My favorite thread color

I approached this question as if I had only one color that I could stitch with for the rest of my life.  There are so many amazing thread colors out there...so in order to choose just one, I had to look at it as if it was a life decision.  (Too dramatic?  Yeah, maybe...)

Anyway, if I had to choose one color of thread to make me happy for a lifetime, it would be RED.  I love red samplers.  I love redwork quilts.  So I think I could be happy with a lifetime of red. 

Of course, red can also break my heart.  Red is kind of like having a bad boyfriend.  It seems like a color of strength and passion.  It's all awesome looking and happy and while you're working with it you'd like to think that nothing bad can happen.  This time, it'll all be perfect.  But you kind of know in your heart that it's not going to take much for red to bolt.  One day a  tiny bit of water will make things just slightly imperfect and red will get all annoyed with you and start to run.  Still, here's the thing - Red will make you cry, but for some reason you just keep going back for more.

So if red is a bad boyfriend color, what is a good husband color? I'm thinking green.  Any thoughts? 

Library referendum

It looks like I'm one of many who loves the libraries. 

The Library Funding Referendum passed.

Stitching Bloggers Question for November

No, your eyes don't deceive you.  The SBQ is making a comeback!

Some of you may remember that I hosted the SBQ for one year, then offered to pass the hosting along in April. 

There were no takers back in April and I was feeling burnt out so the SBQ fizzled, but recently CinDC, who writes over on the blog Pencil Crossings, has offered to feed me questions if I'll continue to host the project.  Cheryl says she misses the SBQ and she's decided to do something about it.  She's a busy working mom with twin preschool daughters, and yet she's preparing creative questions for our blog entertainment.  You go, girl!  How could I turn that down? 

So look for a new question on the first Monday of each month.  Or thereabouts.  (Since it's actually Wednesday already...Where did those days go?)

OK - here is the November SBQ:

What's your favorite color of thread? Pick just one. Why do you like it?

Yes.  Just one.  This simple question may be harder to answer than we think...

Who loves her libraries? This girl does!

Today is a big day for The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.  City voters are being asked to support their library.  From the group Our Library, Our Future:

Supporters of the Our Library, Our Future initiative are asking Pittsburgh residents to vote YES on a referendum on the ballot in November for a 0.25 mill special tax on all taxable real estate in the City of Pittsburgh to be allocated and used only for the maintenance and operation of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.  (This is the equivalent of $25 per year or $2.09 per month on $100,000 of assessed value.)  If passed, this referendum will help provide Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh with the diverse and sustainable funding it needs to continue to provide the critical services the community wants and needs.

It's unthinkable to me that anyone would not support this referendum.  $2.09 per month?  I have that much change floating around in the bottom of my purse at the end of each month.  I would even pay much more than that to have a viable library in my community.  In fact, I do.  I'm not one of the lucky people who lives in a community that gives everyone library cards, so I have to pay for my card.   Well...cards.  I pay $30 per year to use the Carnegie Library system, and $35 per year to use my small community library.  And it's worth every penny.

Without our community libraries, I fear that we'll become Amazon.com world.  Don't get me wrong, Amazon.com has its use.  We bought our last TV from Amazon. But Amazon isn't really interested in helping you or expanding your reading horizons.  Amazon just wants to sell you stuff.  Barnes and Noble is only slightly better, although not quite as blatant about it.

When is the last time Amazon.com read a story to your child?  When did Barnes and Noble let you use its computers to access the internet?  When did Amazon.com help you write a resume, or provide a job search workshop?  When did Barnes and Noble let you use a meeting room, research your genealogy in their store or  teach you how to use Excel?  For free. 

When was the last time Amazon.com said, "Here, take these 6 books.  Any six books at all.  Take them to your house, give them a read and then just bring them back.  No extra charge.  Oh, and if we don't have what you want, no worries.  We'll get it for you.  For-freakin'-free."

Really. So please support your libraries.

A Few "New to Me" Bloggers

Recently I've discovered some bloggers who I didn't know about before, and thought you might like to know about them, too.

There's Beth over at Garden Grumbles and Cross Stitch Fumbles

Also Penny who resides at Larkspur Lane.

Check out Astrid's blog, called Cross Stitched by Astrid.

And finally, I was happy to find Syd's blog, called Syd's Stitching Room.

Pop over to their blogs.  See some great stitching!

