It took me a week to recover from the Chatelaine retreat...

...but it was totally worth it! It's hard to know where to start, so I guess I'll begin by saying that I was able to finish Little Tuscany Mandala with 90 minutes to spare on the last night and was able to ring the bell--woo hoo!! 🔔 Of course, about half of the attendees had already left, but that doesn't diminish my happiness at finishing in time, because I was uncertain all day whether I was going to make it. I completed all of the stitching right before the room closed on Friday night, so all I had left to do was add the beads on Saturday, but as the day wore on I really started to think that I wasn't going to have enough time; I ended up skipping lunch and dinner and just took a few small snack breaks throughout the day, and my efforts paid off--phew! Here it is in all of its sparkling glory:

The trip did not get off to a good start, as my non-stop flight from Appleton to Charlotte was cancelled four hours before it was supposed to depart, and they rescheduled me for the next day (the day the retreat started) with a stop in Chicago. I booked with a different airline (though paid almost double because it was so last minute) and left on Wednesday as planned, but a ground halt due to weather in Chicago and then one in Charlotte meant I arrived at my hotel at 2am Thursday morning; what should have been about a five-hour travel time ended up being about 12 hours--ugh! The trip home was better, though I got delayed in Chicago again, so now I'm kind of dreading the trip back to Charlotte in October...😟

However, the retreat itself made up for all of the travel hassles; Maggi and Amy, the organizers, do such an amazing job, and they only get better as they gain experience. This was the awesome goodie bag they put together:

If you know anything about ClaybyKim needle minders, you know how difficult they are to get as they sell out almost instantaneously as they get listed in Kim's shop; Maggi and Amy and their husbands spent several months snagging one or two each week so they could put one in every bag--a seriously impressive feat! I also love that the fabric the bags are made of has a mandala design, and even the zipper pulls look like little mandalas; such thoughtful little details that make them so special.

I had a great group at my table, some new to Chatelaines and some not (Kay has finished eight of the large mandalas, including Rainforest, which she completed at the retreat), and received some wonderful table gifts as well as some goodies from people who brought them for the whole group:

One of my table mates, Becky, made these sweet little needlebooks, using parts from various Chatelaine designs; I guess I might need to step up my gifting game!

There were a couple of games, one of which I won along with another attendee, so we split the prize of 10 pieces of fabric; these are the ones I picked:

Amy is also the owner of a dyeing company, Oak Crown Studios, and along with two pieces of the special retreat fabric that I had pre-ordered I also bought a couple of other pieces from her pop-up shop:

A couple of attendees came from the UK and one came from the Philippines, so it was truly an international retreat:

For the inaugural year they had about 50 spots, but next year they will be opening up more space and will host up to 144 people in July. The brag tables were already amazing, so I can't imagine how much more impressive they'll be with that many people bringing pieces to share! They also announced that the October 2026 retreat will focus on Teresa Wentzler designs. If you're ever looking for an awesome retreat to attend, I would highly recommend one by Queen City Stitch Retreat.

The day before I left for Charlotte I was able to pick up my pre-stitching kit for Cathy Habermann's finishing class at Primitive Gatherings in September, and so far I've completed two of the four ornaments, with the third in progress:

I'd like to have them all finished by the end of the week, then the plan is to start Nora Corbett's Geranium, as it's one of the SAL designs for the Mirabilia retreat in October:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Two more sleeps...

...until I leave for the Chatelaine retreat--yay! It starts Thursday afternoon, but I fly out on Wednesday so if any travel snags arise I have plenty of time to deal with them. I've already been thinking about what I need to pack, and I'll probably pull my suitcase out tomorrow and get a start on it. 

I was hoping to at least have all of the specialty stitches on Little Tuscany Mandala complete before I leave, but I'm not quite sure I can get them done in the next couple of days. It would be really nice to just have the beading left to do at the retreat, because with the room being open for a total of 38 hours, I'm pretty sure I could get this done! Here is where I am as of last night:

I need to fill in satin stitches for the sky above the villas, and the villas have some back stitching, as well as back stitched gates in front of them. That is the part I've been putting off, because the villas are placed on the charts in such a way that the 5 and 10 count darkened grid lines cover parts of the back stitches, making it very difficult to follow all of the lines. I asked about the problem in the Chatelaine support group on FB, and luckily someone else had encountered the same problem on a different design; she suggested zooming in on the mockup photo on the Chatelaine site, and that looks like it's going to be an immense help.

