A Wonderful Time Was Had By All

We had a wonderful day at the mini-retreat. The day started with greeting longtime friends and acquaintances, some of whom had traveled over an hour to be with us. Then it was time for breakfast from the hotel’s great buffet and omelet and waffle station.

Then on to the stitching! Here we have a room full of happy stitchers finishing up breakfast and starting to stitch.

Shortly before lunch, we had our first finish for the day. Here is my mother-in-law’s project from a recent regional EGA mini-seminar. This is Daphne Reborn by Michael Boren in the olive green color scheme. Isn’t it stunning? Congratulations, Mom!

One of the highlights of the day was the raffle. Tickets were 6 for $5. I started putting my tickets into  an entry  bag here and there when I came across the sweater. One of the ladies who helps to organize this event had hand-knit a gorgeous sweater in a lovely shade of blue in a size 4T.  I ended up putting my last 3 tickets in this drawing, and then I went back an purchased another 6 tickets to put in the sweater’s bag. So maybe I stacked the deck by purchasing so many tickets, but it paid off!

Isn’t it lovely? I do need to hang onto it, though. It will be at least a year before my daughter fits into this beautiful creation. Oh well. It will still bring out the blues in her eyes! (Thank you, Judy!)

My only complaint about the day was that it almost wasn’t bright enough if you weren’t right next to the windows. I’ll be sure to bring my portable light for the next event (currently being planned for March). I’m already looking forward to it!

Thank you, Janice, for organizing this lovely day!

Looking Forward to a Day of Stitching!

I am SO looking forward to tomorrow. My daughter is going to spend the day at my mom’s, and I’m going to stitch!

A local group of stitchers books a conference room at a local hotel every few months just for a day of stitching. I was a fairly regular attendee at these mini-retreats prior to motherhood, but in the last three years, I’ve only managed to drop in on the ladies occasionally for a half-hour or so, baby (and then toddler) in tow (since they like to see her).

But tomorrow’s event is less than a mile away from Grandma’s house, so I can easily drop E off in the morning, go stitch, maybe pick her up to bring her to see the ladies for a bit, then take her back for a nap while I get to stitch some more!

How screwed up are my priorities that I’m cutting this post short tonight so I can get to bed early tonight, when I’ve been staying up late all week to write despite needing to go to work in the morning? Oh well. I’ll take lots of progress pictures tomorrow, I promise!

Faith

Since May 2007, embroidery enthusiasts from around the world have been watching (via blog, of course!) the development of an embroidered jacket modeled after two examples from the 17th century. Along the way, the jacket acquired a name: "Faith", for the tremendous journey of faith it took for this vision to come to fruition.

Some details to consider:

• The project involved almost 260 people, from stitchers (some experienced, some first-timers), to lace-makers, textile manufacturers, and coordinators.
• Several 17th-century threads, such as Gilt Sylke Twist, were recreated for this project and are now in production again.
• When Plimoth Plantation canceled the exhibit for which the jacket was being developed, the volunteer efforts continued, with the belief that the jacket would be completed and exhibited somewhere. (Hence the name "Faith"!)
  

Today is the day. Faith is being unveiled tonight at Plimoth Plantation, and on the Embroiderers' Story blog. She even made the front page of the Boston Globe's metro section.

If you're visiting the blog, start with this post, and check out the posts that follow it, too, for lots of pictures of this magnificent accomplishment. Be sure to click on the pictures to make them bigger. Some can be clicked twice to make them REALLY big. If the pictures on the blog whet your appetite, you may want to visit Winterthur Museum in Delaware sometime between spring 2010 and early 2012, where Faith will be on exhibit for all to see.

Congratulations to Tricia Wilson-Nguyen, who was the driving force behind the project, and to all those who had the wonderful experience of contributing to such an amazing piece of embroidery history.

A very special post

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy Blogoversary to me!

And, to top it off, this is my 300th post!

True to her name, Erin (though she's only 1/4 Irish - thanks to MIL), got into the spirit of the day.Winnie-the-Pooh came by to celebrate, but Erin was already asleep!Mom's going to celebrate by trying to finish the first petal on the middle flower of Floral Rondel. Maybe I'll have an update in the next day or so.