One more cool Erie thing

Look at this amazing glass mug!  Linda's husband Bob works for a glass etching company and has made some wonderful pieces, but these are particularly special!  It's a beautiful shade of purple.  Grape-y!

We all wondered why Linda had asked us to sign our names in Sharpie on a 3X5 card...Now we know!  Thanks Linda!

Pictures from Deep Creek

As I was telling you yesterday, a couple weeks ago I spent a wonderful morning and afternoon with some stitchers on a retreat in a gorgeous house in Deep Creek, Maryland. Deep Creek is only about a 30 minute drive for me, and since I usually drive over an hour for stitching meet-ups, this felt as if it was in my own backyard. So I met some old friends there and even made some new ones - a day well spent!

Nancy was working on this lovely sampler by Heartstring Samplery.  The color variation in her thread isn't very visible in this photo, but in person the end result is really charming. 

When she wanted to switch projects, Nancy brought out this stocking she has in the works, made of felt and embellished with embroidery. It's going to be a knockout when it's done!

Colleen was working on Primitive Needle's Kindred Spirits.  Really wonderful design, made even better by her fabric choice.

Linda frequently chooses designs with thoughtful sayings.  I think it reflects her kind heart! 

Janice, lover of most things Quaker and/or French was working on this design. Janice always seems to pick designs that I love and want, but unlike me, she actually stitches them.  This designers name is on the tip of my tongue and I just can't remember it.

Andrea was stitching a BRD piece. It's a cute, small design!  Nice for a day stitching with friends.

I met a new-to-me stitcher, Becky, whose over-one Halloween piece was awesome.  It's on some kind of silver/grey evenweave - a great background for those colors.

Another new friend, Lynn had a wonderful farm scene in her Qsnaps.  I don't remember the designer, but with the trains, it makes me think of a Patricia Gaskin design? 

And finally, here's my work for the day, as I continued with La D Da's Pumpkins Three.  It's pretty simple, on white linen with DMC 4130.  It may be tea or coffee dyed when it's done.  Not sure I'm crazy about the bright white...

And that was my day at Deep Creek!

Erie Weekend Stitching

I'm back with more about our Erie weekend!

First of all, I wanted to show you these little pincushions I made for everyone. I love a simple 4-patch design and sometime over the year I found this awesome grape fabric, so I knew I had to make these.  Finding the grape charms was a bit of a challenge, but Linda directed me to Artbeads.com and they had just what I needed.  The little pincushions are a snap to make, and they're even easier if you follow this tutorial.  Her method for attaching the buttons is especially helpful.

For our first night, I was working on a La D Da pumpkin design, but soon after we had all arrived and settled in, we did our ornament kit exchange. So the next morning I got started on Barb's kit, the design from  LHN. I love, love, love it! I also loved all the other kits, and I'll show them to you as I get them started between now and Christmas, but in the meantime, here's my progress on Barb's.

A lovely mottled linen, and GAST and DMC threads!

And as for the other girls, here's what they had going on!

Carol's Thanksgiving PS.  Carol is a PS expert!

One of Pam's 2011 Challenge pieces, a whimsical Halloween house from a magazine, but I don't remember which magazine.  Pam - a little help here?

Barb's start on my ornament kit.  As of today, she says she's almost done.  Way to go Barb!

Linda's awesome project, stitched as a gift for a friend she grew up with in Cleveland and who has since moved to the other side of the world.  Literally!

We had a wonderful time together, with lots of stitching, talking, sharing and laughing. It always ends too soon though.  We get these weekends once a year and it's kind of funny when I start getting the "countdown" emails - we look forward to them like kids at Christmas.

In other news around the lake house, my kitchen sink has returned!  I will never take a sink for granted again.  I've been painting ceiling boards, and hope that the contractor will have the ceiling completely in by tomorrow.  Now a floor would be nice...

Oh, and later I'll have more pics to share, too, because earlier in October I visited with some other stitchers.  They let me drop in for a day during their retreat in Deep Creek MD, since I live practically around the corner (and I kind of invited myself...).  Does anyone remember the old SNL skits with John Belushi - the ones where he played The Thing That Wouldn't Leave?  Um. Yeah.

See you tomorrow!

