I’m Suffering from Brand Loyalty

Happy Wednesday, Readers!  I am very much looking forward to the weekend although I will be spending it doing more work but something about it being the weekend makes life seem a bit brighter.  I have finally gotten back into my routine after a challenging couple of weeks and am finally starting to feel like myself again.  I even have some progress on the “big project” to share!

As you can see the silhouettes have come a long way and you can actually tell they are supposed to be people now.  Progress!  Still a long way to go, but I am starting to picture the finished project the more I work on it.  It still amazes me, even after all this time of cross stitching, the details you can get just by using thread and a variety of color combinations and stitches.  By far one of my favorite art forms…although needleart is also the only art form I’ve been able to utilize so I guess there’s a little bit of favoritism.  I’m still having trouble getting the tension right with my cross stitches so there seem to be a lot more gaps than I would like there to be.  It’s hard to tell from this picture and when I hold up the project the black all blends together so I guess it isn’t quite as bad as I think.  Still, whenever I look at it up close there are too many flaws for my liking.

On a side note, I’ve been hearing a lot (much more than I’d like to) about the big amazon publishing debate and the Apple-Big 5 publishers trying to raise the price of e-books which has somehow turned into a ‘isn’t amazon terrible’ argument.  So I feel like I need to throw my opinions in the ring.  For what they’re worth.  I love amazon.  I buy almost everything through amazon, especially when it comes to books and movies.  Yes, I understand they have a lower operating cost than a brick and mortar store and so they can offer things for cheaper.  I’ve worked in retail, I know how things work.  But it seems that the only problem people have with amazon are the price of books, specifically e-books.  Did amazon put independent bookstores out of business?  No.  Borders and B&N did.  Did amazon cause Borders to go out of business? No, they had a terrible business model and put themselves out of business.   I love the idea of independent bookstores, but the ones I’ve gone to don’t quite live up to the romantic idea in my head.  When a used copy of a book is selling for twice what I could get a new copy of the book for on my kindle I can’t rationalize making the decision to buy it.  Especially when the owners/workers spend more time talking up their own unedited, self-published books than promoting quality stock.

Alright, that’s my rant for the day.  Hope you all enjoy the rest of your work.  Do something crafty, read a good book, or get your work done so you can do both over the weekend!