Please Help Red

Hi everyone,

I am hoping you lovely cross stitchers (and other crafters) can help me out here.

For a couple of months now, I've known about a lovely German Shepherd dog who needs a life-changing operation.

Red is only 3 1/2 years old but he has a chronic condition called Osteochondritis Dissecans (OCD) and needs total knee replacements. The cost of this operation, and aftercare, is £15,000.

Red is special because he works for Crisis Point as a therapy dog, helping young victims of rape and sexual abuse to open up and move forward with their lives. He has helped many children and now he needs our help.

With this in mind, I have created a special chart pack with the sole aim of raising funds for Red. The cost of this chart will be £4.00 GBP. It is available worldwide as it will be in the form of a PDF file sent to the email address provided to me by PayPal when you make your payment.

Here is a preview of the design.

ALL proceeds from the sale of this chart will go directly to Red's Fund. I hope that, together, we can raise enough money to give this very special pup the pain-free life he deserves.

To purchase this design, please send payment via PayPal to: paypal.me/hhndesigns/4 . Please make sure your email address is the one you wish the design file to be sent to. You should receive the file within 24 hours of payment.

If you don't want to purchase the design but would like to donate to Red's Fund you can do so here:

http://www.crisispoint.org.uk/support-our-work/meet-our-therapy-dog-red/ to donate directly to the charity's bank account, or alternatively:

https://www.justgiving.com/campaigns/charity/crisis-point./please-save-red-victims-need-him

Thank you so much for your support.

Another update

I'm beginning to think that I might have bitten off a bit more than I can chew here. I hadn't realised just how much I'd have to do - and redo - before launching anything.

My cross stitch program is getting on a bit now, as am I. I'm not sure either of us are up to the job but we're giving it a go. Who knows? Maybe we can work it out and at least one of us can get updated and refreshed lol.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I get really frustrated when I can't get things to look exactly how I want them to. I'm probably my own worst critic (and my son's biggest nightmare sometimes when I keep asking for help) and, whilst it's good to be a bit finicky, it's also a nuisance. I'm learning to just turn a blind eye to anything that seems to look okay to others but in which I still find fault. It's lucky I'm not so critical of others!

Anyway, I thought it was about time another little gift made its way onto the blog. You'll probably notice a bit of a theme - hearts are just my absolute favourite shape so they feature quite a lot in my designs. And, as you can also tell, I'm quite a fan of bright, cheery colours. What can I say? Life can be dull enough sometimes so a little colour is always good.

I created this design over ten years ago, when it was offered free on my (now defunct) yahoo group. It was a closed group so only a select few people actually even saw the design and probably even less actually stitched it - myself included as I've never actually stitched it either. Shame on me!

So, may I present to you... Hearts Bookmark :) 

Just click on the images to be taken to the downloadable files (right click, save image as...).

I've called it a bookmark as it's a reasonable size and shape but I'm sure it could be used with many different finishing techniques. There are a lot of ideas out there on the internet. As always, if you decide to stitch this, please do share a link to your photos, or come along and join our Facebook group. We here at Happy Hours Needleworks would love to see your stitching.

Please note: Whilst this chart is offered free of charge, I still hold all copyrights to this design. You may not copy the design, other than for your own personal use. It may not be sold for profit or offered as your own design on any website, blog or social media account. You may sell items made from this design, as long as you are the only person  hand-stitching it from your own copy. If you think your friends would like to stitch the design, please direct them to this blog so that they may download their own copy. Thank you!

New Logo

As most people already know, copyright is a huge issue amongst designers, whether it is designers of cross stitch or any other kind of artwork. The logo we had originally designed for HHN used some "free" clipart found on the internet. As I know quite a bit about the nature of copyrights, I decided to thoroughly check on whether the design we used could be used commercially under the term "free". It was found that this was not the case and a license would need to be purchased in order to use it for commercial purposes. As this isn't an option at the current time, I needed to think of something else.

I took some time out to think about it, getting rather frustrated during the process of trying to find some commercially-usable free images. With no success. It's understandable. Everyone who has any kind of talent deserves to be financially rewarded for their efforts. I'm not complaining about that at all. I do, however, really wish I could draw. I can't. Only in little squares. On graph paper...

And there is where I hit upon the idea of creating a design and stitching it. I had been out of inspiration for a while but after I got back from dropping my son off at work one morning, I sat down at the computer and the design just came together. I'm very happy with the way it turned out and I set about stitching it straight away.

I've stitched two versions of it now, one with the slogan and one without. The best thing about it is HHN can use it as we wish, simply because it is our own design. What do you think of it?

A quick update

Well, things are definitely getting real behind the scenes here. I've been working on getting designs put into downloadable files and also stitching some of the designs as well. There's just so much to deal with to make sure all media bases are covered. It's certainly a daunting prospect and, at times, I've found myself just staring at the computer screen, simply not knowing where to start.

Slowly but surely, we are starting to see something real for all the years of pondering and dreaming. I hope to be able to bring you something extra each month but please don't hold me to that, I'm working at full capacity just now. I have no idea where this is going to lead but I'm excited to be taking the journey. I hope you will come along and join me :)

A little gift

To celebrate the (eventual) launch of Happy Hours Needleworks, I've decided to offer a little freebie design.

The design itself has been lurking on my computer for almost ten years now and it's about time someone else got to enjoy it as well.

The title is a bit misleading, as it doesn't have to be made into a biscornu at all. I'm quite sure all you creative people will find unusual uses for this little treasure. If you do stitch it, please leave a comment and a link, if you decide to share your work, so that I can see your interpretation of it.

So, without further ado, meet Biscornu 19 😊

You can download the chart by clicking on the image below:

Please note: Whilst this chart is offered free of charge, I still hold all copyrights to this design. You may not copy the design, other than for your own personal use. It may not be sold for profit or offered as your own design on any website, blog or social media account. You may sell items made from this design, as long as you are the only person  hand-stitching it from your own copy. If you think your friends would like to stitch the design, please direct them to this blog so that they may download their own copy. Thank you!

A New Beginning... Again!

Hello and welcome to the new blog home of Happy Hours Needleworks. This is the place to come for news about us and our adventures. We'll be featuring occasional complimentary designs to give you a taste of the kind of designs we'll be retailing.

We're looking forward to welcoming you.