Louisville 2008: a cruise, the closing banquet, and stash enhancement

Ok. I'm inexcusably late with my last post about Louisville, but to hide exactly how late (for future readers) and to help with the flow of the blog, I'm antedating this post. :-)

Wednesday of seminar week gave us a break from the longer classes. Some folks went on tours and some die-hards took a single-day class, but I slept in a bit and then went to the merchandise event. I spent most of the day there, helping with my chapter's sale table and figuring out where to spend some stash money. (More on the stash accumulation later!) The picture shows the beginning of the crowds at the event. There were many more people in the room as the day progressed.

Around mid-afternoon, MIL and I walked the half-block over to EGA headquarters. There, we spent quite a bit of time admiring the National Tapestry (which I had been fortunate enough to put a few stitches in when it was being worked). We viewed the National Exhibit, admiring some pieces and puzzling over others, wondering where a needle might actually have been used. Upstairs we enjoyed some of the permanent pieces of the collection, including a wonderful crewel bench embroidered by the master, Audrey Francini. The Tenessee Valley Region also had an exhibit upstairs which had some beautiful pieces.

Wednesday evening was spent on a riverboat cruise. We boarded the Belle of Louisville at 7PM. Dinner (including, of course, incredible fried chicken) was enjoyable despite the lack of air circulation on the second deck. After dinner, most of us escaped the heat by heading up to the upper deck to enjoy the breeze and to watch twilight descend on the Ohio River. Eventually, the boat turned around and headed back to the city. Louisville is beautiful from the river at night! Though my camera doesn't capture night scenes well, the overall impression comes through with a few pictures.






As classes drew to a close on Friday, we all prepared to say goodbye. The ballroom was decorated beautifully for the closing banquet. The banquet was opened with the "Call to the Post" (call to dinner?) performed by the official bugler of Churchill Downs, and then he (the bugler) shared some of his experiences in that post. He closed his speech by playing "My Old Kentucky Home". Though it had absolutely nothing to do with embroidery, it was wonderful to get a taste of Louisville culture through this enjoyable speech.

Now, on to the stash! I was very pleased with the favor from the closing banquet: a beautiful pair of stork scissors with a leather case. I've been stitching for over 15 years, yet never had stork scissors until now!





Between the bookstore, EGA headquarters, and the merchandise event, I picked up several books:

• Ruskin Lace & Linen Work by Elizabeth Prickett. This has been on my wish list for a long time.
• SuZy's Lite Stitches by Suzy Murphy. I'm hoping this will help with some of the painted canvases I struggle with.
• The Art of Teaching Embroidery by Sandy Rogers. I've enjoyed teaching a few projects to my guild chapters, so thought I'd read up on it to see how I can improve.
• Elegance from the Past, which contains instructions to reproduce a pulled-thread piece from EGA's collection.
• The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir. While this novel is not about stitching, this fit in well with the Tudor-Style purse class I was taking.

At the merchandise event, I purchased several small things: a few packs of needles, a collection of various sizes of gold spangles, a pair of extremely sharp scissors from Japan, some new hand lotion, a Brussels lace kit from somebody's stash, and a pair of burling irons (which are wonderful, very fine tweezers - perfect for removing dog hair from projects - believe me - I've tried them already!) I also made one larger purchase: the kit for Joan Thomasson's Czarist Treasures, including the design drawn on congress cloth.

I made a few trips to the seminar boutique over the course of the week. I think Stitcher's Workshop brought their entire shop to Louisville! I combined a search for "new to me" threads with gathering threads for a geometric canvas class scheduled for November.

I really enjoyed my first national seminar! Thanks to all of the EGA volunteers for pulling together a fabulous time.

Louisville 2008: Tudor-Style Purse class

My four-day class in Louisville was fantastic! I took the Tudor-Style Purse, taught by Chris Berry. Chris is the chairman of the Embroiderers' Guild in the UK, and has obviously done oodles of research on historical English embroidery. In our class, she focused on the silk-and-metal scroll work typically done in the Tudor period in the 16th and early 17th century.

The class started off with two days of working sample stitches to put in a notebook. We learned several variations of detached buttonhole stitch, as well as trellis stitch, detached up-and-down buttonhole stitch (both corded and non-corded), ceylon stitch, filling in shapes with all of these, and making tassels and two types of braids. Chris provided us with pictures of these stitches used in historical pieces.






I really liked Chris's idea for the stitch notebook. She requested that each of us bring a small, unlined journal. We could then write our comments about each stitch, paste in the historical pictures, and stitch in our sample stitches. I found a spiral bound journal that was a little longer than specified (at 70 pages), but I'm glad I did. I'm actually pasting Chris's instructions in it, along with comments, pictures, and my samples. Since the stitch samples make the book a bit thicker, I'll be able to rip out the unused pages and it will still fit nicely within the spiral binding.

