Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Landscape is back


I have been working on Froth and Bubble this past week but yesterday when I discovered that I had made the same mistake in the third flower that I had made in one of the previous two at the retreat, I decided that it was time to move on to another project.



Moving on meant moving back to my Stained Glass landscape. It was a good decision because I really did not seem to be getting anywhere on Froth and Bubble...of course when you spend as much time undoing your mistakes as actually stitching, you do tend to bog down.
Tomorrow I will get back at Jeannette Douglas's Stitching album. I am enjoying these pages in spite of the black fabric!


Monday, March 23, 2009

The End of an Era

We had a little retreat on the weekend ...more about that later...and hopefully on Dani's blog because I did not take any pictures...too excited I guess. Beatrice has some photos!

Anyway, on Saturday my car was acting up ...badly... and I am sure some people wondered why I sort of shrugged it off and calmly took Dan's car instead instead of ranting and raving about vehicles and their unreliability...well the reason for my nonchalance in the face of a car not responding as it should was simple.



It had already been traded in.



So Good bye little Beetle!

I enjoyed this car for 9 years and it served me well up until the last couple of months when we started unsuccessfully chasing an electrical (maybe) gremlin.



Hello New Jetta! May you live and serve as long and as faithfully! We picked it up today.




On to stitching news... Here is my Rosewood Manor "Ye Olde Sampler Bag" When next you see this piece Debbie will have sewn it into a beautiful little clutch purse. Of course I have to find lining material first and go see Debbie...but I am confident I will find some fabulous fabric and I know Debbie will work her sewing magic!

Also we had our favouite houseguest...oops sorry Dani and Christin...our favourite 4-legged houseguest... for a few days..Here are Paddy and Oliver enjoyng a rare curl-up on the couch. They were sent down soon after this picture was snapped.


The Retreat...18 of us converged on The Timber House and stitched our little fingers to the bone this past weekend. It must have been a wonderful success because everyone wants to come back next year...fully booked ! How cool is that?


I worked on Froth and Bubble but neglected to take a picture so that can wait till my next post...which I promise will be soon.


I am counting on Dani publishing some pictures of our industriousness and well yes we did indulge in a bit of eating as well...not to mention all the laughing...my face was sore more than a couple of times!


Thank You to all the participants!!!





Sunday, March 8, 2009

Thank You everyone!!!

Wow! What a weekend! Thank You everyone who came by for the "Nashville Open House". On Saturday and Sunday many loyal customers and some newbies dropped by the shop to see all the fabulous new designs from the Nashville Needlework Market.

You will notice that I have no pictures to show for the event. I forgot to take a picture of the room with all the new patterns and then people started arriving and I was busy, busy, busy. Taking pictures was the last thing on my mind. Fortuantely Dani took some snaps and has posted some on her blog so you can check them out here.

I was thrilled with the response of my customers and am so pleased that we have such a great cross stitch communty here in Brighton.

I want to give a special thanks to my good friends Marie Paule, Dani and Christin without whom I could not have managed. I was busy in the shop and these three looked after customers who were looking and had questions. They generally initiated more and more people into the cult! It was great!

Katie brought a friend from Kingston. Wendy, Marj and Anita came all the way from Whitby, Oshawa and Toronto (respectively). Marsha and Kathy made phone-in orders from Pickering and Arizona (!). Do I have great friends and customers or what???? I picked up a couple of new customers from Brighton and Havelock...there are stitchers everywhere! Isn't it great that there is such a community of stitchers out there? never mind out there...here in little Brighton!

The door prizes went to Adriana from Trenton (93 years young this August and still stitching on 28 count) on Saturday and Janet from Brighton (just started stitching last fall) on Sunday. Both were delighted to be winners!

And I can't say it enough...Thank You Marie Paule...what a great friend and ambassador for cross stitching!!!

I am tired. Tonight we are watching the NASCAR race which we taped this afternoon and generally taking it easy.

Thanks again everyone!

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

A finish At Last!

I think I am still on holidays. It has been a very quiet week since we got home. I was bogged down with a head cold which I did not want to share and I had lots to do at home so I just stayed in. I am now ready to re-join the word and our regular stitching Thursdays and Fridays will pick up again this week.



This last week I did finally get back at some stitching. I am planning to offer a course on waste canvas this spring and to that end I stitched up this Sue Hillis design on a sweatshirt. Here is Kasey modelling it.

I am also planning to offer a course on "stitching on evenweave" or "moving on to linen" with this Rosewood Manor design which will be made up into a clutch purse. So far it is a very enjoyable stitch.



This is what I worked on in Florida. Another piece that I am enjoying..Long Dog's "Froth and Bubble"



And I must show off my friend Sharon's fnished "Siam Fusion"