Came home sick from the retreat...

...ugh!! While I was driving home on the 28th I felt a little off but thought I might just be tired; by Monday I could tell I was actually sick and by Thursday it was pretty bad. I'm feeling better now but am still coughing quite a bit while it clears out. I had a bad feeling when I was in the elevator of the hotel and a little girl sneezed--I could picture those germs just going everywhere and wreaking havoc!

The retreat itself was a fun time; the stitching room was open from 10a-11p Thursday, 8a-11p Friday and Saturday and 8a-12p Sunday, which was a lot of stitching time to enjoy. I didn't do any stitching on Sunday, though, because I just wanted to get the drive over with at a reasonable time, get home and get my laundry done. I stopped at Stitchville on my way into town and found it was probably the best shop I've ever visited; it's a shame that it's closing, as I'm sure local stitchers will feel pretty bereft without it.

I wasn't particularly thrilled with the hotel that the retreat was held at, as it's right by the airport and there was no way to walk to any restaurants, or even any close drive-thru places. It was also too warm in the personal rooms; the AC hadn't been turned on yet, so the lowest temperature I could get my room to was 72F, and it wouldn't even stay at that, so I didn't sleep very well because I was just too warm. They're going to hold the retreat again next year, in May, so maybe the AC will be turned on by then--I'm not sure if I'll go again or not at this point, I'll have to think about it for a while.

I think my gift bags were well received; I ended up with an extra one because we only had five people at our table. Then Saturday morning a woman staying at the hotel came into the room to look at all of the stitching and really liked it, so I ended up giving her the extra bag and a needle so she would have everything she needed to try cross stitching for the first time--perhaps she's a convert by now!

I did get a lot of stitching done on Silver Moon Tea; this was about where she was when I left for the retreat:

And this is how she looked when I got home:

I stitched a couple of small models last week for the upcoming Friendstitch event in September, and then I went back to SMT, so as of last night she looks like this:

My dog Murphy is having a medical issue right now, so I'm not sure how much stitching time I'll have in the near future as the vet figures out what further tests are needed. I'm trying not to get ahead of myself and worry too much, but it's always hard when a pet is ailing. At this point in my life, I'm really feeling like I don't want dogs anymore because I'm just kind of tired of being needed too much from too many sides, so it's a difficult time.

The day I left for the retreat I got an email from Faye Riggsbee that my Tiny Towns were finished; these are the photos she attached:

Didn't she do an amazing job on these? The fabrics and the embellishments are perfect; I especially love the shell and starfish on the top of Seaside Tiny Town--so cute!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Almost time to Get Your Stitch On

This Thursday is the start of Needle Bling Design's Get Your Stitch On retreat, and I am both excited and nervous. The other night I had a dream that I forgot to take stitching with me, and even my sleeping brain must have known that that was ridiculous as it morphed into having my stitching but someone had purposely taken just the clamps from my Qsnaps, so I couldn't frame my fabric and stitch--too funny!

I haven't been to very many retreats over the years since I am a pretty extreme introvert, but I've always enjoyed them when I've gone. I never participate in any exchanges because that's just too much pressure, but now it seems to be a thing to have gifts for your tablemates, so I made my first foray into that custom. I got some cards with small designs that would be suitable for stitching on perforated paper, small easels and canvases that could be painted and then used to display the finishes and the floss and paper needed to stitch the designs, and I made some counting pins; this is the result:

Credit for the counting pins goes to Honeybee over on her blog, where she explained her process for making them; I just bought a couple of strings of beads and went for it:

Now I just need to pick up a few groceries to take with me, gas up my car and pack. I'm happy that I can drive to this one, as it's just about 4.5 hours away, which is part of the reason I decided to go. I am also hoping to go to Stitchville while I'm there--the store is closing and I'm not sure how much will be left, but I'd like to see it one time before it's gone. The retreat starts Thursday at 10am, so I'm driving over on Wednesday and will try to get to Stitchville then. I also need to look into the location of Welcome Stitchery relative to the hotel; I used to shop there when it was located in Illinois, so I'd kind of like to stop in just for old times' sake. 

I decided that I would take Mirabilia's Silver Moon Tea with me to work on; I had taken it to Charlotte last October, but then didn't work on it very much since I started the retreat design there. I pulled it out last Friday to put it on the Qsnaps and stitch on it for long enough to figure out where I was in the chart and get a feel for the symbols; this is where I started:

When I started this back in 2012 I used to do all the back stitching and beading at the end, but now I do them as I go so this weekend I had fun bringing her face to life:

I am hoping to make a lot of progress at the retreat, and possibly even finish her sometime in May. I don't want her to disappear into the WIP bin for another 12 years!

Speaking of finishes, I do have a couple since my last post; the first is Mill Hill's Puppy Love, which I wrapped up the day after I wrote that post:

And I finished Nora Corbett's Miss Pink Mushroom, which was good because I needed the Qsnaps for Silver Moon Tea!