The second two days were dedicated to the purse. Each of us decided upon a design, out of 6 options (or we could design our own, if desired). I chose to do a scroll design of peapods, partially because I liked the idea of doing an open pod, and partially because I didn't really want to do a purple flower on purple fabric. Each of us only had purple background fabric (wonderful stuff called silk noil), purple and green cotton threads, and gold metallic threads. I wanted my design to stand out, not shrink into the fabric. I was able to get all of the green done on the design before the end of class. This design is not very big - only about 3" across. Chris provided all the instructions we need to construct the purse (or sweet bag). It will probably never be worn, but I do intend to complete it!

I cannot speak highly enough of Chris Berry as an instructor. She was great, answering individual questions, checking on each student in turn, and explaining some things multiple times. When asked on Friday, she even revisited the slides she showed us at the beginning of class so we could have a better appreciation of where some of the stitches we learned were used in historical pieces. I was concerned that I would not have enough of the green thread to finish my peapods, and mentioned this to her. It turned out I did have enough, so I didn't go back to her to get more thread. She remembered, though, and mailed some more thread to me before she left Louisville! I thought that was very classy.

Thank you, Chris, for a great class!

Good news & bad news

Yes, I know I didn't post as much as I'd intended in Louisville, and I fully plan to still put posts together about my fabulous 4-day class, some of my stash purchases, and some other odds and ends from seminar. I returned home Saturday night, and it's been a fairly emotional week.

Good news or bad news first?

Let's start with the good news, since it's needlework related. A month ago or so, I wrote about sending two pieces to the ANG National Seminar Exhibit in Indian Wells, California. I found out on Sunday (third-hand) that my Lilacs took First Place (!!!!) in the Independent Project, Professional category. Wow! (As to why I'm considered a professional, it's because at one time I was doing some model stitching for a cross-stitch designer, and ANG considers someone a professional if that person ever earned any money doing any needlework, regardless if the pieces being entered are in the same technique.)

It didn't stop there. Apparently the same person who called the person who called me ALSO called our ANG chapter president. I found out this evening at our chapter meeting that the Lilacs also won the Princess Grace Award! I am in complete shock! According to the ANG website,

"The Princess Grace Award may be given to any entry, in any judged category, that is worked entirely in the tent stitch without embellishments such as beads or other attachments, in order to maintain the purity of the stitching technique. The tent stitch is defined as going over one intersection from lower left to upper right with no back stitches, seed stitches, or outline stitches."

On my entry form, I had indicated that this piece could qualify for the award, but I had absolutely NO expectations of winning it! Holy cow!

(And if anybody can confirm this, PLEASE let me know. I'm in a bit of denial!)

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And the bad news (and a rare non-needlework bit of info): Also on Sunday, DH and I turned our male greyhound, Tucker, over to another home. After many, many incidents that indicated Tucker just couldn't continue to stay in a crate when we were at work (the latest happened last week when I was at seminar), we finally had to admit that we couldn't help him live a happy, healthy life.

In the crate, he would tear up any blankets (until we finally purchased a very expensive, guaranteed-not-to-tear dog bed), gnaw on the bars of the crate (breaking several welds and wearing down his teeth), and generally be VERY unhappy for the time we were at work. We just don't have a place to put him where he could be safe out of the crate either, because he has a tendency to eat things that could hurt him, too.

Last Thursday evening, when others were enjoying the auction at seminar, I was on the phone to the leader of our greyhound rescue group explaining all of this, and bawling non-stop.

Tucker had been a part of our lives for over five years, but he has been moved to a new home where the people are home more and have a safe, non-crated area for him (and their other greyhounds) to stay when they aren't home. I'm sure he's pretty bewildered right now, and I tear up a bit each day with missing him, but I know it's for the best. I want to call each day asking how he's doing, but I'm trying to wait until the weekend.

Our other greyhound, Sophie, who was always a bit (ok, a lot) intimidated by him, on the other hand, thinks this is great! She has blossomed in the past few days, and we've learned that perhaps this change is the best for both of them.

The few pictures here are of Tucker on Sunday morning. I'll miss you, Tucker Magoo. :-(

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We now return this blog to its regularly-scheduled (ok, maybe not quite regularly-scheduled) needlework content.