Zombies and other things

So last night while I was stitching and watching my zombie show,  I got so excited that my arms flew out and my needle went flying.  I'm still hunting for it, because I'll bet you dollars to donuts that it finds its way into my husband's foot and then he'll have to walk like this:

 

Anyway, forgetting about the zombies for a moment, you may be just slightly more interested to read that I've been stitching!  I'll tell you, if not for my stitching buds, I doubt I'd have anything to show you.  I thank heaven for my stitching friends.  They keep me motivated and visits with them make me sit down, take a breath and remember how much I love my stitching.

And now I can share a finish with you.  A bit of backstory - There's this wonderful group of women I met through blogging.  Beyond stitching and blogging, we all had bits and pieces of our lives that were in common with each other and well...these great friendships formed!  We started getting together here and there, and then we decided to spend a stitching weekend together.  It was a wonderful trip, and now it's a yearly tradition!  

So here are my Erie Girls and me:

Clockwise from the top, that's me, Carol, Pam, Linda and Barb, just before our gourmet breakfast!

We like to do small exchange gifts for each other, and this year's exchange was really fun.  Since we all buy the JCS Ornament issue, we each chose one of this year's ornaments and then put together 5 identical kits for each other.  (Five, because our innkeeper is a stitcher, too and we wanted to give her a little something.  She treats us so well!)

For my kits, I chose Little By Little's ornament, Joy of the Snowflake.  So I started stitching my model in the charted colors (blue and brown) and while I liked it, it wasn't thrilling me. The blue was lovely, but the brown snowflakes?  Not so much.   

So I raided my fabric box and my Vikki Clayton silks and came up with this:

PTP 32ct linen (Phoenix) and HDF Kali and White Chocolate

Tomorrow I'll show you the kits I received and other stitching we had going on over the weekend.  I can promise you some great stuff!

Waiting for the plumber

And waiting.  And waiting.  I could be here all day.  The hard part about the waiting is wanting to fill my time with something productive, but feeling so distracted that I can't wrap my head around anything.  The good thing is that he has promised to arrive today and that means I may get my kitchen sink back again!  One of the hardest parts about this kitchen remodel has been washing dishes in the basement.  And not being able to strain pasta or noodles near the stove.  Ah, little sink.  How I miss you!

This catch-as-you-can food situation has been killing my healthy diet, too.  My WW weigh-in was not exactly a cause for celebration last week.

I'm blaming it on the plumber.  Works for me.

Anywho...Today starts National Blog Posting Month, when we join a group and promise to write a blog post every day.  You can read more about it here.  BlogHer offers us a daily writing prompt - a nice jump start when your writing battery is dead - and I liked today's prompt, so I'm going to run with it.

What is your favourite part about writing?


Well, I'll tell you.  My favorite part about writing is expressing what I really mean.  When I write, I don't just type away and hit "publish" or "send".  I write, I backspace, I cut, I paste.  And when it's all done, I like to think that what I've just produced for someone to read is pretty darn close to what I intended.


I wish I could tell you that my conversational skills were as well thought out.  I say the wrong things all the time.  Oh no...I don't just screw up words.  That would probably be kind of funny in a self-deprecating humor kind of way.  I just say stupid, inappropriate stuff.  I say things that make me wish there was a three second delay as a part of my conversation, just so I could suck back whatever dumb thing I've just said.  There's nothing like saying something that you think is a joke and watching someone's blank face just stare back at you.  Or telling a story that you know you never should have been let up for air.  Or rambling.  You know, when you realize you've just rambled on way past your original point and you see your conversational partner's eyes are totally glazed over. 


Then there are all the things that go unsaid.  The responses that form in my head that never make it to my mouth, and I know I'm thinking them and I should say them, but then I weenie out.  Or the times I go totally blank.  I'm saying nothing because I have nothing and I really wish I had something!


It seems like I can't strike a balance between saying too much or saying not enough. Seriously, sometimes I think I'm a walking social disaster.  But I don't feel that way when I write and that's my favorite part about writing.

Some running about

I feel as if this fall has passed by me like a speeding train and that would be ok except I'm not moving as fast as the rest of my world seems to be.

My kitchen is still torn apart and that means the dishes are in the living room, miscellaneous everyday food (like cereal and coffee) and the microwave are in the dining room and all of the pots, pans and pantry foods are in a bedroom.  Dishes are washed in the basement laundry sink.  

I can't stand it.  The clutter is driving me bananas!  It's also probably why I'm not stitching much.  I can't settle down.  I need outer order so that I can have inner calm.  I'll bet many of us are like that.