The fabric for this is Autumn Leaves on 36ct linen from NicholasFlamelDesign on Etsy. At one point I did get a bit worried that it was too similar in color to the design, but I'm very happy with the finished piece.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Tiny Town #10 is done

The day after my last post I finished Just Nan's Enchanted Hearts:

This was such a satisfying stitch: a variety of different stitches, each band went fairly quickly, that band of lace hearts at the bottom is such a beautiful touch and just the overall feeling of community as I worked on a class project with notes from 30 years ago. I've stitched quite a few of Nan's smalls over the years, but this was my first band sampler and now I'm already looking forward to picking another one to start.

Once that one was off the Qsnaps I immediately loaded them up with Heart in Hand's Frosty Tiny Town, to which I added the separate Frosty Frill chart. Every time I stitch a Tiny Town it becomes my new favorite, and this one was no exception. I chose a Silkweaver solo on Belfast linen from my stash; it was a darker gray than the recommended fabric, but I liked that because I wanted the snowflakes to really pop, and it had some nice mottling with even a tinge of purple in it; I finished it last Thursday:

I did have an issue with two of the flosses being too similar in color; my Deep Fennel was a bit too dark, so it didn't have much contrast with the Chesapeake Bay. I had already stitched the first snowman's house when I pulled a different skein of Deep Fennel and tried a bit on a different house; it was definitely lighter, so I made the difficult decision to do some frogging and restitching:

I'm glad I took the time to make the change. because I think it looks better with more definition between the two colors when they're used next to each other. I did make just a few changes to this piece: I added a purple that I used for the scarves on the snowmen (one that was complementary to the tinge of purple in the fabric), I used orange for their noses instead of brown (carrots instead of sticks!), I used a button for the pom-pom on the first snowman's hat and because I switched the second snowman's scarf from red to purple I was able to change the blue jay into a cardinal without having too much red in that area.

This is my 10th Tiny Town so far, five of which have been made onto drums and four of which are at the finisher waiting to be "drummed". While I've already stitched the Any Town Tiny Town, I'm going to stitch it again as charted (I previously did a modified version where three of the buildings were based on shops local to me), and there is a now a More Any Town Tiny Town chart, so I have both of those kitted up (they use the same threads except for one used in just one of the designs) with a piece of PTP Demoiselle Belfast, ready to go when the urge strikes.

I've also done a bit more on Nora Corbett's Miss Pink Mushroom; all of the orange is now stitched so there's just greens left to do:

I was going to keep working on her until she was done, but this past Saturday I played pickleball for the first time and managed to get hurt almost right away! I played tennis in high school and college, and racquetball with my husband after that, but it's been at least 25 years since I've done anything on a court and it turns out I can't make those quick feet adjustments when a ball comes right at me--somehow my lower legs/feet got twisted together and I fell like a tree trunk right onto my right side! My hip took the brunt of it, but I definitely squashed the tendon in my shoulder, so I have limited range of movement for now. I thought at first that I'd have to go to the doctor this week, but so far it seems to be improving so hopefully that won't be necessary; I have a stitch retreat (Needle Bling Design's Get Your Stitch On Retreat in Bloomington, MN) coming up in a couple of weeks, so I really hope it continues to feel better. To add insult to injury, later on a ball bounced up off my racket and hit me in the nose, which made my nose bleed--that's when we called it a day!

Since my right shoulder is very sore, yesterday I pulled out another Mill Hill kit and worked on that, using my left arm to pull the perforated paper to and fro instead of pulling the floss with my right hand. My Callie was not impressed that I'm now working on the Puppy Love kit instead of Kitty Love:

I'm just glad that I was able to stitch on something, and made good progress:

I'll probably have this done by the time my shoulder is completely healed, which is hopefully soon...

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

A bump in the road on the way to normal

The day after my last post, March 5th, my mom was approved to move into an independent living community, so I called a mover to see about getting on his schedule. I thought it would probably be around the end of March, so imagine my surprise when he said he could do it on the 10th--which left me four days to pack up an entire apartment entirely on my own! I got it done with about half of Saturday to spare, then the move and unpacking took the next two days, and then the next day I spent cleaning the old apartment, so pretty much an entire week was spent with no time to do anything but the most necessary chores at home and then fall into bed by 8:30pm because most mornings I was awake for the day by about 3am, thinking of all the stuff I had to get done that day. Did I mention that I was also going to my friend's house next door twice a day to take care of her cats while she was out of town? So yeah, this has been a pretty awful month, with almost no stitching time until the last week or so.

