Summer Ball, Week 1

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I started A Summer Ball last Sunday, so I plan to take a photo of my progress every Sunday until it is finished. Here is one week of stitching completed.

summerball1

I am stitching this sideways because of the long width of the chart. So the corner I have finished is actually the lower left corner. If you look sideways, you can make out the floor and the columns of the ball room. Next I get to start on the gentlemen! Actually, you can already see the two black shoes of the first gentleman.

XXX
Carrie


Digital VAT and the demise of our beloved designers

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On Sunday I finally started on A Summer Ball by Sandy Littlejohns and Deborah Lester. Sadly, their website has now been taken down. I am so lucky that I was able to purchase this pattern when I did. So many designers from the UK and other parts of Europe are closing their businesses or at least not allowing charts for purchase online any more. Due to new VAT (value added tax) rules, businesses can no longer sell products digitally without collecting VAT. It sounds innocent enough, but each country collects a different amount of tax and in some countries, it varies based on location within that country. Each business has to register for VAT in every one of the countries in the EU (European Union). When they make a sale, they need to charge the appropriate amount of VAT based on where the customer is located, anywhere from 17% in Luxembourg to 27% in Hungary. The problem is, a customer can lie about where they are from, and it comes back to the business owner to PROVE that the sale was accurate. This can be done by collecting the customer’s IP address, but it is not that simple. A customer can be traveling and therefore their IP address won’t be the same from day to day. Businesses also now have to keep records of their sales for 10 years including the IP addresses, and some customers don’t like that because they feel it is an invasion of privacy. If businesses do want to continue to sell their goods digitally, they can register with MOSS (Mini One Stop Shop) in the UK or they can register with each individual country that is in the EU but not the UK. A third option would be to find a third party who would be responsible for the VAT. But many cross stitch designers are choosing to stop selling their charts digitally completely.

I have been researching this for several months because, even though businesses were told 6 years ago that this day was coming, no one really did anything then. The internet has changed so drastically in that amount of time, and I don’t think the people in charge had any idea that digital sales would be as big as they are now. Or rather, what they were until December 31, 2014. One of the reasons I was interested in this was because I was worried that it would impact me as a cross stitch store owner selling physical charts to Europe. It turns out that this does not apply to me… yet. On January 1, 2016 the law will be changed yet again to include physical items, not just digital ones. What does that mean for me? Well, I will be doing what many of the designers are doing. In 2016 I will stop selling to any country in the EU completely. My sales will drop, just like many other businesses’. I won’t close down, because my international sales are not a huge part of my revenue. But I know many other businesses out there won’t be so lucky.

For more information, check out the great Facebook page that has been set up for this topic: Digital VAT 2015.

XXX
Carrie


Stash Finish #3

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This is the card kit that had the faulty floss. I actually had plenty of that pink color to work with, but ran out of the light blue, go figure. Luckily I found a match in my stash of DMC. The kit didn’t specify a color number, but I think the match is pretty darn close. The backstitching on this was a bit of a pain, and I noticed that the stitched models did not look the same as the chart. The chart actually had more backstitching than what was on the models. I think it looks better with the extra stitches, so I stitched it as charted.

prettyroses

The design is from April Rose Illustration and was the free cover kit with issue 217 of The World of Cross Stitching.

XXX
Carrie


What am I supposed to do with this?

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I started a new kit last night, and all was going well until I came across this.

flossoops

Yup, a huge flaw in the floss. And of course it is right in the middle of the strand. Now what? I guess I will have to cut it out and stitch with really short lengths of floss, and hope I don’t run out.

I’m really enjoying these small cover kits, and it’s great to use up my stash. But I feel bad that I had to put that deer in the woods away yet AGAIN, and that I haven’t started on Summer Ball. I wanted to start it on January 1 and work a little bit each day. But these little guys are so fun and easy to work on with kids around; there isn’t much counting or sorting of threads. I did put a lot of work into gridding the fabric for Summer Ball, but oh well, I guess it will just have to wait.

XXX
Carrie




DMC Floss Increase

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dmcfloss2015
My sales rep warned me that this would happen. On January 1, 2015 the suggested retail price of DMC embroidery floss went from 74 cents to 77 cents (US dollars). This means that most stores will raise their prices in the near future. Because I knew of the price increase beforehand, I ordered a lot of floss at the end of the year to get the old pricing. So I will not be raising the price in our store until we need to make another large order. So if you need floss, you should buy it soon, regardless of where you shop.

XXX
Carrie


The Deer In The Woods

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I am down to only a few WIPs. Peacock Tapestry will take years to finish, so I am not going to bother with that. Maybe when the kids are older and I can concentrate on it better. The hummingbirds were stitched on such small count fabric, I doubt I will be able to ever finish that. Since I don’t have a whole lot done on it, I think I will just toss it (I don’t think I have ever thrown out a project before!) But it is just too hard on my eyes. I made a huge mistake of stitching over one on it, and it is probably 25 or 28 count fabric. The embroidered pillow cases are not even cross stitch, and they aren’t much fun to work on. And then there is this deer in the woods. I started this thing a couple of years ago, I think. I thought it would be a quick and fun project. I was wrong. The colors are entirely brown and green, and there are lots of shades of each. The chart is from a magazine and is in full color, so I can’t easily photocopy it to mark off my stitches. But now that the stocking is done, I have started working on it again. It will be my “once in a while” project. When I get tired of it, it will get packed away again. Here is my progress so far.

 deer1

I have also decided on which tiny project to tackle from my stash. It is the free WOXS kit of a penguin on skis. It has a card and envelope for easy finishing. Hopefully I can whip up a bunch of these small freebies throughout the year.

penguin1

XXX
Carrie