I do have some stitching photos to share with you, though.  A couple weeks ago I went to the Ohio County Country Fair in Wheeling, WV.  Some of my Friday stitching friends had entered pieces in the fair, both for judging and for display, and I was excited to see them all. Here are a few photos that I took with my iPhone.  The pictures I took are rather blurry and dark, but you get the idea.  And you can see many more photos (and they are much more clear) on this Facebook page

Mirabella's bride, stitched on aida by our friend, Beth

An AMAZING blanket or throw, stitched by a woman from the Wheeling EGA.  That's all surface embroidery.  The detail is fabulous.

You might recognize a bunch of my samplers.  Or maybe not, because they are from long, long ago.  One of the oldest samplers I entered, from 1987, won a blue ribbon.  And do you see the little gingerbread house and the smalls by it?  Those were stitched by our friend, Tammy.  The framed Lego piece was stitched by a young boy, and he won a blue ribbon and best of show in the children's category.

I wish I had a better picture of this.  Our friend Colleen entered this in the stamped embroidery category and it was beautifully done.  We had to step in extra close and we still couldn't tell it was stamped, except that the fabric was obviously not an evenweave.  Her stitches were gorgeous.  Some might even say "exquisite".

Best in Show

This pillow won a blue ribbon (although I don't know its category?) And it won Best in Show in the entire needlework category.  The fabric is hand-dyed somehow - it had a pile like velvet, but I don't know for sure without having touched it.  All of the stitches are running stitches - exactly like you would see in a quilt.  I'm not quite sure why this wasn't entered with the quilts.

I mean, it was cool and all, but not what I'd call needlework?  So I'd be very interested to know the thought process of the judge.  Was it because it was an original design?  All of the other entries were from kits or stitched from charts - with our own spins, of course.  Honestly, I'm not dissing the entry.  I'm only curious.

Anyway, we had a fun afternoon at the fair.  Stitched a bit, talked a lot and enjoyed seeing some wonderful stitching and quilting.

My other travels have been to watch my daughter's cross country meets.  She's having a wonderful season, including a great finish at the All Ohio Meet a couple weeks ago.  Despite strong, knock-you-over wind and driving rain, she still finished her 5K in 19:06.  Now the women are running 6K's, in preparation for the conference and regional meets. 

And thanks to the generosity and mad camera skills of other Wooster Cross Country parents, I'm able to share a couple pictures of my daughter with you. If I had to rely on my own abilities, you'd see pictures that look like this:

Miscellaneous girls running.  Who are these people?  Not my daughter.  Not even any Wooster girls.  I am one terrible photographer.

Instead, because someone else arrived (who could actually operate a camera), I can share these pictures from their recent home meet in Wooster:

Almost smiling?  Really?

Phew.  She makes me tired just to look at her.

I'm getting ready for a fun stitching girls' trip to Erie next weekend. Last year we all prepared an exchange gift bag with things in in that reflected our hometowns. This year we decided to do an exchange from the JCS ornament issue. Since we all were going to buy the issue anyway, we each chose one ornament from the magazine and we're creating 5 kits to exchange with each other. Doesn't that sound exciting? We had the option of kitting it as charted or giving it our own spin.  I'm super interested to see our kits!  I've stitched up my ornament, but I can't show it to you until after we've done our exchange.  It's killing me to have a finish that I can't show you!  Especially since it's my only one in almost forever...

Mystery solved

 Or as Inspector Clouseau used to say, "Mystery Solve Ed."

Well my dears, your wait is over.  There were many guesses, and some of you were quite close, but eight of you hit the answer right on the nose.  Or some other body part...

Eight of you correctly guessed that this:

Is actually an old suppository mold.  Way back when, pharmacists did a lot more compounding.  Pills, ointments, salves and syrups.  And obviously, suppositories.  I remember that Dave's uncle made his own diaper rash cream and that stuff was miraculous.  He called it Binns Ointment.  A few pharmacies are still compounding, but very few.  Ahhh. The good old days. When the pharmacist didn't have to spend 7 of his or her 8 hours a day on the phone with insurance companies.

Anyway, this morning I popped eight names into this pretty little bowl.  It was also one of the few bowls I could find this morning.  Have I mentioned the words "kitchen remodel" lately?  Anyway -

And the winner was:

When did my hands get so wrinkly? 