Louisville 2008: Marion Scoular's RSN experience

As promised, here is the picture-heavy post from Marion's lecture. Marion started at the Royal School of Needlework in 1953 when she was just 16. At the time, she was the youngest student ever enrolled. The next three years were spend stitching in the morning and doing art/design activities in the afternoon, except for Thursdays, which were for dressmaking. This curriculum in the school lasted until the mid-60's (if I recall correctly). At the time, the diploma was considered a Master's level degree in art. The certification process is a bit different now, and no longer carries the same weight.

Anyway, on to the pictures!
Each piece they worked was on the right side of the full piece of fabric. On the left side, there were several inches reserved for doodles. Above is one of the doodle areas from Marion's blackwork project. She has these doodles matted for display and reference purposes.

This is the associated blackwork project. The design process sounded interesting, with each student playing with cut paper shapes and gluing them down into different configurations. When it came time to do a new project, the teachers would go through each student's collection of such creations and narrow down the designs to those that would be appropriate for the technique to be worked. After a bit of tweaking and refining, the piece could be stitched (after the doodle was complete for reference).

This is her "basic" whitework/drawn work piece. Sure... basic. Uh huh.

This is the advanced whitework piece. It was really hard to take a good picture of this without casting a shadow. The dove's eyes in the cut portions are about 1.5mm (yes, mm) across.

This was a multi-technique project done in silk. It was fascinating to see the play of light off of this. Above is the close shot of the elephant, and the entire composition is below.
This is a close-up of the edging of the nightie she made in dressmaking class. It's impressive enough without knowing that the entire thing is made of nylon (ugh!), and that the stitching is done with a thread pulled from the same fabric. Rayon's bad enough. Marion's only comment was that nylon is a bit unruly or uncooperative (or some such understatement).

One of the last projects the students worked was ecclesiatical needlework. Above is a close-up of the fully-stitched angel's face. The other angel on the piece was a mirror image, entirely in applique, in different colors. Below is Marion holding the full piece.I hope you enjoyed this abbreviated version of Marion's collection from the RSN. Thank you to Marion for allowing me to post these pictures.

Louisville 2008: Sunday

On Sunday, the scheduled events started for me.

In the morning, Marion Scoular hosted a lecture in which she shared her experiences as a student at the Royal School of Needlework. This very interactive session was a wonderful event and deserves it's own post, complete with lots of pictures. I hope to have this post up later today.

After this wonderful beginning to the day, we were able to switch rooms at our hotel. The three of us are now in a room with two double beds, which is a much more comfortable situation. We had a quick lunch in the hotel cafe, and then headed back to the seminar hotel.

At 2PM, I attended a lecture by Chris Berry about the changing styles of fashion and the embroidery on those fashions in the 16th century. Unfortunately, she had a lot of material to present and only had one hour, so this was strictly a slide show and lecture, with about 5 minutes for questions at the end. It was a dark room that was slightly warm, so a few people did doze off for a bit. Since I have been reading a few books on this period (The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory and Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir) partially in preparation for my Tudor Purse class, it was pretty interesting.

We then had a session of "meet the teachers". One of the best parts of this was seeing the actual seminar projects in person. It never ceases to amaze me how poorly some pieces come across in photographs.

I was able to spend about 45 minutes looking at the education exhibit (with previews of some great new GCC's), the opportunity baskets, auction items, and the boutique. I still have not had time to go back and check these out some more.

The Legacy Reception for life members was held in the revolving restaurant at the top of the building. Since I was the only one attending from my chapter, it was a nice chance to meet people from other areas. I ended up sitting with four ladies from the NYC area and having a very enjoyable discussion. The city pictures here are from the restaurant.

The Opening Banquet was last on the agenda of the day. I converted my daytime look to a 50's look (since this is the 50th anniversary of EGA) with the addition of white tennis shoes, bobby socks, and a beribboned ponytail. The banquet was lovely. I was very impressed that the servers were able to serve over 900 people within 15 minutes. The meal was followed by a few brief talks, award presentations, and a wonderful keynote speech by Marion Scoular. The banquet favor was this lovely charm bracelet.

After several detours (due to the Ironman Triathlon finish line being between the two hotels), we finally arrived back at our hotel about 10:30. With classes coming up quickly in the morning, we headed to bed!

Louisville 2008: Saturday

(Yes, I'm a bit behind in posting. We've been incredibly busy here at seminar, but I hope to catch up on posting each day's activities by tonight or tomorrow! Sorry to keep anybody waiting!)

