Hearts Desire Retreat

I had really, really wanted to show you my totally finished class projects in this post, but the week completely got away from me and both projects are still sitting in my basket.  So on the one hand, I could have waited and written this up later, but on the other hand, it would have been much later. 

OK, as I mentioned before, Belinda Karls-Nace of Blue Ribbon Designs was the guest designer and instructor for this wonderful retreat.  She brought loads of models of her designs to share with us, which in turn enticed us to share our cash (and credit cards) with Hearts Desire!  But I was happy to turn over my hard-earned money (my auto body shop pay), because the designs I chose suited me exactly.  It was absolutely money well spent.  Here are some pictures of the trunk show Belinda set up for us. 

Belinda had designed a sampler to commemorate our retreat.  How special is that?  And the class projects used a couple of these motifs to create stitching smalls.  Once I get back from my trip, I hope to be able to show you a sweet scissor fob and pincushion.  Really neat stuff.  (I should have taken pictures of the other stitchers' finishes.  Where was my brain?)  And I'll show you a photo of the three-ring binder full of instructions that detailed every single step of the stitching and finishing.  Really awesome.

Class sampler, inspired by springtime in Kansas, except that the Kansas ladies were quick to point out that the trees should have been leaning at a 45 degree angle.  It IS Kansas, after all!

Oh, is he too cute or what?

This sunflower was used as scissor fob motif.  And the bees!  Look at those cute bees!

Belinda was delightful.  And now I'm going to tell you something.  I freely admit that I am an East Coast cynic.  I grew up that way. It's just how I roll and it influences how I view people and interactions.  So when Belinda first arrived and behaved with such energy and good humor, in my East Coast head I was thinking, "Wow, this girl really knows how to work a room."  (yeah...cynical much?)  Not that there's anything bad about that...I admire people who can work rooms.

Ah, but here's the thing.  Belinda wasn't working it.  Energy and enthusiasm are her personality.  Yup, her attitude is genuine and even better, it's infectious.  As well as her attention to detail and her dedication to each and every student.  She was a marvelous instructor.  If you're near a shop that is bringing her to town for a class - GO.  You won't be sorry.

Oh, so what did I buy?  Well, I went all Springtime this shopping trip. 

Turn the Page.  Love the grapes!

Sweet Songs of Spring

Blooming with Inspiration

Fun, fun, fun!

Happy Easter and blessed Passover Wishes to all of my friends who are celebrating this weekend!

Go here!

Swing by Beth Twist's blog and see her freebie chart designed for Earth Day.
I think her designs are wonderful!

Kansas retreat and friends

Last weekend I packed my bags and went to a long-awaited retreat in Kansas. Last year, not too long after the Heartland Shop Hop, my friend Judy told me that her favorite LNS, Hearts Desire in Wichita KS, does a yearly retreat and the 2011 guest instructor would be Belinda Karls-Nace of Blue Ribbon Designs.  Wow!  I replied before I even took my next breath and said, "I wanna go!"  

So finally, finally, finally, the time passed and the retreat weekend was here.  I made some lovely new friends.  I spent time with some old friends.  And I kept my drooling under control when I saw their amazing projects.

Like this one by Nita.  It's from a series published by Gift of Stitching Magazine and it spanned a number of issues.  Probably before 2009?  I have the 2009 issues and it's not in any of those.  But anyway, this sampler was incredible. 

There were so many things to see in this sampler.  Amazing colors, fantastic use of specialty stitches and charming motifs.  Here are just a few of the things that caught my eye: 

Nita's initials.  Oh - there, look!  The sampler series must have run in 2008.

Love the little ship!  And look a the darning stitches just above it.  And the sampler was full of initials and dates that had meaning to Nita and her family.

Grapes!  Love the grapes!

Now here is Paula and her color version of Quaker Christmas.  I love the bold color choice!

This was stitched by one of the shop ladies.  Over one.  You had to look closely to see that it actually was stitched and not a photo.

Starting with Nita (in the pink) and moving clockwise, I'd like to introduce you to my table buddies,  Nita, Debbie, Michelle, Marcia, Paula and Judy

After camp on Sunday, I had some time before my evening flight, so I visited with my Topeka friends, Sue and Julie.  Sue is a prolific and talented stitcher.  She's also the kind friend who sent me the birthday pincushion.  Here she is with her PS Santa afghan.  It's to die for.  And here are a few of my favorite Santas.

A lovely Eileen Bennett design.  You all know how much I love her things and Sue executed this beautifully.

This is incredible.  Sue is almost finished with the PS Alphabet block series.  Stitched over one.  Look at that proud smile! There's a lot to be proud of here.  And here are some of my favorite blocks.

That cat...oh my, that cat!

"F" is for Friend.  How perfect!

