Saturday, November 28, 2009

Belated retreat report

I cannot tell you how much fun we had on retreat a few weeks ago. Once again life is in fast forward as we blew through Halloween and Thanksgiving and now we are speeding to Christmas. I apologize for waiting so long for this update but life just got in the way.
At our retreat as always we had plenty of food and wonderful fellowship. We were treated to several sunrises and sunsets that were just beautiful and the weather was cold and crisp. We spent Friday hitting all the quilt and fabric stores. Each of us (not me) do many different crafts, some knitting and quilting and sewing along with cross stitch so we hit the available stores which for us are few and far between. This year one of the crowd has taken up scrapbooking so we took in the local stamping store as well. I thought I could get addicted to that as well so was proud of myself with only buying one stamp that was local to our area for my letter writing.
We had lunch at a little diner and each enjoyed our choices then we headed out for more shopping until it was late enough to go to the B&B where we were staying. We settled right in for some stitching time. Everyone pulled out pieces new and old and we stitched and talked about everything the way comfortable friends do. We looked at craft magazines and read books to take a break and of course there were snacks galore. Betty, who is quite the baker brought werewolf cupcakes and we laughed as Gretchen hammed it up smooching the werewolf before cheerfully eating him.
I finished Where the Heart Blooms and got a few stitches in Alphabet of Stitches by Drawn Thread. Of course I took enough projects for all of us but I never know what I will be in the mood to stitch when the time comes. Saturday is our movie night and this time Joan brought Mamma Mia, which I had never seen. We laughed and laughed as only a group of women can. I am sure we would have not found it near as funny had we not all been together watching it. We also had a copy of Rosemary and Thyme we watched over supper Friday and Saturday. We had homemade pizza one night and chicken pot pie the next. We never have to worry about not having enough food. Joan brought a delicious salad and Dee brought the pie. Betty made the pizza and we all brought lunch items, fruit and such so we could either have a meal at lunch or snack. Jeannette brought a black bean hummus that was a hit as well as scones that were eaten up before the end of the weekend. We made more than a little dent in the sweet potato muffins
that Gretchen baked for us. As I said delicious food is always abundant. My friends know how to cook.
On the stitching front we all made great progress on some long term projects and Dee and I even managed a finish. It was great fun and we were thrilled to be together stitching. We are already booked for a time in the spring and again next Fall. We are already plotting menu's and movies and where we will have lunch on the way out. Retreat is always a blast and a much anticipated treat for all of us.
Cannot find the camera so will upload shots when I find it buried somewhere in my stitching room.
Marjo

Thursday, November 19, 2009

We lost our girl cat one today


Sorry to share that today we lost our girl cat one. We have two identical cats my husband and son got for me from a rescue place when we lived in Georgia. They had both been mistreated and were tiny. They were the same size and color except for their eyes so we took to calling them girl cat one and girl cat two because unless you were really close you could not tell which was which. They have never grown much and now we have lost one. She was hiding all day yesterday and she was dead when I got up this morning. I am so sad and her litter mate doesn't know what to do. Even the dog is moping. We will miss our dear girl cat one.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Ready for Retreat

I am so ready to go on retreat. We have all day Friday, all day Saturday and over half a day Sunday to stitch. It is a wonderful place and in my humble opinion, my stitching buddies are just the best for sitting around stitching with. We are all different ages and we all stitch different types of designs with actually little overlap of designers and designs. I love seeing what everyone else is working on which is why I love reading blogs about stitching. I will spend the next few days deciding which projects I will take. I almost always take something new to stitch on. Not necessarily a new start but a WIP that has not seen light of day for a long while. I know I will take Where the Heart Blooms by BBD as I am nearing completion with that one. My new old WIP will probably be Drawn Thread Alphabets. I will probably take a small project I might could finish. Not sure what that would be. I will probably take the Sail away and CHS alphabets even though I won't be able to work on all of them but you never know what mood will strike and you can't just go to the stitchy room and get something else. It is the standard joke with my buddies that I bring enough for everyone to stitch on if necessary. Must be prepared. I will try to add some pictures of the projects that make the cut.
This will be great after the last two weeks at work full of overtime and stressful situations. Like I said, I am SO ready to go.
Have a great stitchy week. Marjo

Sunday, November 8, 2009

November stitching update

I am all the way up to the Dee part of this one. I really like working on it but put it aside so I could get some progress on the other two works currently in the rotation.
Sail Away by Shepherd's Bush is coming along. I never can keep up with a SAL but I do so love the idea of stitching the same thing with a group of people but stitch too slowly to ever keep up. I love this and the soft colors. Underneath you can see a peek at a neat sewing bag my good stitching friend Betty made for me with the lovely blueberry fabric. I thought it was just the bag to carry this project.
I cannot tell you why it has take me so long to get this little sampler done. I love it. I did change the color of the roof to the Mulberry GAST instead of the called for color. In my childhood I remember the white clapboard houses having red roofs. I also did not black in the window but will fill it with yellow for the light that we always leave on. I just have the top row of bushes or flowers or whatever you want to call them left to do as since this picture I have done all but one strawberry on the border and not long after this posts that will be done.


The first snow of the season came, went, little stayed, but the cold temperatures were left behind. Great stitching weather only it won't go away for several months so more than stitching will have to go on. I just don't have time to stitch on everything every week. I am going back to a weekly rotation. That works best for me. I have tried different ways to get stuff stitched these last couple of years but I think I am going to go back to the old rotation. I will do one week of each item and then a week of gift stitching or finishing if I am caught up on the stitching. That usually holds until I am down to the last little bit of a design and then I have to finish it. I will continue to have a daily strand piece for lunch times or travel times. Of course none of this is rigid as for me the joy is in the journey.
My stitching friends and I are getting ready for our Fall/Winter retreat. I am so excited. Three days with the best stitching buddies one could hope for holed up in a massive log home on 20 acres in a valley with a view of a glacier. It is gorgeous there. We bring our own food and we hike when we have sat too long to move anymore. Then Saturday night we stitch and watch a movie someone brings. We stitch all day until we have to leave on Sunday. It is so much fun I can hardly wait.
Well, I have time to stitch, there is a roaring fire in the fireplace and a cup of tea ready to go in the kitchen. That is Sunday afternoon bliss to me. Hope you have a terrific stitchy day.
Marjo


Monday, November 2, 2009

Making progress


I worked the weekend so today is my stitching day. I worked yesterday evening on Where My heart Blooms from Blackbird Designs. It is an old Loose Feathers but as always I am behind. I am pleased to finally see some progress on it. I will try to download some pictures. I got the outline of the border completely done. Would have made more progress if I hadn't had to take some of the vine out because I was off by one line. I finally got it back in and now I will work on it a little more tonight. I worked all afternoon on my EGA class piece but can't really get a clear picture of the whitework. I finally realized I needed to make some copies of the pattern so I wouldn't have to keep flipping pages as I work on the design for the class piece. Cannot figure out why it took me so long to figure that out. Having the extra copies makes the stitching go so much faster. I took advantage of some overtime to buy some stash from The Sampler Girl. I have the Comfort of home from the early release in Gift of Stitching so I got the one by the sea and the new Christmas design as well. I also got the kit for La De Da bird. I have made a lot of bird purchases this fall so 2010 seems like it will be bird stitching.
Have a great week stitching. Marjo