Hi, I’m Olive Dyck, the
designer behind the Olive Hope Design. From the time I first learned to
cross-stitch, I was hooked. I have now been stitching for nearly 20
years. My first attempt at designing came in high school when I designed
and stitched graduation gifts for my four closest friends. At the time,
the possibility of making designing a career
never occurred to me.
Olive Hope Design, while at the
start was only me, has now become a family business. My husband of six
years has become very involved, from web designer to bookkeeper! I
hope that in the years to come my son will also want to become involved.
He’s a little too young to pick up a needle yet (preschooler), but
hopefully someday he will have an interest in some form of needlework.
Visit my
blog to find out
what I've been up to....
The Story Behind My Braille
Designs
I want to share with you how I came to include
Braille in many of my designs. My son is blind, and for a while I
struggled with how to include him in what I do. Cross stitch is so
visual, and when there is a block of solid stitching, the texture does
not reflect the potential changes in colors. When I started thinking
about how I could make my designs interesting to him, I immediately
thought of adding Braille, since many of my designs include some text.
However, I strongly dislike French knots (you will notice very few of my
designs use them), and those are what came to mind for representing the
Braille dots. Some wonderful designer friends suggested trying beads,
which I did, and they worked wonderfully. In fact, I think they work
better than French knots would have. It can be challenging at times, as
I don't want to just plop the Braille into the design anywhere - I want
it to blend in, and "fit" with the design. It's a challenge I love,
though.
If you have any questions about why my son is
blind, please feel free to
email
me. I am willing to share about it, but I’m just not sure how much you
want to hear about it. :)