The trip from Rochester to Louisville went fairly smoothly. Along the way, we had several mini adventures to keep us amused:

• After having a soap dispenser spit on her at one stop and slicing her finger open on a stubborn paper towel dispenser at another, we decided MIL was "restroom challenged." The three of us (MIL, "S", and I) enjoyed this series of events for the rest of the trip, with S needing to scope out possible trouble spots in each restroom before MIL could go in. :-)


• At one stop, we had dig through S's "bag of crap" (which was full of miscellaneous threads, projects, and books, but also had some of the stuff she needed for class, so she just brought the entire thing) for the perfect color of floss for the project I was stitching. We decided that sometimes, a "bag of crap" is just what's needed.
  


• After a recent software download, the GPS system in MIL's car started chiming three times at random intervals along a trip. We spent a lot of time pondering possible reasons that triggered these chimes. Was there a cell tower nearby? Were we speeding or going too slow? Was it because we changed lanes? We ended up with the thought that it chimed every time it recalculated our estimated arrival time. As you can imagine, this happened a lot over the course of a 10 hour trip made longer by stops along the way.

When we finally arrived in Louisville, we had just 30 minutes to spare before seminar registration closed for the day, so we stopped there first, then moved on to our hotel, which is about a half-mile away from the main seminar hotel.

After some confusion, it turned out that the hotel was out of rooms with two double beds, and the three of us were assigned a room with a single queen size bed. Ummm..... this is a problem! It turns out that the hotel management didn't believe EGA would have such a low "no show" rate, and WAY overbooked. There were no other rooms available, and no rollaway beds. Ok. Hmmm... maybe we can purchase an inflatable mattress. The bellhop tells us the closest Wal-Mart is in Indiana. Indiana?!?! Oh - that's only 20 minutes away, just across the river. We hit the road again. There was a bit of confusion in figuring out how to get on the highway, but we made it there, found our mattress, and stopped for dinner.

By the time we finally found our way back to the hotel, it was 10:30. Time for bed!

More on the continuing adventures of seminar in the next post!

Leaving for Louisville

Here it is, o'dark o'clock on Saturday morning, and I'm packed and ready for the 10 hour drive to Louisville for EGA Seminar. Only those of us who are truly obsessed go to these lengths for our pastime! I am bringing the temperamental laptop, along with my camera and camera dock. Our hotel has free WiFi, so I'll try to post updates often!

Next time, I'll be posting from Louisville... Stay tuned!

Mini stitch retreat & Camelot progress

Today was the day scheduled for our local annual "March Madness" one-day stitch getaway at a local hotel. (Ok, so it's the same group that met in January for a similar get-together, but previously it's only been once a year!) Yesterday afternoon and evening the weather forecast was for 4 to 10" of snow & ice. Luckily, we fell on the short end of that, so while the roads were pretty slippery in the travel across town, they were passable, and we had a fun day of stitching, gabbing, and admiring each other's work.

I had great hopes of finishing Camelot during today's event, and almost accomplished it. The final step was a Double Fan Doubled, a stitch invented by Jean Hilton. (Carole Lake uses a variation of this stitch in a freebie pattern on her site, and describes the stitch well, so I won't try it here!) Unfortunately, in rushing to finish this before leaving, I didn't quite get the first part of the stitch centered or tensioned correctly, so it ended up lopsided. I frogged it when I got home.

I hope to post that this is finished tomorrow!

Stitch in today + great customer service

Today I went to a gathering of local stitchers & knitters. Approximately 37 of us gathered in a banquet room at a local hotel for a buffet breakfast and a day of our textile medium of choice. I've attended similar events with the same group before, and we always have a good time.

Since I just finished one project, I brought a few more WIPs with me. I spent a bit of time on a piece that uses Japanese flat silk, until I got completely frustrated with the silk catching on my winter-rough hands.

For a complete change of pace, I pulled out a wool felt project from Elizabeth Talledo of FingerWork / Dames of the Needle. The project is called Strawberry Purse. Prior to today, I had only cut all the pieces of felt to size and put them in place. Today I spent just a few hours on it, and had it all but finished before we left the hotel. It was so much fun! Unfortunately, I ran out of one of the threads in the kit.

Shortly after I returned home, I went to the Dames of the Needle website to find Elizabeth's email address. I sent her a note explaining about running out of thread and asking where I might be able to find more. Within 5 minutes (!), she replied, thanking me for letting her know so she could increase the amount in the kits, and apologizing. She will be sending me extra thread early next week. Bravo, Elizabeth, for great customer service!!! I love when designers care enough to go the extra mile.

