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...