Hi everyone!!! As some of you know I am a HUGE cross stitch fanatic! It is my primary way to relax after a LONG day and I always have a LOT of stitching projects on the go. I started when I was maybe 5-7 years old and have been with it ever since! I have done SO MANY kits over the years and truthfully i had become REALLY REALLY picky bout my charts. Well I was searching online for a pattern that was lord of the rings related for a friend as a gift and came across the fab place called Heaven and Earth Designs...
Let me tell you I fell in LOVE with this place. The charts are amazing!!!! There is no back stitching or specialty stitch's everything is full crosses or x's. Also if you are a Lord of the Rings fan, They JUST resigned with Matt Stewart who has done some of the most BEAUTIFUL artwork inspired by LOTR. I have been buying from them for a few years now and let me tell you I have come to know Michele the owner like I would a good friend. She is so warm and so welcoming and so wonderful. She gives the absolute BEST customer service I have ever received. IF there was ever a problem with a chart or accessing the site she would always help me out. If I had a question she would take the time to answer it. This is ALL while running the business, doing bookkeeping, being a mom, being a wife, caring for her animals, negotiating contracts, AND doing all the charts by HAND. That is right Michele does NOT use a charting software program, she does every chart by herself with her own two hands in a special thing she wrote to do this with. Michele is a computer tech genius ! Michele is always on Facebook keeping in personal touch with her customers who she views as friends and family rather then just people who shop from her.
Speaking of Michele and her HAED family which includes the people that buy from her and work with her (her family)and the artists that she charts there are unfortunately those heartbreaking moments as well. There is a thing called copyright which protects all artistic and intellectual property of the person who created it. Every artist's work is what is called Copyright protected to that artist. It basically means that work is the property of that artist and by law you cannot copy or duplicate that work without permission. Michele signs contracts with these artists for their permission to legally use their property to create these charts in return for paying them a fee for the privilege. Michele sells her chart in 2 formats that you can download right away one is known as a large format or large print and the other is in regular format or regular print. She also has hard copy you can order in both formats as well but for ease we will stick with the PDF files for this.
Where Am I going with this? Well unfortunately Michele and the artists have been victims of copyright infringement in several ways. I know she would want me to educate you on this so I will. Copyright infringement is when you use someones work without permission. The first way they have been victims of it is by people sharing files, or basically just sending someone a copy of the PDF file that they bought. This costs Michele her money from a sale and it also costs the artists in royalty fees. A second way is by people uploading the purchased PDF files to a free file sharing site. Unfortunately there have been several very lovely people who were very close to Michele that did this and have cost her and the artists thousands and thousands of dollars in sales and revenue. The third way is that people will just take an image from the artists website or they will see it somewhere online and just use it and whatever charting software they may have on hand and make a chart of it. The loss of detail is beyond believable and the size is all wrong and it just looks bad, but then those people in turn sell that pattern and do not pay Michele or the artists ANYTHING to compensate them. All of this costs a LOT of money to fight so that is even more revenue lost.
No matter how you look at it they are stealing money not just from an artist who may be having a hard time making a go of it (the notion that artists make TONS of money is very wrong) and they are stealing from a very small family business that is now struggling to stay open. So I say go to the source. If you want amazing charts that will give you hours of pleasure go to Heavenandearthdesigns.com and check out their charts. there is something there for EVERY single taste and if you need help Send Michele an email and she can kind of point you in the right direction as with like 7,000 charts it can be hard to sort through them. Support a true made in America business and help stop copyright infringement and support the artists as well. Get to know Michele and Bob, her husband and their WONDERFUL family of kids and animals and just say Hi.
I PROMISE you will NEVER be disappointed with Michele or Heaven and Earth charts or the customer service. I have never encountered ANYONE like Michele when it comes to customer service. I personally know she has spent 12+ hours a day working on charts and dealing with issues when there was a site crash and making 110% sure she had gotten to every single person and sent each and every person who had a problem an email. She has even been known to extend sales due to site problems just to be fair to everyone. Michele is such a sweet, sweet person and she is so open and loving and kind and I know she will welcome you with open arms.
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