An Update--Back to Reality!

Well, our retreat ended on Friday and now life is back to somewhat normal. I didn't really take any pictures except for the first day, but I will share this one with you.


This is Joan's cat--he is such a good sport! He loves it when the stitching girls come over.

The only thing I worked on at retreat was Part 4 of my Isa Vautier SAL. I finally finished up the last square this morning.



I am still loving this piece even though I really had the itch to start something new at retreat. So far I have gone through 9 skeins of floss. That is hard to believe.

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Brigitte finally received my summer exchange from the Friends through Threads exchange blog. I decided to go with a "bee" theme and stitched Lizzie Kate's "June Stamp Flip It". It is stitched on 28ct. Lugana. However, I changed all the colors to DMC Variations except the white and black. I finished it as a tape measure holder and was lucky to find a tape measure with a bee on it.



Here is a picture of the entire exchange.


This was great fun for me as I have always wanted to do some "bee" stuff!

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Terri received my "Stitcher's Choice" ornament for the ASOE Ornament exchange.


I stitched Heart in Hand's "Blackbird Sampler" on a 32ct. Linen remnant with DMC as charted. Terri loves Blackbirds so I thought she would like this.

I am the only one home today so I am going to "play".

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

StitchFest '09

Well yesterday was day 1 of our annual Stitching Retreat. We really didn't get any stitching in but what a day it was.

I got to Joan's by 6:30. After unpacking my van and a little bs'ing, Joan, her husband David, and I went out to iHop for breakfast. Lori met us there before she had to go to the doctor. After we ate, we went to the 3M employee store and were relieved that Joan and David's "Aberdeen" ID's worked--we were in!

We then went back to Joan's house and after lunch Chris came and at about 2 we met up with Jackie and we all went to our LNS. Oh boy! We were there for about 1-1/2 hours, got lots of goodies and then went to Chili's for dinner.

After dinner we went back to Joan's and waited for Cathy. Here is me sporting my special retreat hat that my mom made.


Here are some of the decorations that Lori and Joan had.






Once Cathy got there it was time to exchange goodies!

These are from Joan:


Joan stitched us a fob, a pinkeep and a pincushion/ort jar--very cute! She also made us a pillowcase to go over the pillow we got last year from Jackie. Also a snowman tape measure, a drinking glass, post-it notes, pencil and note paper. What fun!

These are from Lori:


Lori made a beaded scissor fob attached to a white "Little Gems" scissors. Kleenex, note cards, note pad, a china bowl, a smalle zippered bag...all snowmen themed.

These are from Cathy:


Cathy took care of our drinking needs. And since Joan's house is kept quite cold these days, I think we will be tapping into these--cocoa and tea, yum! Cathy also made us a very cute snowman ornament.

Here is what Jackie gave each of us:

Jackie gave us a large zippered bag, note cards, an ort jar, a cute felt snowman bag, soap, scissors and a snowman "Doodles" kit.

And these are from me:


My mother made the snowman slippers--aren't they cute? A drinking glass, candles, the ingredients to make "snowman soup" in a tin, a small clip on light, a snowman scissors (same as what Jackie gave us), a thread counter with a small snowman on it and a snowman ornament made out of felt.

Lots of great stuff! We didn't get much stitching done yesterday but we had lots of fun! Today we are getting down to business. Stitching, stitching, stitching, and of course a little eating in between. LOL!