I had to laugh at myself this past weekend, because I was looking through my Chatelaine kits that I bought many years ago and found two that I don't even remember buying! That made me go through my binders looking for the charts (I used to print the charts as I got them, for quite a few of the designs), but I hadn't printed them out. I started to get worried that I would have to buy them again because one of my laptops died about 10 years ago, before I could back anything up, and I thought they were probably lost. My last hope was that I had put them on a thumb drive, so I went through the cubbies in my craft room and found five drives, two of which were labelled and didn't have Chatelaine charts on them. Of the remaining three, the first one I opened actually had the charts--yay for me! That drive is now labelled as well... 😅

I did some thinking about table gifts for this retreat, and settled on a few skeins of DMC Color Variations, a skein of Caron Waterlilies, a Star De-Tailor (love this for when the thread is too short to use a needle but you only need one or two more stitches from it) and a needle minder. Hopefully, these are things that will be useful, and they don't take up a lot of space:

I've been grieving for my mom quite a bit again lately, after having a pretty good spell after my trip to Tulsa in April. This time last year is when we found out she had cancer, then she fell and broke her hip and had surgery, so this is when things really started to go bad. It's been on my mind a lot, so I'm hoping this trip will get me out of my head for a while again and provide another mental reset. 

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Coming down to the wire

I was feeling pretty good about being able to finish my Chatelaine before the retreat in just over two weeks, but then I was asked to stitch the larger Friendstitch model again (they are offering two colorways, one more muted and one brighter) and now I'm leaning towards thinking I won't get it done. But maybe I'll be able to finish it at the retreat, which would also be kind of cool, so it's all good. After my last post I did decide to move into the center and do the cross stitches there, then I started the back stitching and specialty stitches, moving from the center outwards:

I received my three latest Tiny Towns from Faye Riggsbee a couple of weeks ago, and she did an amazing job as always:

In non-stitchy news, I woke up to this site outside my bedroom window about a week ago:

She was guarding her baby, who was nestled in a little nook off of my friend's patio next door:

They were there all night, then left around 1pm--I'm sure once the neighborhood woke up and everyone let their dogs out into their yards the mama realized it wasn't the best place to bed her fawn down. It was pretty awesome to see her so close, though.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

One month from today...

...I will be flying to Charlotte for the Chatelaine retreat, and I am really looking forward to it! Last week I went to the DMV to get a Real ID, so fingers crossed that it doesn't get lost in the mail. 🤞🏻

I ended up finishing the second Friendstitch model a week ago yesterday, which was a few days earlier than I had thought, so I've been back to working on Chatelaine's Little Tuscany Mandala for the past week:

I love how each new color changes the look of the piece. I'm done with all the cross stitches in the outer border and am trying to decide if I want to start the specialty stitches in that area or head to the center and start the cross stitches there. Right now I'm leaning towards the center, because I don't need as much focus for regular stitches, but I'll see what appeals to me when I actually sit down to stitch later.

The latest Heart in Hand model I stitched has just been released:

This was stitched with one strand over two threads on 36ct linen; if/when I stitch it for myself, I will use two strands as I'm just not a fan of the coverage one strand gives. Cecilia also released another Frill for the Nativity Tiny Town:

While I like the idea of the shepherds being included in the Nativity, I will admit to being slightly disappointed that the release wasn't a Tiny Town Farm, but I guess that gives me something to look forward to in the future!

Speaking of looking forward, I was excited to see Cathy Habermann post a sneak peek of a design for the class I'll be taking with her in September:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

A bit more progress

Between my last post on May 12th and receiving two models for Friendstitch on May 15th, I was able to complete another "round" on Chatelaine's Little Tuscany Mandala:

I'm starting to think I probably won't even be done with the regular cross stitches in this one by the time the retreat rolls around, but I'm not going to worry about it as I'm just really looking forward to the trip.

The two models that arrived on the 15th were both larger than I had anticipated; last year I stitched two and one took only a day and a half and the other about three days, so I thought this year would be similar, but both designs are bigger than either of the previous ones. I finished up the first one last Wednesday, so it took about a week, and the current one will probably take closer to two weeks; I'm hoping to be done around the middle of next week.

