The Final Leg of the Journey

When our class ended on Sunday night, we jumped in the car and started driving; figured that we could knock off a couple of hours so that it wouldn't be such a long day on Monday.  We stayed in Bloomington, IL on Sunday night.

Monday morning we were up at the crack of dawn (I don't think the birds were chirping yet) so that we could head off in the direction of the Madison, WI area.  By the time we got there we needed to gas up and I happened to see a road sign that said "Mt. Horeb - 16 miles".  I knew there was a needlework shop in Mt. Horeb, we just weren't sure if they were open on a Monday.  Aren't all of our electric devices a wonderful thing?  We found a phone number and called to find out they were open - hooray.  Off we went down the road to Mt. Horeb!

I'm disappointed in myself - forgot to take a picture of the shop - it's called Witchery Stitchery.  They are a block off of Main Street and it's quite a nice shop for a town of this size.  We found some treasures to bring home with us and then continued on our journey.  Next stop:  Spring Green, WI.

Have always wanted to visit the Country Sampler in Spring Green.  Wow.  Beautiful quilts; needlework samplers and other cross stitch items interspersed throughout.  My color scheme too --primitive colors.  Will have to come back here again. Did we make any purchases?  Of course we did!

From the Country Sampler, we spent about 4 more hours in the car and arrived safely home around 5pm.  Back to reality and already looking forward to another road trip whenever the spirit moves me again.  Thanks to my great travel buddies for making it a memorable weekend. A special shout out to my new friends in the Indianapolis area.  Thanks for your hospitality!

Before I go, let me share a few more Betsy Morgan finishes with you.  I can't take credit for stitching these, they were all stitched by my friend Chris.  A couple of them were published in Inspirations Magazine a few years ago; another is a class piece that Chris stitched for one of her other stitching buddies who had taken a class with Betsy.

Aren't these wonderful finishes???  Betsy shared that she will have a design in an upcoming issue of Inspirations, so watch for it if you are interested.

I guess I better get busy stitching now!

Playing with Toys

Our class with Betsy started at 10am on Saturday morning.  I was up before my early bird friends (very unusual) in anticipation of our class.  We had breakfast at our hotel and then headed over to the fire station to set up our stitching spaces.

The class had been arranged by a sampler guild in the Indianapolis area called "Needle in Hand".  What a nice group of ladies they have in their guild.  They were so welcoming and friendly - we knew we had connected with the right group!  The classroom arrangement was perfect - each stitcher had enough space to  work and we all could see and hear Betsy perfectly.

Until just a few year's ago, I had not heard of Betsy Morgan.  It was my friend Chris who commented once that she really wanted to take a class with Betsy Morgan.  I immediately began "stalking" her on the internet. Many of her classes seemed to be on the east and west coasts.  When I saw that she was going to be in Indiana, it seemed like it was just meant to be.

If you haven't figured it out from the title of my post, our project was Betsy's Toy Chest Etui.  This was the project that Chris was most interested in doing (another sign!)  We would have taken any of Betsy's classes but were especially thrilled to be doing the Toy Box!

We had completed some pre-work in the weeks prior to the class, so Saturday's class was spent completing the thimble holder which is made to look like one of those old fashioned cup holders that you would use to try to catch a ball with.

Here's Betsy's:

Our three completed thimble holders at the end of the day on Saturday:

Here is my thimble holder: (Blogger is misbehaving...)

Front:

Back:

It was really fun to have something completed at the end of the first day!

During Sunday's class, Betsy walked us through all of the instructions so that we would know exactly what to do when stitching and finishing our remaining pieces at home.  We also spent some time making the little drumsticks for the top of our drums - who knew that you could make drumsticks with toothpicks and beads!

At the end of our day on Sunday, Betsy did a twisted cord and tassel making demonstration.  This was great information.  It seems like my cording either is good or bad; I have trouble being consistent.  Now with Betsy's instructions my cording is always going to turn out great!

As I always say at the end of one of these weekends, all good things must come to an end, and so it was true again - our weekend with Betsy Morgan was over.  Not only do we have a great project to now work on, but we also learned from a fabulous teacher and formed some great new friendships with our sister stitchers in the Indianapolis area!

If you would like to see a photo of the Toy Box and all of it's toys, please visit Betsy's blog and scroll down to her post from April 4, 2013.  The fourth photo down is the Toy Chest Etui with it's toys!  While you are there, check out some of Betsy's other projects.  Delicious eye candy!

Willing Hands

Will wrap up our trip report tomorrow.  Thanks for visiting!

Our Betsy Morgan Adventure...

Our adventure began several weeks ago when we found out that Betsy Morgan was going to be teaching in Carmel, Indiana last weekend.  Checked in with some of my blogging buddies from Indiana and within a couple of hours had all the details.  Unfortunately the registration had already closed, but we were able to decide quickly and were added to the list of participants.  We completed our pre-work and anxiously waited for this special weekend to arrive.

We decided that it would be manageable to drive to Indianapolis, but it would require an early start on Friday morning.  I value my sleep, but I was up for the challenge.  We agreed on a 6:30am start...

My traveling companions for the weekend were my stitching friends Judy, Chris, and Mrs. Dash...

No, not that Mrs. Dash!  This Mrs. Dash...

Despite the difficult relationship we've had in the past (me and Mrs. Dash), we seemed to get a long fairly well this weekend.  At times she can be very quiet, at other times quite bossy.  It's very irritating when she goes into her "recalculating" mode, but otherwise all was good.

An hour and a half into our trip I convinced the girls that we had to make a little detour.  Neither of them had ever been to the Norske Nook in Osseo, WI.

This restaurant is your typical small town cafe, but they are especially known for their delicious pies.  You only live once, so why not stop and have pie for breakfast?

Chris and I each had a piece of sour cream raisin pie...

Judy had strawberry...

I would say that our day was off to a really good start, wouldn't you?  We continued on for another 2.5 - 3 hours eventually arriving at our next pitstop...Lynn's in Madison.

Note that Chris and Judy are posing nicely for the photo, little did they know I was focused on taking a picture of the sign!!!  Lynn's is a unique store -- they do framing, they have art supplies for painting and drawing, and they also carry needlework.  The purpose for our stop however was to see the Scarlet Letter models that were on display.

Talk about a feast for the eyes... there were some other beautiful models mixed in with those from the Scarlet Letter.

Can you pick out Manifesto in the center of these two photos?  There are a lot of stitches in that design!

The photo above didn't turn out so well, but on display was the reproduction (above) and the original sampler (below) -- the original sampler dated back to 1774.  Can't remember the name of this sampler, but I'm sure many of you will recognize it!

Below is another sampler where the reproduction was displayed and the original sampler was below it.

We are so glad we made the stop.  It was great fun seeing these beautiful samplers, both the originals and the reproductions!  If you are in this area, I highly encourage you to stop and visit.  It sounded like they may be switching out the models on display sometime later in June.

I think we drove for about 5 or 6 more hours...anyway, we arrived safely at our destination in Carmel, Indiana.  We had a delicious meal with excellent service at Max and Erma's and then settled in for a good night's rest.  We could hardly sleep knowing that we were about to take a class with Betsy Morgan!  Stay tuned...more tomorrow.