Home page for Cathe Ray

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Welcome to my home page. If you have an interest in needlework sewing be sure to check out the following topics:

For many years I've thought it would be "fun" to open a needlework shop. I always thought I'd have to choose between my career in the computer world and a shop so didn't take the plunge. In 1997 I realized I didn't have to make that choice but would instead have to compromise on my daily role in such a venture. I looked for a space within the town I live in (Alameda, CA) that seemed to fit the bill. I wanted something large enough to allow the shop to offer classes, have good merchandise space and where parking wasn't a problem. In the end to find the first two and something with character I had to made a concession on the parking. As the shop is located in our downtown area it does mean parking is less simple than at a strip mall. But so far it hasn't been problem with a combination of street parking and parking lots. Once the location was decided upon it took almost 9 months before we were able to move into the space. The building we're in was the original Alameda Theatre, built in the early 1900's and it underwent a complete renovation that took longer than expected. While this was frustrating the wait was worth it.

The other time consuming and also worthwhile activity, was finding staff for the shop. The compromise I made to keep my "day" job was to find a full-time manager for the shop. I had the unbelievable luck to find the right person by advertising at the 1997 SOCS (Spirit of Cross Stitch). Ada Haydon is real jewel and I wouldn't have been able to get the shop up and running and have it run so smoothly now, without her. The rest of the staff came through equally fortuitous channels and as a friend of mine said "I must be living right".

Needle In A Haystack opened its doors for business on March 27th at 1340 Park Street. It took my staff and I a month to unpack all the boxes (which had been in a temporary location for a few months), organize all the items, hang the threads on the walls and set up the computers. In part, it took us a month because we didn't get final power for the building until two days before our Grand Opening. As the name might imply, the store carries many hard to find needlework supplies for cross-stitch, counted thread, embroidery and needlepoint. We have an extensive selection of fabrics, threads, charts, hand painted needlepoint canvases, etc. For more details on the shop, please check out the website. I'm quite proud of it.

With the advent of opening the shop, having a full-time job and it does not allow me as much time to travel to stitching events as I would like. But I have two scheduled for 1999. I was recently able to participate in Sampler Gathering West, which was held in Newport Beach, CA (outside of LA). I attended a class taught by Joanne Harvey of The Examplary and the whole event was wonderful. The event will be returning the middle of September 2000, so be sure to go to the HNG website and get added to the mailing list. The schedule will come out for both SG-East and SG-West early in 2000.

Mid-October I'm going to Cape Cod for C.A. Wells & Marcia Brown's stitching weekend. It promises to be a great deal of fun with afternoon tea, croquet on the lawn and of course, lots of stitching.

With approximately 200 stitchers attending this event and over 10 teachers it was a great representation of stitchers and teachers from all over the US. Held at the White Elephant Resort on Nantucket Island we spent a wonderful weekend learning more about various aspects of needlework and even getting some time to explore Nantucket. The event was held the same weekend as Nantucket's annual Cranberry Harvest Festival so there were a lot of island activities to enjoy relating to the cranberry industry - even visits to the local cranberry bogs.

The weekend started with a Friday evening lecture by Ann and Pat from R&R Reproductions on samplers. They brought with them over 100 reproduction samplers, all designs R&R has reproduced from various collections around the world, most at the behest of museums. We were able not only to get a sense of history about each piece since Ann and Pat were extremely knowledgable about the original samplers, but each one was passed around the room for us to see close up. It was a memorable evening. Saturday was spent in class and the teachers included Nan Caldera of Just Nan, Tina and Teri of Shepherd's Bush, C.A. Wells, Maureen Appleton, and several others. At dinner Saturday night, which was for all of the attendees, we were treated to a "finishing fashion show" hosted by Marcia Brown. Marcia Brown brought an amazing number of finished pieces showing the wide range of finishing techniques for needlework. All the teachers acted as the "models" and seemed to have great fun. Sunday morning there were two sets of round robins, each with 4 teachers doing a small piece with the attendees. The teachers got to roam between the rooms, vs. the students and we all had a good time. Sadly the weekend was over all too soon, although many stayed an extra day or two.

I flew to Nantucket a couple of days before the class so I had a chance to explore the island, which I had not visited before. There were some wonderful old houses to take a look at and getting to participate in the Cranberry Festival events was a real treat. I had never seen a cranberry bog before except on television and it was interesting to see both a dry bog and a flooded bog ready for harvest. There were some nice shops to explore, particularly a great chocolate shop that specialized in what else - chocolate covered dried cranberries! The weather ran the gamut from warm and sunny to cold and stormy but it was easy to see why people enjoy living on this tiny island.