Once I receive the thread, it should take me no more than 30 minutes to finish this up. In the meantime, I'll be making cording to attach as a strap. Here's the purse so far.

The Shining Needle Society

With not much progress on anything last night, I don't have any new WIP photos to share today. Instead, I'm going to tell you about an online group that has many stitchers (including me) very excited!

First, a disclaimer: I have absolutely no financial interest in this group. My only intention is to share a great online class opportunity with other stitchers, because I'm thrilled about it! :-)

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you've seen my progress on the redwork mystery sampler from Gay Ann Rogers. This sampler's online support group was the first offering from the Shining Needle Society, or SNS. Now that the sampler is almost done (Gay Ann sent out the last window this week), the organizers of SNS have started to reveal how SNS will evolve.

The mission statement of SNS is "To provide nurturing and inspiring opportunities for growth in the study of needlework, with the hope of continuing the legacy of embroidery art for future generations." The group has been described as "an online seminar", where top designers/teachers will provide opportunities to take online classes. So far there's an offering from Janet Zickler Casey, but Gay Ann says she'll be back with a new mystery soon, and there are hints of classes with Judy Souliotis and Jane Zimmerman. Plus some retired teachers may take advantage of teaching classes without the travel.

SNS is morphing from a single Yahoo! Group for Gay Ann's sampler. There is now a group for "SNS Home Room", and Gay Ann's sampler group is turning into her "classroom". Each new class offering will have it's own Yahoo! Group, available only to those taking that class, but anybody can join the SNS Home Room list to get announcements of future class opportunities. (If you're not already a member of any of Yahoo's services, you will have to create a Yahoo account.)

Yes, so far this group looks like it's primarily needlepoint or counted thread work. Perhaps if SNS hears of a need for surface embroidery also, some of those teachers may be encouraged to join in the fun!

I can't wait to see what new classes SNS has in store for us over the next few months!

Recreating a 17th Century-style jacket

You may have noticed a new blog in my list of favorites. The Embroiderers' Story is a blog from Plimoth Plantation, documenting the museum's work on a 17th century-style embroidered jacket. It's not a strict recreation, though. They're taking the cut of one jacket in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, with the embroidery of another.

The most exciting part of this project is that they're looking for help from the stitching community. If you can take the time to visit Plymouth, Massachusetts (and can afford to stay locally) during one of their stitching weekends, you can help! The curator says that you don't have to be an expert embroiderer. They're sending out a sample kit to those who would like to volunteer. You stitch the sample and send it back in. They look at what stitches are done well, but also for tension, so they can match tension in adjacent areas. If you're really good in one stitch, they can put you to work just doing that one stitch! For more details, see this post.

Speaking of stitches, that's one of the best things on this blog. The museum is working with Tricia Wilson-Nguyen of Thistle Threads to put together the sample kits and write up instructions for individual stitches and instructions for areas of the jacket. Some of the most recent blog postings are providing links to PDFs of the various stitches used. As a matter of fact, the day after I posted about trellis stitch, this blog provided detailed instructions for it!

So, while I won't be able to stitch on this fantastic project, I'm going to enjoy following its progress. The fantastic stitch instructions are a bonus!

Enjoy!

Back from seminar!

Wow, what a trip! Last night I returned from the Mid-Eastern Region EGA seminar in Chautauqua, NY.

My MIL & I left Wednesday morning at 8:30, arriving at Bellinger Hall on the grounds of Chautauqua Institution sometime around noon. We found the room in which the exhibit was to be held, and started labeling the pieces that had already been brought in by our fellow seminar workers. We ordered out for subs for us and for those doing setup of the vendor and registration areas, the opportunity baskets, and classrooms.

At some point we registered, got our room keys, and brought our luggage in. The rooms were not fancy - just dorm rooms with single beds, a small desk and wardrobe for each, and a shared bath for every two rooms. Most people, including us, specified that we wanted a private bath, so, for the most part, only every other room was populated.

By 6:00 PM Wednesday most of the exhibit entries had arrived, and some folks went out to dinner. I joined the crew that shared 6 delivered pizzas! After dinner, four of us went to work setting up the exhibit, and were done by around 9:15. (I'll share before and after pictures tomorrow, since I don't have the camera hooked up right now!) In all, we had about 65 pieces of needlework on display.

