I got hands on with Hands on Design

Last Friday and Saturday I attended the Elves Ornament Workshop - The Holidays Take Shape with Cathy Habermann and I had a wonderful time. It was held at Primitive Gathering quilt shop in Larsen, WI, and it was so nice to have an event like this only 20 minutes away from my house. Primitive Gatherings consists of two buildings--the storefront and a retreat center with rooms for out-of-town attendees, a kitchen that provides breakfast for those staying in the center and a homemade lunch for the class members and a beautiful, large space for the class. I took a few photos of the space, moving in a counterclockwise direction:

Towards the front of the room, Cathy had set up a small trunk show, with a lot of her designs that were finished as ornaments; she showed us how the shapes that we worked on at the class could be altered to make other shapes, using the same techniques that we learned. So fun to see all of these adorable designs all together like this:

We spent the first day learning how to lace the ornaments, based on the different shapes. Here's my workspace at the beginning of the day:

And here it is at the end:

That circle in the middle is the laced back for a bonus chart that we received right before we left for the day. I only worked on it for a couple of hours Friday night, so it took me most of the day yesterday to finish stitching it:

Saturday was spent assembling the ornaments and embellishing them; this was at the start of the day:

I was able to completely finish three of them during class, but it took me another couple of hours at home to get the rocking horse done. Here they are in all their glory:

I'll be assembling the last ornament later today, then I'll take some individual photos that I'll post next week. I feel like I really learned a lot by taking this class, and I'm excited to use my new skills going forward. I just need to try to finish at least one thing about once a month, so I don't forget everything!

I was also excited that Cathy had brought her newest releases, because I am absolutely in love with Murder in the Garden! It's finished like her Philanthropic Pumpkin (which I had her sign for me), and now that I've taken this class I feel like I might actually be able to get a decent result when I try to finish them:

I'm planning to start one of the Nora Corbett models tomorrow, which reminds me that I squeaked in a finish on her Indian Ocean Mermaid last Thursday night--yay! This was stitched on an orphan fabric by Ship's Manor, with a slightly darker skin tone than charted:

I was a bit torn when using the Distant Hills Waterlilies on the tail, as I wasn't a fan of the way the green and purple made streaky lines, so I ended up working it in small sections to eliminate the streaks. I kind of like the way it turned out, almost like water is flowing over it and being refracted into shimmers.

This coming Saturday is the online Friendstitch event, so I'll also be able to share the models I stitched for that next week--stay tuned!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!