So Astrid, I'll drop you a line soon and you'll be getting a small gifty from me in the near future! 

I'm also going to send a little something to Barb, because she was the very first correct guess. 

Thanks everybody, and I hope you had some fun!

Big happenings

YAY!  My kitchen remodeling will begin this Tuesday!

UGH.  I have to empty my kitchen and prepare for this.  I've already started by moving my decorative things and some of the kitchen furniture.  Today I'll be emptying the cabinets, starting with the one under the sink.  Ho Boy....it's scary under there.

So if you don't hear from me tomorrow, please send an ambulance.

And a HazMat crew.

A most unusual scissor frog

Here's a bit of fun!

My husband brought this thingy home from work about a month ago, so it's been sitting around my office for a while.  The  other day I was looking at the many flower frogs that are holding my blogging friends' scissor collections and I thought of this and then a light bulb went on.  Hey - scissors!  I think it's interesting in a funky, antique-y sort of way.

So here's the bit of fun...Dave said, "Do you know what that is?"  Nope.  I didn't.  Then he told me and I was quite surprised.  Well, I thought it might be fun to have you all guess about this, too.  Send me your guess by Monday, Oct 10 and someone will win a little prize from me!  If more than one person guesses correctly, I'll draw a name from the correct guesses.  If no one guesses correctly, I'll draw a name from the whole shebang.

Don't guess in the comments. Instead, send your guess to me by email at lakestitcher@gmail.com.  And remember to do it by Monday.

Here are two hints:  1) It came from one of our old pharmacies, and 2) It's solid brass.

Good luck!

The boyfriend and his bike

Thank you, everybody for the prayers and kindnesses you've offered up for my friends.  I hesitated before I wrote about that...I guess I'm glad that I did. 

You know, all through my high school and college years, I don't remember losing any friends to accidents.  And I went to a big high school (1000 in my graduating class) and then a big university.  But my children have lost three young friends to car or motorcycle accidents, and one young woman has extensive brain damage as a result of a quad accident.  It really puzzles me.  These were normal, average, everyday nice kids.  I know bad things happen...but its frequency among these young people has been frightening.

Switching direction here...

Do you all remember the contest that I asked you all to vote in back in the spring, so that my daughter's boyfriend, Montana, could win a contest to pay his entry fee for a mountain bike race in Asheville, NC?  And then the news that he eventually won the contest?  Yes, the swing votes in that contest between crazy mountain bikers seemed to have come from the most unusual source - Stitching bloggers!  Isn't that kind of neat?

So a week or so ago he went  to the Pisgah Stage Race in Asheville and you may be happy to know that he won his part in the bike race. (I know I'm not saying that correctly, but I'm a stitcher, not a mountain biker after all.)  So we're happy for him and proud of him.

If you take a look at his blog - he's been writing about the race - you'll see a couple videos in which he's being interviewed.  The blog and interview language can get a little salty - just to give you fair warning. 

But here's what I was hearing in my head when I watched the video:

Talk, talk, talk, Sweet this, Sweet that.  Talk, talk more.  Single speed, rocks, gravel.  Talk, talk, talk, turning head slightly.  Then...............

WAIT!  Hold on a minute.  Haircut?  Really??  Talk, talk, talk - I'm not hearing any of this anymore.  Just staring at the screen and willing him to turn his head again.  Talk, talk, blah, blah, talk.  Then:  Yes.  Yes.  Absolutely a hair cut.  Well I'll be darned. 

Talk, talk, talk.  Good job.  Congratulations.  Hair cut.  The end.

And they say I'm not a good listener.

Good habits and bad habits

Like most people, I have some of both. But what I'd love to know is:  Why are the good habits so hard to keep and the bad habits so hard to give up?

One of my good habits over the past several years has been keeping my blog somewhat current and up to date.  But lately?  Not so much.  And the longer I stay away, that harder it is to write.  So I keep waiting for that epiphany-like moment.  You know, like a spark of brilliance during your real life that practically yells, "Blog about this!"  Well, calling it brilliance may be taking it a bit too far, but you get my point.

So it looks like you're going to be forced to read about my nonbrilliant moments. 

