Never Say Never

I said I wouldn't do it again. I said it was over. No more, never again. But there I went - again.

It has been almost ten years since I left my job at Classic Elite. It seems a lifetime ago. Although I loved that job as Creative Director, the time came to change my life, move on, try new things. That's how I came to live here on this farm with The Farmer and Julia. Am I happy now? Yes, I am. Are things perfect? No, they never are. But we are happy with our decision to uproot ourselves from eastern Mass and try something new.

I've learned a lot living here - about the idiosyncrasies of life in the country, the communities that make up the Pioneer Valley, the weather, living in a rural community and on a working farm. Every day, I know there is more to learn and that's good. Never stop learning - one of my mottos. But sometimes it is hard to do it - you have to break out of your comfort zone and try new things.

If you have gotten this far with my blabbering on, you're probably wondering where I am going. So here's what I have been learning the last month -a computer program called Adobe Indesign. Yikes - I was a wiz at a program called Quark XPress - I could desktop publish in my sleep. It'a a lot of what I used to do - put handknitting patterns together, design ads, produce marketing materials, the list went on and on. But I don't own Quark and Indesign came with my Adobe CS2 package. It's all I have and I felt like I had to give it a go.

Last year I made it a goal of mine to start selling some downloadable patterns on my website. It has taken longer than I thought - doesn't everything though? But over the last few weeks I have been working in earnest - trying to figure out Indesign. It isn't very friendly, if you ask me. Where is that shortcut to jump a page? It was Control J in Quark. Why can't I find it? Now I remember why I used to curse frequently at my computer....... I still haven't mastered Indesign yet - I am far from there. But I did figure out text boxes, lines, using color a bit, dumping in photos.

And here you have it...... my first newly produced "Kristin Nicholas Design" available exclusively on my website..... Click on over to the Julia page to see some more photos and read some descriptions about the pattern.....


Then click on over to the Shop page to order the downloadable PDF.

So there you have it, one of my new ventures. Trying to develop some new products to make ends meet here on this little farm. We just got our health insurance bill and the renewal is sky high. But we need it for Julia and all her health issues. There are more patterns in the works and I am hoping they don't take as long as this one did to produce. Many thanks to my friend Lori Gayle who proofed all of this and helped make it happen technically..... And thanks to Julia who endured the photo shoot in December during the crazy beautiful ice storm.

So I can honestly say, the moral of the story is.... Never say never......."