Well, the world is taking a beating at the moment, and a lot of people are worried and frightened about what comes next.  Hopefully you and your loved ones are safe, and taking care of each other! 

I am fortunate enough to work from my home - so I'm always self-isolating, LOL.  We did have to cancel our trip to England, but have spoken with our children / granchildren almost daily, and so far all are safe and well.  Bill got home JUST before this all became a huge deal, and it was he that pulled the plug on our trip ... which turned out to be a good thing, as we would have been in England when all the restrictions started happening! 

And after a few weeks home, he was notified that they are closing the gold mine he works at (in Nunavut), until the crisis passes... so it appears he now has the summer off!

I also had a very quiet birthday (near the end of March), as we couldn't go out to dinner or anything... but thanx to Amazon he got a gift delivered, and he also gave me a subscription to an inspirational magazine I had mentioned enjoying ... and I spent the day stitching and watching movies - two of my favorite things - so it was a good day.

It's also fortunate that we brought home almost a suitcase full of books on our latest trip to Florida (we check out second-hand book stores wherever we travel), and I still have about half of them left to read... so I'm good for a couple weeks (wink).

Actually, I've been getting quite a bit done - my year end bookkeeping is FINISHED (FINALLY - HURRAH), and I've been stitching away on my CASTLE face, and got it done as of April 16th... and now I've started working on the EIGHT window panels...  I DID ship the second (smaller) back level of the Castle design off to a model stitcher, 'cause the magazine wants the design NOW, and even with help it will take till mid-May to get this one done! 

In addition, the first FRACTAL inspired ELEMENTAL design I told you about last month, has gone out to a model stitcher as well.  She's going to stitch all four (EARTH; AIR; WATER and FIRE), and I'll be shipping her the second design pretty soon - all four will be in A NEEDLE PULLING THREAD (ANPT) over the next year. 

The current issue of ANPT (available shortly), should have my FLAMINGO HOLIDAY card designs in - so much fun, LOL.  The NEXT issue (after that) will have my castle (which stitching as fast as I can - really!)...

The one after THAT will be another in my FACES & QUOTES series - the Louis Armstrong design that is looking absolutely stunning - THEN we'll start the four fractal inspired pieces, with EARTH, then AIR... Louis is about 3/4 stitched, but had to be set aside for the Castle... I hope to get back to him in May, and give you a PEEK then (wink).

EARTH (the first Fractal inspired design) has a spiral of branches, which I fractalled (is that a word, LOL?); with a smaller pinwheel branch fractal in the centre.  It's warm browns, with a green leaf in one corner, symbolizing earth.  Here's a peek at a snippet of the design (wink):

Each design will also have a corner symbol... and I'll tell you about AIR next month!

Also did some work on the ALICE IN WONDERLAND piece I also talked about last month (wasn't I chatty, (GBG)).  In fact, ALICE went to a model stitcher this week too, so I'm doing really well... here's a peek at that one too (GBG):

I'm going to go work on April's newsletter now... so keep each other safe, catch up on your stitching - which will also relieve stress - and we'll talk more next month...