Springtime of Youth Sampler

It's finished!  Hallelujah!  It seemed like I was never going to get it done; so many sections were stitched over one, but I put the last stitch in less than a half hour ago.  Hooray!

Springtime of Youth Sampler

Chessie and Me

32 ct Vintage Meadow Rue Linen

Gloriana Silks

Do you love it as much as I do?  This was our sampler from the Stitchville Retreat this past April.  I would assume that it will be available for all to purchase next year.

Don't go away yet, I have one more finish.  I worked on this last weekend while on our road trip to Indianapolis.  It was an easy project to work on in the hotel.

Fandangle in Green

Roz Watnemo, Nordic Needle

Kit - Congress Cloth/Threadworx

It stitched up quickly and went together easily.  Fun, fun.  I have it hanging on one of the door knobs on our entertainment center in the living room.

Thanks for all your kind comments on my recent posts.  I will be "laying low" now for several weeks (aka "trying to get some of my existing projects done!")  Enjoy what is left of your weekend.

Some Finishing

Yesterday started out nice but it changed to rain as the day progressed.  Made for another good stitching day!  Before stitching though I worked on some finishing. That pile has grown over the last few months and I need to work on getting it down to a more manageable size!

Here are the fruits of my labor...two hornbooks and an ornament!

The hornbook top let is a design from Chessie and Me called Birds and Blooms.  I used the recommended linen, 36 ct LL Vintage Exampler, and fibers, Belle Soie and Gloriana silks.  Quick and easy finish!

The ornament to the right is from the LHN series - it's stitched on some 40 ct linen that I had in my stash with the recommended fibers.

At the bottom, Sew Petite from iStitch Designs.  I used Gloriana Schoolhouse Red silk on some 40 ct linen from my stash.  Another easy finish.  If you are interested, you can purchase the chart from Carol here.

I also spent some time last night stitching on my Chessie and Me sampler from the Stitchville Retreat; not enough progress yet to be worth sharing a picture, but I will get there soon and then will take a picture for you.

Rainy, humid, a little windy here....here's to the week ahead. Hope it is a good one!

Snow + Sleet = Finishing Day

Mother Nature has not been kind to us folks up north this Spring.  When we should be experiencing sunny days with moderate temperatures, instead we experienced a weekend of freezing rain and snow.  As the saying goes, "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!"  So yesterday, while it snowed and sleeted and the wind blew outside, I stayed inside and got some finishing done.  Made a couple of pretty darn good soups for supper and lunches this week too!

You will have to go way back in the archives to figure out when I stitched this one; 2009 I think...it promptly went into the finishing pile and hasn't seen the light of day since.  I decided it was time to resurrect it and find a proper frame, and so I did.  Now she sits on the table next to my stitching chair.

Dutch Strawberries

Goode Huswife

Then I also put together three smalls; two of them are mine and one belongs to my friend Judy.

Here's the first in LHN's Little Sheep Virtues series:

LHN Hope

36 ct R&R Walnut

DMC fibers

And here's Chessie and Me's Liberty:

Chessie and Me Liberty

Linen and Fibers as kitted

And finally, this piece was stitched by my friend Judy.  It's one of the "tag trios" that Jeanette Douglas released at Nashville.  Judy wanted hers finished as a little pincushion

Jeanette Douglas Pins and Needles

Linen and Fibers as kitted

Is anyone else wondering who the next mystery designer is for Norden Crafts?  I think it will be Little House Needleworks...we'll see!

Until next time...

Stitchville Retreat - Part Two

One of the best parts of a retreat like this is getting to see all of the designer's projects on display.  The stitchers were invited to bring along any of the Chessie and Me pieces they had stitched; the shop had it's shop models on display, and Linda brought her trunk show along; particularly her newer pieces that had just been released at Nashville.  Nothing compares to seeing these designs in person!  I tried to take a lot of pictures so that you could experience the "show" too...

This is one of my favorite pieces of all; sorry, the photo is a bit blurry!

The patterns and supplies for these next two designs came home with me!  Love the sheep!

I've had this next one in my stash since it came out. Why don't I have it stitched yet?

