Commercial Machine Embroidery designs!!!

During our four years here in Greece, I’ve has so many people get excited when they find out that I do machine embroidery. They always say they should have me create this or that project. In that time, only one of them actually did so, and I had to turn down the commission because the project was both against copyright laws, and would not have been a proper project to highlight my skills. Strangely, now that we are leaving for home in a couple of weeks and my embroidery supplies are packed up, everyone seems to want me to create something for them.When it rains, it pours!

When I have to turn down every request, I get one of two responses. The first is a glad assurance that their project will just take a second. Really. The second is a knowing look followed with the sudden remembrance that moving is time consuming. Regardless of the response, I’m reminded of a good reason to move. None of these people have offered true neighborliness, instead asking me to do something for them when I have very little time for myself.

My friends and family at home aren’t much more helpful, but at least they understand how time-consuming a well-made embroidery project can be. My sisters-in-law understand that they can request projects all year long, but each and every project becomes their birthday or Christmas present for me. They understand that the time I spend on them is time I’m not using for myself or my own embroidery patterns. I wish everyone else was as understanding!

Being overseas, I don’t mind not doing projects for others. I have to get all of my embroidery supplies through online mail-order, so running out of the perfect color of machine embroidery thread half-way through a project was always a possibility. For my own projects, I could just switch to a similar thread, but this isn’t good practice when the project is for someone else.