I've had some highs and some lows this month.  One of the highs has been shopping for campers with my husband.  Yes.  Campers.  Perhaps you've been reading here for a while, and so you're thinking, "Hmmm, she's never mentioned camping before...".  Well, except maybe for Stitch Camp, which isn't camping at all except that sometimes there are lots of S'mores involved.  And I know it sounds crazy, that two people who have never, ever gone camping have been shopping for a camper, but that's been part of the fun. It's like we're on a special assignment together and we're having a ball.

I don't know what it is that we're finding appealing about living in 200 square feet of space for a few weeks at a time, but the appeal is certainly there, so we're just going with it.  There's probably some deeper psychological meaning to it all...But I'm certainly not going to over think it.  That'd be one of my bad habits.

One of the lows has been that our friends lost their young son in a car accident two weeks ago.  It hit us and our neighborhood pretty hard - so, so sad.  It really shook us up.

Stitching has been kind of hit or miss, but I did manage a small finish.  This was a nice little fall project.

From Crows and Pumpkins, by Annie Beez.  DMC floss and some kind of blue linen

And I'm still working on my Antiqued Sampler.  My goal for my last French Knot Friends stitch night was to finish one area of over-one lettering, and yes, yes I did!

This part was easy to finish.  In fact, it was delightful!

If you're reading this from West Virginia, Western PA or Ohio, you may be interested in seeing the Ohio County Country Fair this coming weekend.  One of my stitching friends is a member of the Wheeling WV EGA, and they've been instrumental in gathering needlework for judging and/or display for this fair.  So Deb convinced some of us to enter our stitching in the fair and I've entered a piece or two.  If you go, my pieces should be easy to spot, what with my tendency to plaster my name all over everything the way samplers usually have space to add your name or initials.  Even better, there will be an ice cream tent!  And I'm going to bet there will be Kettle Corn (sigh...yet another bad habit of mine)

Fields, forests and flowers

Where have I been lately? Well, it's cross country season...

So I've been cheering in fields.

Cheering in the forest.

And cheering in the flowers.

But mostly I've been driving the little red station wagon around Ohio.  And working.  I'm in the middle of a very busy time for work.  (Pooh...) Sadly, I haven't been stitching.  And that really bums me out because I have so many great autumn designs kitted up and ready to go!  Maybe once things settle down a bit, I'll find some time to sit in my stitching chair.

This sampler may outlive me

Since the Life Expectancy quiz has put a period at the end of my life at age 95, I'm starting to question if I'll ever finish this monster. This large round motif ate up a significant part of last weekend.

That was the last round motif. All of the rest are more straightforward. Oh...do you think I'm implying that I'll finish it quickly? Well get that thought right out of your heads. Unless I suddenly become a deposed queen who gets to sit in a dreary tower with her attending ladies all day and nothing else to do but say "woe is me" and work on my needlework, I think we're looking at several more months before I can put this in the FINISHED pile.

Stitch night was a good night for working on Antiqued Sampler. All of the silliness didn't make for accurate counting, though, so I only finished the plant on the left.

The plant on the right was counted and ripped, counted and ripped. And so on. But its little base is finally in the right place and it's ready to rock.

See that cute pinkeep?  It's from Colleen, one of my Friday stitchers.  She brought them back for us when she went to the Celebrations show in Nashua this past spring and it's so darn cute.  It's mostly paper crafted, in case you paper-crafting readers were wondering.  That makes it very lightweight and I take it everywhere.  Also, you'll see that Colleen's name up there has a link associated with it.  So if you click on her name, you'll see that it leads to her blog!  Yes!  Another stitcher enters the blog world!  And a Pittsburgh stitcher at that!  So please pop over there and say hello and admire her stitching.  Especially the two SB stockings that she's just recently finished.  They're beautifully done and bless her for finishing eight of them.  Yes.  Eight.  With minimal cussing.

I'm so looking forward to our Labor Day weekend.  Dave and I plan to go where the wind blows us all weekend.  Even if it just blows us to our own front porch, that'll be just fine by me. 

I hope the wind blows all of you to pleasant places this weekend, too.

What are you, Amish?

Odd title, I know.  Read on.

Friday night's stitch group was loaded with over-the-top silliness and I haven't laughed that hard or that much in a long time.  When I'm laughing really hard, I'm not a big "Har-Har-Har" laugher.  I'm a body-shaking, tear-producing, silent laugher.  It's like the giggles start and then I can't stop and it just comes on me in waves. 

And there wasn't even any wine...