Another one that has been in my stash for quite awhile....

Love the finishing on this design - wow!

These two pieces were my contributions to the show!

Of course, while I am running around taking pictures and visiting with others at the retreat, my tablemates are busy stitching!  Some things never change....

And, just in case I haven't shared enough eye candy with you, take a look at these finished pieces.

These are from Primitive Traditions - the Abigail Colby Workbasket and accompanying smalls.  We all like to bring our finished pieces to show and share with our friends!  These were done by a lovely stitcher who had come to the Stitchville retreat for the very first time.

Another prolific stitcher was in attendance and I regret not taking any pictures of her finishes, but you can hop on over to her blog anytime to see them.  The infamous Amy from Thread in Hand was there; it was good to see you again Amy!

(Amy - left, me - right)

Three of my tablemates (the other two were missing in action, a late night of stitching perhaps?)  Don't we all look happy after a weekend of stitching bliss?

My annual "photo with the designer" for my collection!

And last but not least, our hostesses, Deb C and Deb S, with Linda from Chessie and Me. These are the ladies that made this wonderful weekend possible!

Another Stitchville retreat is over.  What a fun weekend it was.  Let the countdown begin for next year's retreat!

Stitchville Retreat - Part One

Just returned from a delightful weekend of stitching.  The end of the weekend is always bittersweet.  We go home happy with wonderful goodies and beautiful projects (both finished and yet-to-be finished) and also sad, because our weekend of fun is over.  Now the countdown begins for next year's retreat.

This was the fourth Stitchville retreat...each year we have the opportunity to meet one of the needlework industry's top designers.  This year's guest of honor was Linda from Chessie and Me.

Over the years, I have enjoyed stitching a number of Linda's designs; I've collected even more of them (I'm sure you can relate.)  Linda designed some wonderful pieces for our weekend retreat.

Do you remember the project that was released by Chessie and Me last fall?  It was a "Fall-ish" design that was mounted on a paper mache box...well, we were treated to the "Spring" version of this design.  We received the design and stitching supplies a few weeks ago so that we could focus on finishing our boxes.  Here's a picture of the finished box - outside top:

And a picture of the inside cover:

But our boxes didn't look like this to begin with; they were sort of a "pepto bismal" pink.  I should have taken a picture of that stage -- sorry, I forgot.  We waxed the areas of the box that we wanted to look worn and then painted our boxes black.  Here's the black box "cemetery"...

After the boxes were dry, we roughed them up a bit with some sandpaper and then sprayed them with some polyurethane and they were ready to be finished!  After securing our stitched pieces to some wool, we glued them to our boxes.  Mine turned out pretty good, don't you think?

See that cute little strawberry?  It was a gift from Linda!  I love my box, it turned out great.

Deb from Stitchville and the other Deb (aka "the Debs") did a wonderful job with the retreat as they always do.  They look after every detail.  There's always a little welcome gift in our rooms... (It looks like one of my caramels is missing.  How did that happen?)

The tables in our stitching room are always beautifully decorated...

All of those wonderful goodies came home with us!  And in addition there was a project bag filled with some additional goodies...

Details, details...those two are so good at taking care of all the details!

Our second project of the weekend was this wonderful sampler...

Love the colors and the verse at the bottom...

"In the Springtime of your Youth
Be sure the seed you sow
That in the Harvest of old age
The good there of you will know."

Of course there was more to the weekend - lots of time for visiting with old and new friends, many Chessie and Me models and stitcher finishes to "ooh and aah" over and some of the attendees brought some of their recently finished projects along.  Tune back in tomorrow for more of the fun!

Ready for Spring

After waking up to this...

and this...

I'm ready for Spring.  

And you know what else I am ready for?

Spring Fling!

Stitchville Spring Fling

April 5 -7

Featuring Chessie & Me

I love the colors; so bright and cheery!

The smyrna stitches were relaxing; they give the piece dimension.

Even a little bit of over one -- I don't mind over one anymore.

Looking forward to the retreat.

I heard there are still a couple of spaces if you want to join us.

Hopefully Spring will have arrived and the snow melted.

It is Minnesota though...crazier things have happened...