Wednesday 4 March 2015

RIP Neil !!

I'm at loss of words today...When I logged on to facebook today morning  ,the horrible news  was there...my cross stitch friend Neil Bray passed away yesterday.

I cannot believe this has happened ...its only few months back when I met Neil on one of the cross stitch group on facebook.

There were many things which attracted me to talk to Neil.
He was the first male cross stitcher I came across in my life, he had left his job to follow his passion of cross stitch and had an eclectic taste of designs and avid supporter of copyright laws to protect interests of designers.

I was quite surprised at first to know that Neil has left his job to start a Cross stitch company. It requires a lot of courage to take risk of leaving a regular income job  and follow your passion.

While I write about him, I realize everything happened so soon. His company Eclectic bloke designs was started in July 2014 ,I first contacted him in Aug 2014 ,he was detected cancer in Sep 2014 and today he is not with us physically.

I'm thankful to Neil for entertaining my request to convert few of personal pictures to cross stitch designs so that I could present Indian architecture to the world.

During this interaction , I learnt he was very diligent and left no stone unturned to get the best design out of a photograph.

Also, I feel very proud to be associated with Neil's company ,which has presented designs to support gay rights.

In the last few days ,a particular design Shades of Strength (design by Paul Richmond) became symbol of Neil's fight with cancer.

I would also like to say that I was surprised to see how gracefully Neil and his family members talked about his struggle with cancer on facebook. I come from a society where talking about illness is a big no-no and death is something to cry about.

Neil, you will be always with us with your fabulous designs !!

I would like my cross stitch friends to visit Neil's company website once(http://eclecticblokedesigns.co.uk)/ blog (http://eclecticbloke.blogspot.com/)/ facebook group and appreciate his efforts for making the world of cross stitching richer.


 

3 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear about your friend. Sending prayers to his family and friends.

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  2. So sorry to hear about your friend. It is so frightening how quickly cancer can take a person.
    I am sure his memory will live on in the designs he has charted.

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  3. It was very sad to hear about Neil's passing. It is a real shame that he passed away before he really got the chance to enjoy his new career path... :o(
    Hugs xx

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