Sue is also a talented finisher.  I should have taken photos of this from more angles so you could see it better.  She finished this as a box, even adding little blue legs to the bottom.  It set the whole thing off perfectly. 

Can you see the glitter in the fabric?  It's hard to capture in a photo, but believe me, it's there and it's the perfect touch for these adorable snowmen.

And last but not least, here is my very camera-shy friend Julie.  This was the best I could do....

Next post I'll show you the BRD project and some pictures of the trunk show that Belinda brought with her.  I still - ahem - have to - ahem - finish my project though. 

A One Day Stitching Retreat

Earlier this April, I went to an all day stitching retreat held in the conference room of a Holiday Inn in Pittsburgh. Some of the Oglebay retreat ladies had mentioned it to me. Well, one thing led to another, then somebody forwarded an email to me and I decided to send in my reservation.

By all accounts, this was a rather hot ticket.  There is a specific mailing date and then it's first-come, first-served and then there's a waiting list after all the spots are filled.  And since the same people come year after year, I was thinking that my only chance was to watch the obituaries and see if I could squeeze in after some poor stitcher put in her last stitch.  Well, her last "earthly" stitch, anyway.  But lo and behold, poof!  I was in!

It was a very nice affair. Started at 8:30AM and included a light breakfast, a delicious lunch and then a light supper. It was supposed to end at 11PM, but I was tuckered out by 9:00 and knew I had a long drive home, so I left early. But many ladies stayed until the very end, and I know that several of the stitchers were spending the night at the hotel. For the first time in a long time, I wasn't the one who traveled the farthest.

Well, I had a lovely day.  There was stitching and eating and door prizes and contests and Show and Tell and shopping....have I left anything out?

Oh, I discovered that one of the ladies reads my blog (Hi there, Janice!),  And after reading all of my nonsense over the years, she still sat next to me for 12 hours.  Imagine that?  She's a brave woman.

So anyway, here's the project I worked on that day.  It's one of the smaller BBD charts and it's on 32 ct. Antique Ivory linen, stitched with HDF "Meadow" silk.  It used exactly five yards of silk.  And I loved every stitch.

Next post - KANSAS IN SPRINGTIME!  (or:  where is the nearest tornado shelter?)

Where to begin?

I honestly don't know where to start today.  I have about a million things to tell you all and if I try to fit it all into one post - well, it'll drive us both crazy!

I think that since Easter is coming in just a few short days, I'll show you pictures of my visit to the local "Eggstravaganza" (No snickering allowed.  My husband snickered and it almost earned him a punch.)

There were about a dozen or so egg artists there, selling their beautiful eggs.  Some of my classmates displayed their eggs, too and if you ask me, they are just as lovely as the vendors' eggs. 

There is another type of egg design, called drop and pull.  The best way I can describe it is kind of like the reverse of pysanky technique.  Instead of doing the process by waxing then dyeing, the egg is dyed first and the wax is applied as the decorative part.  The last two eggs show that technique.  Very pretty.

You should be able to click on the photos to enlarge them and see the details of the eggs.

My classmates' eggs

More classmates eggs!

And more from my class friends

Sometimes simple color schemes are perfect.

Blurry, but this egg was stunning

Brown egg at the bottom used plant material and onion skin dying

Drop and pull eggs by my friend, Joe Borytsky

More drop and pull eggs

There were also ethnic foods for sale and I won't even tell you how good that nutroll was...

Next post - loads of stitching news, including two wonderful stitching events!

They may be slow, but...

You all are too funny!  Loved, loved, loved your comments! 

But even though zombies may have that awkward shuffling gait and not move very quickly, let's be reasonable about how much needlework one person can carry, yet still move fast enough to outrun the walking dead.

For instance, if she has any hope of getting away, Theresa (Girl With Needles) is going to need one of these.

Theresa's Needlework Sherpa in case of zombie attack

My April Answer and its Tie-in to Zombies

 (Preface:  This post is a whole lot of silly.  I won't be offended if you skip it.  Really)

OK, well, the short answer to the April Question about record keeping is that over the past five years I've come to rely exclusively on my blog to record everything I've stitched.  Before blogging, I didn't even own a camera.

My parents were real shutterbugs who loved taking pictures of the kids when they would visit, and since they live so far away, they often took pictures of things around my house, including my stitching.  Mom and Dad always got double prints and then sometimes I'd get lucky and they'd send me copies.

But my most recent needlework history (2006 till now) resides locally in My Pictures and online through my blog.

But here's the thing - I've been watching the AMC series, Walking Dead. In this show, zombies are everywhere. The entire world has collapsed.  No electricity.  No mass communication.  It's all GONE. 

Of course, small groups of humans that have miraculously survived. Our main character wakes up alone in the midst of this crisis and goes in search of his family.  He decides his family is alive because although their house is empty, the photo albums are gone. And he knows that his wife would never leave without those albums, so she must have escaped.