I was one of about 40 stitchers to attend a weekend class in Deerfield, MA in November, 1996. This was organized by the Historic Needlework Guild. The weekend started out with a Thursday evening slide presentation by the textile curator of the Deerfield Museum. It was a history of the town which give us a feel for why it was such a wonderfully preserved site. Friday started with half of us stitching on a scissors case designed specifically for this weekend by Nan Euller. Nan taught the class and as I was in the morning session we had the fun of relocating from the snug library to the dining room since the city of Deerfield was jackhammering the sidewalk in front of the Deerfield Inn. The proprietors has tried to get the city to delay the work but this had not happened. Once we were in the dining room things were much quieter and we were able to hear Nan's instructions clearly. The rest of the attendees were given a tour of the Textile Museum while we were stitching and in the afternoon, we traded places. Friday evening we had a class in crewel work and even though I had tried this technique years ago and not been a particular fan, I came away with a new appreciation for it and might even try a larger piece at some point.

The tour of the textile museum was excellent and we had a talk by the curator followed by some Q&A time and then we were able to browse through the collection pieces that were out. There some beautiful examples of needlelace; a couple I wouldn't have minded owning myself to display as well as clothing from the 1600-1800's and other textiles such as quilts and lap covers. Visiting the museum however could not top our Saturday evening activity of what I called 'Fondling the Fabrics'. The curator and an assistant brought several pieces out from storage and we were able to "fondle" them (with white cotton gloves of course!). The breadth of needlework was amazing and the clarity of color in some of the silk pieces from the 1700's was a sight to behold.

Saturday during the day each group had half the day off to explore the village and the rest of the day was taken up by continuing our class on the scissors case. We got started on almost all the bands that are part of the piece so that we could each stitch at home and finish it on our own time. I spent my free time that afternoon exploring a bit of the village with my husband (who came along even though he's not a stitcher) and just relaxing. Sunday morning we attended another slide presentation, this time on how the garden influenced needlework designs in the 1600-1900's. Then we wrapped the weekend up with a brunch, where HNG presented the museum with a donation for their textile conservation work. It was a wonderful weekend and I look forward to attending other events organized by HNG.

For more information on the Historic Needlework Guild check out their home page.

On November 23rd, 1998 I changed companies for the first time in almost 11 years. I am now at Sendmail, Inc. where I am an engineering manager. The company is founded on producing both an open source version as well as a commercial product for the popular sendmail mail transfer agent (MTA). Over 80% of the e-mail on the Internet is transferred through sendmail, which has been around for 18 years, although the company is less than 2 years old. In comparison to my previous position at Sun Microsystems, I have a small group (7 vs. 18) and it's a lot of fun to work in a small environment again. I continue to be involved in the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) as I have enjoyed that a great deal and it's quite useful in my current job.

Prior to this job change I managed part of the Internet Engineering group at Sun Microsystems, Inc. Much of the Internet's backbone is made up of systems made by Sun and their Internet Engineering group is responsible for the core Internet technologies for Solaris 2.x that make that possible. Being part of this group of engineers was one of the best experiences in my career. I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful set of people to work with on a daily basis and I do miss them (but not the politics).

Occasionally people ask me about my management style and I tell them it's "management by food, especially chocolate". Since I love to bake most of it finds its way to the office and I have a whole lot of happy engineers. I make tea most afternoons in the "party alcove" outside my office where we've created an area to hang out and socialize. Some people find this a bit too civilized for software engineers ("geeks" as some people know us) but it's enjoyable to spend time sipping tea and talking about various work issues and sometimes even life outside of work. Tea is always done in proper English style, with freshly boiled water, china teapots, loose tea and the requisite tea cozy (a gift from a friend who brought it back from India). While I moved companies and brought most of my tea stuff with me, I did leave some at Sun (my husband still works in my old group) so they wouldn't have tea withdrawal. They are carrying on the tradition there as I have brought a new one to Sendmail.

I have a degree in Computer Science from Seattle Pacific University (1980), where I started out as Textile major in 1975. In my early 20's, I traveled for a couple of years with two different gospel groups and saw a great deal of the country. The first group I travelled with ('74/'75) was called The Free Spirit and was sponsored by the Free Methodist Church, which is also the denomination SPU is affiliated with. After attending SPU (or SPC as it was known then - it became a University later) for a year and a half, I again travelled ('77) with another group named Jeremiah People which is affiliated with the Continental Singers organization. This later group still exists, although the personnel have changed many times in the past 20+ years! Both experiences were opportunities I'm grateful for having had and taken. Although I have lost touch with these people I spent so much time with, I still think of them often, and with a great deal of fondness.

After graduating from SPU in 1980, I spent another year working for a small time-share company in Seattle (where I worked full-time my Jr./Sr. years of college) and then 3 years with Pacific Northwest Bell (Seattle). I moved back to the SF Bay Area (I had attend Jr. High and High School here) where I spent 1.5 years with UniSoft (Berkeley, CA), 1 year with Oracle, 2 years with a small medical software company (Baron Data/Medicus) and just under 11 years with Sun Microsystems. In the years before my CS degree I worked full-time and part-time in a variety of jobs including, tour guide, file clerk, secretary and bank teller. I would never have imagined during those days that I'd turn into a geek and eventually a manager of them :-).