was the thought process that so many of us carry with us throughout our lives. It's a kind of "I'll just wait until ______, then I'll go ahead and start doing what I want to do with my life."

Let me pass on these simple words to you...

IF THERE'S SOMETHING YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE - PLEASE DO IT NOW.

I'm not talking here about joining ATW, or about buying a new pair of shoes. I'm talking about the important things. The things you know in your heart that you long to do but keep putting off because "it's not the right time yet."

Let me share this story with you. It will be 4 years ago on January 12th that I left my corporate job. At the time, ATW wasn't making enough money to even come close to supporting us. I would have said "It's not the right time yet" if you'd asked me a couple years earlier.

But the world changed for many of us on Sept 11th 2001. And it profoundly changed me. I had planned on staying with my corporate job until my 66th birthday, when I'd be eligible for Social Security and a nice IRA payout. But when I thought about all the people that probably had similar plans and worked in the World Trade Center... it brought home to me that for some of us, someday never comes.

I left my job one morning in January. I left behind some friends that were still on the "when-I'm-65" track. One of them was "Joey D" who sat two cubicles away from me. And one of them was the gal that sat in the cubicle next to me - "Kathy".

One morning in April, after I'd been gone for 3 months, Kathy called me. She said that Joe had died of a heart attack while sitting at his desk that Monday morning. Joe was 2 years older than me. He was more overweight than I am, and he smoked, but that's still not what you'd expect at 52 years old.

I took that as a not-so-subtle reminder...

IF THERE'S SOMETHING YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE - PLEASE DO IT NOW.

(Read more about Holly and me here.)

-- Larry