Last week I had to spend a few hours at the hospital while my mom had an outpatient procedure done, so I took Harvest Tiny Town with me and set up in the cafeteria:

After a latte and a muffin, I passed the time stitching, and I got enough done that I was able to then finish it up last Thursday:

It was stitched on PTP Chalice Newcastle linen, and the Harvest Frill is also included in the piece. It joins three other Tiny Towns that I will be sending to my finisher later today or tomorrow, to be finished into drums:

Thursday was also the first day of a show that two local EGA chapters put on in Green Bay. I had planned to go on Friday, but then learned that we would be getting a few inches of snow that day, so I decided to go Thursday evening even though I was really tired. I am very glad I decided to drag myself up there, because aside from seeing all of the beautiful work done by the members, I found a load of gorgeous Just Nan designs on the rummage tables, all for just $18:

It turns out that Enchanted Hearts was the very first class project Nan designed in 1994, and it's very cool because the stitcher has included all of the printouts from a message board where participants were "meeting" and the instructor was posting tips for stitching each band every day for a couple of weeks. I ended up starting the sampler on Saturday morning, and by last night I was already into band 9 of 14:

I am very happy that the original stitcher didn't use the embellishment pack, because it comes with this sweet little bit of lace that will be used for band 14:

It was so nice to finally spend a weekend in my craft room, working on this sampler, with college basketball on in the background and just feeling the serenity that comes with my stitching. Although, on a side note, my Fighting Illini will now be playing my husband's Iowa State Cyclones in the Sweet 16 this Thursday; we've weathered a lot together in our soon-to-be 33 years of marriage, but this could get ugly... :D

Another wonderful thing that happened last week was that Amber from Rensel Studio emailed to let me know that the pieces I sent to them back in February 2023 were finally done--that is always a very exciting email to receive! They will most likely arrive later this week or early next week, but here are the photos that Amber sent:

Mirabilia's Lady of Mystery conversion

Nora Corbett's Luce Mia

Nora Corbett's Victorian Christmas Eve

Amy Bruecken's A Little Batty

I am beyond thrilled with the work they've done on these, and can't wait to see them in person soon; such a long wait, but totally worth it.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Slowly getting back to normal

Thank you so much for the well wishes for my mom; she continues to work on getting her strength back in the rehab facility with no big setbacks, so I'm hoping we're past the worst of this particular episode.

I've been a bit all-over-the-place with my stitching lately, as I'm still finding it difficult to settle down and get back into my normal rhythm on any one project. I did finish Kitty Love, the Mill Hill kit I was working on in my last post, and I think he's adorable:

This one wasn't extremely bead heavy, but it's still fun to see the before-and-after photos:

I have Puppy Love all ready to go (in case of emergency!), even though as the years go on, I find myself going from being a dog and cat person to leaning more into just being a cat person. This is what Puppy Love will look like when stitched:

I worked on Miss Pink Mushroom quite a bit and am still enjoying her. I would have to rank orange as being one of my least favorite colors, but there's just something about a little orange lady that makes me really like it in this design:

Last Friday I received a lovely package from Cecilia of Heart in Hand Needleart with some of her new releases from the Nashville Market, which took place this past weekend. Two new Tiny Towns, including Frosty Tiny Town, for which I stitched the drum model, Frosty Frill and a book containing some of her Collector's Hearts from the past 20+ years:

There are six of her Hearts in the book, a few of which include both the original version and an updated version for 2024, as well as a new design called Kindness, which is the round piece on the cover. It's a beautiful book, really a pleasure to look through. I'm hoping to play with some colors and stitch Kindness soon in a different palette than is called for--I'm thinking some purples and pinks, but who knows what I'll end up with when I go stash diving.

I decided that before I started any of the new designs I would make myself finish Harvest Tiny Town; I'm out of empty Qsnaps right now anyway, so I have to finish it so I can frame up a new one! I made just a bit of progress last night, but am hoping to get close to finishing by the end of the week:

For most of February I kept seeing posts on Facebook about Leap Day SALs, where you start something on 2/29/24 and try to finish it on or before 2/29/28. I honestly didn't think I would have the energy to get a project together and be able to start it on time, but things had settled down just enough that by February 26th I decided I would make Mirabilia's Lady of the Flag my Leap Day start. I had bought the kit on clearance many years ago at Hobby Lobby, so all I had to do was pick a fabric; I decided on BANG!!! Cashel linen from Crossed Wing Collection:

Unfortunately, even though the fabric said it was "approximately 24" x 27", which would have left just enough border at the top and bottom, it turned out that all three pieces that I had were only 26" high and were too short to use. So, I went stash diving and came up with a piece of PTP's Mystic on Edinburgh linen; while it won't look like a starry sky, I do think she'll glow on this fabric so I'm reasonably happy with it as a backup. I made a very small start on 2/29 (and now I have four years to finish!):

I also decided at the last minute to create a Facebook group for a Mirabilia Leap Day SAL, where people pick a Mirabilia or Nora Corbett design (or some people are starting more than one) and try to finish it by 2028. I've committed to finishing Lady of the Flag and then giving the chart away to a member of the group at the end of the SAL, so I'm hoping that will make me get her done for sure.

For now it's back to Harvest Tiny Town, and then I'll decide if I want to try to finish Miss Pink Mushroom or make some progress on Lady of the Flag, or start another Tiny Town, or maybe Kindness...

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!