On Wednesday night, the bed I occupied was the hardest bed I had ever used. It seemed to me that I didn't sleep much, but I think I just kept waking up - frequently. MIL had brought a pillow from home, and gave me the one on her bed. I ended up sleeping on it, just so my back wouldn't be on the hard bed.

A routine started as of Thursday:

• wake up at six, take turns getting ready (and stitching while the other was doing so).
• breakfast at 7:30 - eating and lots of chatting.
• back to the room to pick up stuff for class at 9.
• At 11:55, run out of class to get the exhibit opened at noon. Coach the three people who signed up to monitor it, and trust that they'll figure out how to take turns monitoring and getting their lunches.
• 12:10 - Go have lunch, and compare notes with people in other classes.
• 1:15 - the exhibit (and the attached vendor area) is supposed to close, provided we can get excited stitchers to finish up purchases and viewing, and find the guy who's supposed to lock everything up. A couple of times I resorted to flickering the lights so people would look at their watches and realize they had 10 minutes to get back to class!
• 1:30-4:30 - back in class.
• 4:45 - repeat the exhibit opening routine, then shop for a bit, and actually take time to look at the exhibit! Once I actually had time for a bit of a walk outside!
  
• 6:00 - exhibit closed again, and we all head to dinner.
• 7:30 - exhibit opens, coach more helpers, etc. I usually headed back to my room for a bit of quiet time!
  
• 9:00 - exhibit closes for the night. Then I could find the ladies from my chapter who tended to meet in somebody's room, with hilarity ensuing! We had about 17 people from our chapter there, and all of them are lots of fun!
• Somewhere around 11:00-12:00 - clean up, change into pj's and tumble into bed.
  

The funny thing was that the bed became more comfortable every night! :-)

As for the classes, they were both great. The sampler class with Catherine Theron was pretty packed, with maybe 17 people. She handled it wonderfully, going over a stitch or two and giving us lots of time to practice and add it to our sampler. We finished going over all of the stitches by 11:00 on Friday, and then we reviewed all the central motifs in the sampler, going over what stitches were used where. Again, she broke this up, going over two to three motifs, then giving us time to stitch before we went on and talked about other motifs. By the end of class on Friday I had the main vine of the border done all the way around - and it met correctly!!!

Saturday and Sunday was Kathy Fenchel's Picnic Hampered! This is another fun piece, with plenty of challenges of its own, but it's a completely different "mood" than the sampler. There were only 6 other people in this class, three of whom were in the sampler class with me. I think we're all having more difficulty with stitching messy, random tree bark than with the detached buttonhole on the sampler! One of the other people in this class was Karen Wojahn, the national president of EGA. She sat next to me, and I was honored to get to know this lovely lady a bit!

Since the opportunity basket drawings were scheduled for lunchtime on Sunday, and we were all going to leave right after class, Saturday evening was the last exhibit showing. A few people in Studio Time were going to take down the exhibit on Sunday. As I was shutting things down Saturday, the vendors were starting to pack up. One of the vendors had brought 10 items to the exhibit, and requested hers back. I pulled all of hers, and mine, and MIL's, just to get them out of the way. Then, the owner of the pegboards we had used decided she wanted those back now, so I pulled the rest of the items off the pegboards. I was reluctant to leave a partially-disassembled exhibit open as the vendors were carting out their things, so I found a few more exhibitors in the dining room and offered to give them their pieces at that time. I found the ladies from my chapter, and got those out, too. So, out of 19 exhibitors, I distributed pieces back to all but 4 on Saturday night. A glass of wine later, and I slept the night through!

I took today as a vacation day, figuring that I'd need a day to recover, and I'm sure glad I did! Seminar was great, but it was also very tiring!

Happy Birthday to me...

Yup. It's that day. My company has given us our birthdays off this year, so I've been home all day but haven't picked up a needle! I've been working on stuff for the exhibit and washing clothes to go to seminar.

I'm so excited! This is my first seminar, regional or otherwise! I went to CATS a few years ago, but really want the longer classes that seminar offers. I'm taking two 2-day classes: Examplar IV from Catherine Theron and Picnic Hampered! by Kathy Fenchel. Plus with the exhibit, boutique, a teacher's showcase one evening and merchandise night another, it will be 4 days of nothing but needlework! I'll be back Sunday night, but I'm taking Monday off from work to recover! :-)

Anyway, when I've found some time to pick up a needle, I've been working on the Gay Ann Rogers mystery piece. I finished the bedroom, and have been plugging away on some of the borders.

