Two more sleeps...

...until I leave for the Mirabilia retreat in Charlotte. Although, I'll have to get up by 3am on Wednesday to make my 6am flight, so more like one and a half sleeps! 😅

I have my stitching bag pretty much ready to go, as well as a few pieces to take for the brag tables. I've never taken any for that purpose before, but since I'm taking Geranium, which was stitched as part of the retreat SAL, I thought I'd throw a few more in the bag as well. The only Mirabilia I don't currently have framed is Silver Moon Tea (which I'm hoping to send to Rensel Studio soon), but I found 27 Nora Corbett designs in the finishes bin, so I'm taking a few of those. I made a video of those finishes, which is posted on my Instagram if you're interested.

I did decide to take Red with me, which hasn't been worked on since a retreat in 2014 (where the heck does time go?!):

I'm hoping to make good progress this week, and my long-term goal is to keep her out when I get home and try to finish once the Nora Corbett models are done.

For table gifts this time I put together the threads for Portrait of Antique Vines, which was published in a little booklet for Mirabilia's 25th anniversary:

The only things missing are a pack of beads, a pack of treasures and a piece of fabric. I always stress about this part of retreats, but I hope this is seen as a decent offering. I actually stitched the model for the booklet:

And then stitched it again for myself with a color conversion:

I doubt I'll get much stitching done in the next couple of days, between cleaning and packing. I always obsess about packing so much before a trip that it's always a relief when I finally leave for the airport just so I can quit thinking about it! 🤣

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!