We had another shot of yucky weather here recently, cold and wet and windy, so I still have windows in a couple of rooms to clean and all of the planting yet to do, but I'm getting there! Hopefully after next weekend most of those chores will be done and I can settle back in with the mandala for a while.

I did hear from my finisher last week that she's making a start on my Tiny Town drums, so I'm hoping to hear from her again very soon. I also think there might be a new Tiny Town being released soon, possibly a farm (Cecilia used a sheep emoji when she posted about something new coming), so I am looking forward to seeing what comes out.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week! 

It's finally spring!

We have finally had about a week of gorgeous spring weather here in Wisconsin, which has really boosted my mood lately, but it has also cut heavily into my stitching time. I am back to walking every day, which takes almost two hours by the time I walk the dogs and then go back out for more on my own, and now I'm trying to spend at least three or four hours every day doing the deep cleaning that I neglected all of last year. Once the cleaning is caught up, I need to get outside and finish some of the yard work that I didn't get to last fall and then get my flowerpots planted and the patio furniture out of the garage. All that to say that I might not have much stitching to share for a bit while I get my home (and life!) back in order.

I returned a Heart in Hand model last week, so what little stitching I did do was on Chatelaine's Little Tuscany Mandala:

I have a couple of models for Friendstitch coming, one later this week and then the second one probably next week, so I'll be working on those in my spare time, then I'm hoping to get back to the mandala. I'm thinking that I should hear from my finisher soon, so I'll be able to share some photos of the three Tiny Towns I sent to her back in March.

I'm also excited that I was able to sign up for a class with Cathy Habermann of Hands on Design that will be taking place at Primitive Gatherings Quilt Shop in September (the week before Friendstitch, luckily, so I can do both!). The class is called Elves Workshop Ornament Finishing, and there will be some prestitching that should arrive in July, so I am really looking forward to that--I've always found Cathy's finishing instructions to be great to work with, so seeing and doing them in person should be even better.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Round and round I go

I started Chatelaine's Little Tuscany Mandala a week ago yesterday and this is my progress as of last night:

I like that this one is small enough to start with the outer border (stitch count is 119 x 119) and work my way in to the center, as it will seem to progress more quickly as I get further along. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy watching these designs come to life layer by layer, and I love the way the colors look on the black Belfast so far:

I'm expecting a Heart in Hand model towards the end of the week, and then a model (models?) for Friendstitch possibly the week after that so I'm not sure how much more I'll get done on this one for a little while, but hopefully I'll get some good stitching in for the next few days.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Reset button

I've been home from Tulsa for just over a week now, and this past week I have felt better than I have since the end of January 2024, when my mom's health really started to decline. I spent most of last year in crisis mode and forgot what it felt like to live my "normal" life, so I've been struggling to find that normalcy again. Taking the trip turned out to be really good for me; getting completely out of my usual environment and having a weekend with no responsibilities to anyone, human or animal, just felt so relaxing. I know I'm not done with the grieving process, but it feels more manageable now and I am very thankful for that.

I did end up finishing Hands on Design's Botanical Bee before I left for the retreat and had ordered some finishing rounds from HOD so that I could work on fully finishing them when I got home. I don't enjoy the process of finishing and I don't have a large stash of supplies, including backing fabric, so I decided to use the fabrics I had used to stitch the designs. That seemed like it would have been a bit too plain, so I decided to stitch something on the backs and this is what I came up with:

I finished stitching the backs Saturday afternoon and was able to get them laced before I went to bed:

Yesterday I sewed them together and I now have two new FFOs!

I did the ladybug first and realized part way into it that the size 11 beads were not large enough, but I didn't want to undo it and start again, so I just went ahead and finished it; the bee turned out more like what I had been meaning to do, so I was happier with that one. Then someone on FB suggested adding a layer of larger beads to the ladybug, so I decided to try that. The red and black seed beads were too close together to add a larger white bead in every space, but I was able to fit some in and am much happier with it now:

It's not quite as good as the bee, but I can live with it!

Once I was done with those I had to think about what to work on next, and I landed on Chatelaine's Little Tuscany Mandala, which I'd like to take to the Chatelaine retreat in July:

I'm stitching it on black Belfast, which is very difficult to photograph well; hoping to make some good progress in the coming weeks, though I should be getting some models in from Heart in Hand fairly soon.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!