I love the bedroom - this is the only time I've been able to say I stitched an entire sampler in under an hour!

I found out this week that some of the Jim Wurth kits for May will be shipped late. Since I was one of the later people to sign up for the series, my guess is that my kit will be delayed. With two new projects from seminar, though, I don't think I'll miss it too much!

I probably won't get a chance to post tomorrow morning before I leave. Stay tuned for a full seminar report on Monday!

Busy, busy! And silk gauze progress...

Well, this has been the longest gap between postings since I started the blog. I've been busy with stitching-related stuff, but haven't been stitching much. On Wednesday I leave for our EGA region seminar. I'm the exhibit chair, so this week has been crazy with prep work, printing placards, making sure I have all the right forms, etc.

Yesterday was my cousin's wedding (see this post for the item I stitched for the couple!). I saw them this morning for a brunch, but I don't think they had opened their gifts yet.

Today I picked up one counted canvas piece from my LNS/framer. I finished Silk Pageantry, an ANG GCC by Kay Cline, several months ago, but just had it framed so I can put it in the seminar exhibit. I tried to take a picture, but it didn't turn out very well since the piece is still in the clear plastic bag from the framer. Since I intend to transport it to seminar that way, I don't want to take it out of the bag. I promise to share a pic when I get back from seminar!

Since I saw Mom at the brunch and she didn't feel up to anything else today, after I returned from the framer I did some work out in the yard. I then did some "silk gauze gardening" while watching the Yankees game. I almost have one whole blackberry leaf!
I'm not sure if I like the lightest green. It seems a bit too yellow. I have to revisit my stash of Eterna silks to see if I can find something light with a bit more blue in it.

Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms out there!

The Needlework Show

First, a disclaimer: I'm completely unaffiliated with this, but always like the opportunity to window-shop (or, in this case, screen-shop!). Now, on to the news...

The Needlework Show is going on! This is an online show, and while only wholesale buyers can actually purchase anything, we stitchers can browse and let our local (or not-so-local) shops know what we want! Most of the designs are counted cross stitch or counted thread designs, but even lovers of painted canvas, counted canvas, or punchneedle might find something tempting. Be aware that not all of the designs are new, but they may be new to you. I found one design I had stitched quite a while ago. This is still a great way to check out lots of designs in one place!

To look through the designers sites, click on the link above. Once you're on the site, click on "General Viewing", and you'll be taken to a list of designers. I recommend starting at the last vendor or the first, and then just using the "previous vendor" or "next vendor" link at the bottom of each page to see more. (Trust me, if you start in the middle at your favorite designer and then go to the end, it doesn't automatically loop back to the first on the list.)

Heaven knows I don't need any more projects, but I've found a few that I really like:

• Art-Stitch: The circular stylized florals at the top of the page are quite striking.
• Dames of the Needle: The Elizabethan Purse is gorgeous! A former class piece - I may have to pick this up!
• In the Company of Friends: This company sells items with images of samplers, rather than items to stitch. I particularly like the Quick Start Sets, especially the swans.
• Historic Stitches: Since I previously stitched a sampler with a pink house, the John Foster sampler is calling to me.
  
• Jeanette Ardern Designs: Villa I and Villa II remind me of my trip to Italy last year, and Reflection is intriguing.
• Kelmscott Designs: These magnets are beautiful!
• Threads of Gold: Repro samplers...need I say more? And the original samplers are beautiful, too!

I'm sure I could find others if I went through again! Enjoy!

Apologies and a Stitching Retreat

It appears I have learned my lesson - don't promise a blog post "tomorrow"! My apologies to anyone who tuned in yesterday expecting a post with a finished piece. Life caught up with me and I didn't get a chance to post.

In any case, yes, I finished Tiramisu, but I'm unhappy with the placement of the date and initials. So, today I'll be taking them out and replacing them.

Speaking of today, in about an hour, I'm off to a day of stitching! For the last several years, one of the local sit n' stitch groups has been having a "March Madness" evening, wherein we rent out a conference room at a local hotel, have a buffet dinner, and stitch late into the night. This year, we're changing things up - doing a buffet breakfast, and stitching until 5 or so.

I plan on taking Tiramisu to fix, and both the new Jim Wurth piece and the Gay Ann Rogers mystery to start. Heaven knows I won't make too much progress on either of these, but I've got to have choices, don't I? Why do I always do this - I've got 8 hours to stitch, yet somehow I think I can make significant progress on multiple projects! Am I alone in this, or is it something we all do?