Anyway, because I had a long drive home, I thought about our conversations and our stitching for at least a solid hour and I went over again in my head everything that was said and all of the beautiful pieces being stitched.

Is this a trait unique to women?  It seems to me that after men leave each other, it's as if a door shuts in their head and whatever conversations they had are completely over.  Women, on the other hand, (or at least the women I know), will still be thinking about and replaying those conversations, sometimes for days. 

But that's a discussion for a whole 'nother day.

Getting back to last night... what I was going over in my head as I drove home, was the way that all of my stitching friends seem to get along.  Large groups or small groups, or even just two people sitting in a cafe with their stitching...we are so darn congenial.  Of course, every now and then - actually, very rarely - I run into a stitching person who makes me want to stab myself with a dull needle.  But honestly, in the past five years or so, since I've discovered the fun of stitching in groups, I've only met one person at a retreat who drove me crazy, and that's because I was spending the whole weekend with her and she never shut up.  Not even once.  It was five years ago and I can still remember every detail of her life.  Because she told us all, loudly and repeatedly. Over the course of the entire weekend. 

Sorry...I've veered way off my intended course.  Again.

SO - This has been on my mind for a long time, I've been thinking about WHY our stitching groups, large or small, work so well. Why do I treasure all of these interactions with stitchers?  They are all so diverse.  Some I see one at a time.  Some I see thirty at a time.  Some I see regularly.  Others I get to see once every couple of years.  Others I've never seen at all, except photos on their blogs. 

What is it about having a needle in our hands and knowing that others around us have needles in their hands that helps us get along so easily?  At first I was thinking that any group that gets together on a regular basis will develop this sort of congeniality, but I'm in other sorts of groups and if I really think about those relationships - well, it's just not as easy with them.

This is what I've come up with so far:

1.  One of the first things that stitchers do when they get together is admire one another's work.  Once the basics are out of the way - your name, where you live, etc - the next revelation is always that we want to know what you're working on.  So we all pull out our work and everyone comments graciously and generously.  It's easy to feel comfortable in a group when you've just been complimented.  It makes you feel important and worthwhile and makes your spirit feel generous, too.  I think that this activity - this mutual sharing and admiration - sets the stage for the entire interaction.

2.  In a casual stitching group, no one is made to feel responsible for the happiness of anyone else.  We just bring our own stitching and then your work is your work.  How else can I say this?  We have nothing to prove.  The pressure is off.  Among other groups, sometimes there's an unspoken undercurrent that makes us feel like we have to "do our part" or live up to a certain expectation.  Not so in a casual stitching group.  If you're not moving along quickly on a project, or even if you're blazing through your stash...well, we've all been there.  We may sympathize.  Or we may tease the heck out of you (good natured teasing, of course!)  But still, your work is your work and you don't need to worry about making any of us happy. 

3.  Having those needles in our hands seems to take the pressure off of us to generate conversation if we're not prone to talking a lot or if we just don't have anything to say at the moment.  Silences are a normal, healthy part of the get together.  How many groups can we say that about? 

4.  And when we're not silent, I've found that the sharing level of stitching conversation can be quite deep.  I used to think it was that we weren't looking each other in the eye and so people were more likely to say things that they wouldn't ordinarily say.  But now I think it's that Numbers 1,2 and 3 set the stage for stitchers to really speak from their heart.  I think it's all about developing that level of comfort so quickly.

So I think that's it, in a very large nutshell.  I'd also be curious to know what the rest of you think.  What dynamics make your group work?  And I use the term "group" loosely.  Define it however you'd like..an online group, a big organization or a buddy or two that you see occasionally.

And as for my title?  Ahhh.  It's just what happens in such a diverse group.  Sometimes someone will tell a story from their background and it's a little foreign to all of us, like the story one of the stitchers was telling us about a situation on her family farm.  So the group listened and nodded politely and we tried to understand it, because we genuinely like this woman and she's very sweet and interesting.  But just like the saying goes, "there's one in every crowd" who will speak up and say something that we were probably all thinking, but she put it out there in a funny way. 

"What are you?  Amish?"

And I dissolved into pee-my-pants laughter.  

I'm sorry...I simply can't do that story justice.  But it was hilarious.

One of those online tests

I get a Kim Komando newsletter every day, and a few days ago she had a link for calculating your lifespan.

It says I'll live to be 95.  Well, then.  I should have 40 years left.  So I had better get stitching.