Say it ain't so!

HAED Closing? Oh no say it ain't so!

Well, it's not. Well not yet anyway. We're not out of the woods yet. Why? What's happened? I hear you say. What, the place where you get those super detailed charts that make drool-worthy art might close?

Unfortunately, it might close. It's NOT closing yet. And I stress the "yet". Why do I stress the "yet"? Because they're struggling. Why? I thought they were popular? I hear you say. It's because they are so good at what they do and so popular, the copyright infringers and people who want their charts for free are sharing HAED out of business. Michelle had come onto one of the FB groups and finally let us know how bad it's been getting. There had been an incident, months ago, where a long-time, loyal (or so she thought) customer had uploaded thousands of HAED charts to a site where they were being shared. Like over $16,000 worth of charts. :( I suggested that the logo be charted to go to a legal fund to fight this, which it was. lol I recently discovered there are fairies on the logo . . . i are so obsurfent . . . I think if I were to get this chart (which I still want to) and stitch it, I'd use glow-in-the-dark thread. Ah but that's neither here nor there. That incident is not what prompted this particular "oh no is HAED closing?" - well for lack of a better word - crisis. Basically, the short version is is that the lovely people who run HAED are getting further and further behind. Not necessarily due to low sales, tho that probably doesn't help, but more due to copyright infringement. Which will eventually screw us all over, not just HAED, but the other companies I love, White Willow, Shinysun, Mirabilia, Joan Elliott, and the rest. So if we want to continue to have new designs, be sure where your charts come from.

What prompted this? Oh gee, just someone who stitched QS Martyrs and didn't actually stitch a real HAED. She eventually told the group that it was purchased off of eBay and she wasn't sure if it really was a HAED. (Note, this was before the nasty incident I was involved in, but not much before.) People were saying, no it's not, and others were saying, well she didn't know. The woman also very negative/down/poor me/etc and complained about confetti on pieces - some she didn't have (got told to stop) and on the one actual HAED she did - QS Ice Wind II. (I eventually want to get this one as it will look like Piper, Tannith's little sister/adopted daughter.) No wonder she bitched so much about confetti, she'd never actually done a HAED. And anyone who's ever done a HAED knows there will be confetti, it just depends on how much confetti hell there will be. Granted, Snow is rather confetti-tastic, tho I didn't realize there was as much until I switched to Logan for a break with bright colors, since he had more blocks of color. Someone had posted the pic off of the HAED site and the fake one side by side and Michele came on and told us, yes, this IS a fake HAED. (Which I think I'm not the only one who went "duh", at least to a small degree.) And then it came out that yes, they are struggling.

Ok . . . so as stitchers, we don't wanna lose our shiny-shinies, as Girdlekrep would say. *see also pretties or "my precious" So of course, we asked, what can we do? Michele told us, if sales were up, that would make a tremendous difference. (Sadly, the earlier incident, which prompted the logo charting would have been about the same amount as if each person in the HAED group bought one regular priced chart, had they been legit sales.) Of course, it doesn't take terribly much to convince people who are HAEDaholics that yes, there needs to be stash enhancement. Even when money is tight, getting a shiny new chart is a relatively cheap luxury. I mean hello, I could - provided in store shopping didn't make me want to crawl out of my own skin after 20 minutes, like it actually does - go get some outfit or a video game or something like that only has a finite number of times which it will bring me pleasure for $25 or more (depending on the case, a lot more), ooooorrrrr . . . I could buy a chart, which once it is pimp-my-ride-outed with floss and fabric, will last a lot longer and will be a finished piece of art on the wall for people to enjoy for generations to come. How many pairs of shoes can say that. I mean I spend $9 for a storykeep and saaaay $20 in fabric and floss, and a year later, it's ready to be a piece of art? I'm in. The problem is resisting starting them all. But I digress.

So . . . back to Michele's solution - buy more stash! There were other suggestions given as well, but people were like, hey let's buy some charts! Which of course, we collectors of charts are definitely not against. Soooo . . . I, being always aware of birthdays, asked when HAED's birthday is . . . and got back September 14th. So I promptly asked, could we all try to buy charts on that day, call it HAED Appreciation Day? And then people were like let's have a week!



So! The week of September 10 - 17th (I think) is now officially HAED Appreciatin Week!!! If you can afford to do so, buy a chart that week, you'll be glad that you did. Not only will you have a shiny new chart, you'll be sure at least for a while, there will be more shiny new charts to come. Plus there are at least 2 charts of the flower fairies, which will not be available until September 15th - they were previewed, but not available until then. One of them is simply darling and which I think I shall get requested as a mini, even if she is mostly pink and I really don't like pink. SK Fragile is an exception to this.

I might also get QS Bubbles & QS Paddys Luck during this time, or maybe wait until I get Logan & Snow done. I found out that in addition to the freebies and SAL pieces, both RAKs rec'd and rewards charts are not eligible to be turned in as part of the rewards program. Boooo! Especially since it's not like my friend will try to turn in Snow as part of any rewards program (the $200 one which has ended). Since she doesn't cross stithc, it was just part of her paying for the materials for SK Courange and SK Strength. Oh well, I will just have to suck it up and buy their "rewards charts". I'll probably wait until each one has been done. Granted, I was told Friday that the lady who used to do my job - who had left because she saw greener pastures - is coming back since those greener pastures were only that way because of a lot of manure . . . and that I and the other lady would be loosing our jobs. So I'm not entirely sure how many charts I can (or rather should) afford right now, but the temp lady did start looking for me again. I'd emailed her and she said she'd start looking Tuesday after the holiday. Then she emailed me again and told me about another temp position at the big bank I'd worked at last year, which is starting Sept. 24th, and is a bit more per hour than this one. So I've no idea what it is, but hey, sign me up, I need to pay bills and enhance my stash! lol

In other news, I got an idea to take one of the tribals from White Willow and use a dark background and stitch it in glow-in-the-dark floss. I have picked Tribal Mouse, yay $7 chart, and I'm going back & forth between a very dark/mottled purple and a black.

I also finished a project I started back in - I think - 1992. It's a baby bib of a mama bunny with a baby bunny eating a carrot. I had put it down and the mama bunny hadn't any ears for the longest time. I came across it Thursday and looked for the pattern. I found it (in a folder with a map of Germany when it was still 2 countries, I might just stitch that one day) and finished it up while watching Dune. Yay!

Speaking of finished project . . . .drum roll . . . the space tiger is done!!! Woooo! I restarted it on Feb 4, 2006, put it down in the backseat so it faded, and then picked it back up a couple of weeks ago. Now it's done! I finished it Wednesday, horrible background and all. Yay!