Now in my photo world, almost everything is digital, so if a future zombie outbreak happened, I'd just grab a little thumb drive and head for the hills.  And I'd be content knowing that my needlework history is online, too.  But what good would that do if you couldn't fire up a computer? 

Well readers, we can be prepared for a zombie-filled world.  There's a company called Blurb that'll help you publish your blog as a Blurb book (for a fee, of course) and then you can just take your book with you as you run from the house.  It shouldn't be too hard to escape.  (Zombies move very slowly and they have no frontal cortex.)

But now I have a new question - Assuming that the zombies haven't entered your house yet, what needlework would you grab?  So that if someone - your husband, children, mother, friends...whoever - came into your house they would know you got out alive because they know that you'd never leave without....(fill in the blank)

I'd grab my family sampler and I'd wrap it up in the white on white baby quilt that I made for my daughter.  So those zombies had better beware.  I can be one mean cookie.

My Favorites of March

Either March is too long or else you all are too talented.  I could have gone on forever and used up the bandwidth of the entire internets, but I managed to put together a page that won't break your browser with its enormity.

Really, you all must slow down.  You're making me crazy.

Go here to see my favorites.  Divided by like a thousand because there were way too many great posts this month.

Sometimes I shake my head

Life in a fairly poor and rural county can be challenging.  It's all to easy to poke fun and be overly critical, so I try to follow the motto, "Live and Let Live." I know I'm far from perfect.

But still - sometimes I read the local rag and sigh.  Our county's drug and alcohol commission recently sponsored a social function, a Buffettman beach party, featuring a Jimmy Buffett impersonator. 

Really?  You are counseling drug and alchohol abstinence and yet you are highlighting a singer whose most famous song lyric is "Wasted Away in Margaritaville"?  Who is trying to trademark the name "Tiger Blood" for his own line of Vodka/Energy drinks?  Who also markets his own brand of beer and readymix margaritas? 

Oh, the irony...

Sampler finish and more eggs!

Over the weekend I put the last stitches into Dandy Dreams.  I can't wait to frame this one and get it on the wall next to Spring Violets. 

Dandy Dreams by Silver Creek

Stitched on "Fog" Picture this Plus 28ct linen

Charted for DMC, but I substituted with Sullivans' Threads

It was so much fun to stitch and I thought of my Kansas friends the whole time I stitched it.  Maybe you all do that, too.  When you've been stitching and shopping with friends and you think of them all the while as you stitch the things you purchased that day?  This sampler will always remind me of my trip to Kansas for the Heartland Shop Hop last year.  I spent the weekend hanging out with an old friend and meeting new ones...what could be better?

I've also been working on my Birthday project - one of the oldest samplers in my stash.  It's coming along nicely.  I decided not to change a thing about it...I'm letting it remain true to its 1988 roots. And because I'm using undyed linen and regular DMC, it's washable. So I'm stitching this in hand - no scroll frame or lap frame, and I have to say I'm enjoying its "no fuss" nature. 

Antiqued Sampler, by Eileen Bennett

Oh boy, last night was another Pysanky egg class.  It's more fun than I would ever have thought.  I may have to make eggs for all seasons, not just Easter.  

This coming Sunday the church that hosts our class will hold its annual Eggstravaganza.  (Don't snicker...my husband snickered when I said that.  Ha.  He won't snicker when he sees me taking the checkbook)  It's a festival of egg makers and designers and I really hope they let me take photos because the displays are going to be gorgeous!  They'll be selling eggs and egg-decorating supplies, as well as some other ethnic crafts.  

I've always been interested in their Easter Cloths - that's the cloth used to cover the food taken to church in Easter baskets to be blessed on the Saturday before Easter.  They're embroidered with symbols, can be quite elaborate and many are passed down from mothers to daughters through the generations.   Are any of you familiar with this?  I used to take a basket to church on Easter Saturday, filled with representations of my Easter Sunday meal, but I never had a beautiful cloth, and as time went by I somehow I got away from doing it. Just got busy with other things, I guess.

But anyway...the eggs!  I finished fewer eggs this week, because I didn't do my homework.  (Shades of my high school career are coming through).  So this week I finished a maroon and turquoise egg, a pink egg with flowers and a red egg with scroll work on the top.  The instructor was awfully busy this week, too, so I didn't have time to empty my other finished eggs.  Now I can worry about them for another week.

I wasn't too happy with this egg.  It looks like a crazy person drew on it and the colors aren't as vivid as I like.  But I do like my work on its top and you can see that in the photo with the bowl of eggs below. It's the red one at the bottom right.

Next week will be our last class of the year.  And I'll be sad, sad, sad.

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Edited to add a photo of a Ukrainian Easter Basket cloth:

Not my design, but from Ukrainian Gift Shop, Inc.