This week the July issue of Sewing World dropped onto my doormat, and in its pages is my little baby shoe pincushion. This was such a quick make - and a superb use of old baby shoes! I first wrote about this here a while back, but it's lovely to see it in print!
I'm still waiting to hear back from HMRC about the new EU laws on digital sales. If this is as bad as everyone thinks it is, it's going to be a disaster for everyone who has a small digital art/craft business as well as anyone who buys them. It may be an EU law, but it will affect the whole world. The EU expects everyone everywhere to collect VAT at different rates from each EU customer (28 countries!) and it looks like there is no minimum threshold. This means selling even one digital stamp to an EU country will implicate you in collecting VAT. It's not feasible to expect a micro business to do this, so the new law will inevitably cut down choice for buyers.
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If you want more light-hearted news, here it is...
Quentin News
Guide Dog puppy Quentin is now five months old, and I've realised that training him up to now has been much easier than I expected in some respects, and much harder in some others.
If I watch it long enough, someone will throw it for me
He's mostly a very good puppy and sits obediently in the back of the car, he waits for food (even when it's in front of him and he is drooling!), his recall when he's out free running has been absolutely perfect up to now and his toileting on command when we're at home has been much easier than I expected (not as easy when we are out!). He's got a good response to sit, wait, down, stay, stand, leave and come. His response to the whistle when he's free running is spot on - he comes running immediately.
I'm here, where's my treat?
There have been harder things though. One of the most difficult has been curbing his excitement - he still jumps up when he's excited and sometimes tries to grab your clothes or arms (yes, I've got holes in most of my clothes). This is improving slowly, though, which is good news for my arms but may be too late for my clothes.
I like it here
He prefers walks in natural surroundings (don't we all?) and I think the problem we have with him sitting down at the beginning of walks is actually his little protest. It only happens when we're walking the streets around our house (or about to!). I think it's possibly his way of saying he'd rather go in the car because we go to more exciting places then (shops, parks, woodland, etc). I've thrown in a few more interesting activities on local walks to try and improve this - there's a patch of grass where he's now let off the lead and there's some woods and fields we sometimes go to - although I'm careful to mix it up so he doesn't expect something exciting every time.
long cool grass on a hot day is wonderful
And that's all from me for now. It's over to you for your Handmade Monday now...
