Ukrainian Whitework

Earlier this year I took a Ukrainian Whitework class with Terri Bay of Terri Bay Needlework Designs. This week I stitched the backside of the ornament and finished it up. The design is called St. Paul Snowdrift. Terri's instructions are so easy to follow. This was an enjoyable stitch.



The ornament will look stunning on this year's Christmas tree!


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The Bee Pouch

Here's my recent finish...The Bee Pouch designed by Barbara Jackson. This was one of the classes I took at Celebrations.



The back of the pouch is personalized. I need to point out to my friend Chris that both of these label's are finished with the nun's stitch. Ha!


Inside of the needlebook and backside of the scissors case. Dear Chris, the scissor's fob is edged in nun's stitch too! I'm not sure why Barbara put ecru cording on the needlebook and green cording on everything else, but as you can see, I followed her lead! I don't like to deviate!


And the entire set one more time.


All of the eyelets are stitched and my Hardanger piece is ready for class next Saturday!


Thanks for stopping by!


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Pre-Work

Not the most perfect picture, but you will get the idea....



I've been working on some pre-work for a Hardanger class that I will be taking in a couple of weeks. I still need to do my eyelet stitches. Looking forward to learning how to do a lacy edge!


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Quilt Show

Yesterday was a beautiful day and most of it was spent in the yard. My DH raked the front yard and I cleaned out our three raised beds that we use for vegetable gardening.

I did sneak away for a little while. At a nearby school one of the local quilt guilds was having a quilt show. It was a lot of fun viewing all of their beautiful finishes!



Here are some of my favorite quilts from the show...this one was a Dear Jane quilt...


This design is from Crabapple Hill. The designs are colored in with crayons and then embroidered.


Not sure what this one is called...I just liked it! The fabrics were civil war inspired colors.


Interesting challenge project. They each took a greeting card and then created a mini quilt that using the card as their inspiration.


This quilt used fabrics from this year's Minnesota Quilt Shop Hop. Participating shops each contributed a square.


Such inspiration!

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I Love Basting!

Well, not really. But I did really like Barbara Jackson, so I decided to take a second class with her. Once I saw the project in person, I just couldn't resist.



It's called The Shepherdess Tray and it is much smaller than you think. I think the finishing will be fairly easy too.

On Saturday morning, my mom and I drove to Kansas City. Why? Doesn't everyone go to Kansas City for fried chicken? Okay, maybe most people go for BBQ, but we drove four hours for fried chicken.

My mom wanted to eat fried chicken at Stroud's. Apparently the restaurant was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives at one time. Was the fried chicken good? You betcha!


Fried chicken livers and gizzards...not my preference, but my mom loved them!


Winner, winner chicken dinner!


After lunch we visited Old Mill Stitchery in Liberty, MO. Super nice shop!





Too bad that it all had to end. Looking forward to future excursions!


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Basting and the Mosaic Stitch

My friends know me well, I attend these events to meet others who share my love of needlework. I love talking with other stitchers, meeting teachers and hearing their stories about how they got into this industry. They are such creative people and being around them energizes me.


I signed up to take a class with Barbara Jackson. I have admired her work through the Shining Needle Society and have seen other stitchers working on her projects (via their blogs). Best decision ever - what a delightful lady!


Our project was The Little Bee Pouch. The picture is from the Celebration website. I hope to have it finished this weekend. Very enjoyable stitch. Two things you must know about Barbara. 1) She loves to baste. She is a basting fanatic! When in class with Barbara, you become a baster too. 2) Barbara loves the mosaic stitch. It does seem to fill the space a little more than an ordinary cross stitch.









Here are some more pictures of the shopping mall (the fourth floor of the hotel).

The Atrium of the hotel was the perfect location for gathering with friends.



Oh no, could it be possible? Why yes - it's the Mad Tatter!



More tomorrow!

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Celebration of Needlework

This was my first visit to Celebration of Needlework, and I would definitely attend again. It gives average stitchers like me the opportunity to get a taste of what it must be like to visit a needlework market!

The venue was great - we stayed at the Embassy Suites in St. Charles, MO. The needlework show was on the fourth floor.



All of the vendors had their banners hanging over the balcony.


Doors and windows were decorated.






The rooms were all so inviting!



How often do you get to meet multiple designers all in one place? I enjoyed visiting with Cathy Haberman of Hands on Design and Donna Olson of Satin Stitches.



I have always enjoyed stitching Donna's Hardanger designs!

More tomorrow!


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The Road Trip

I promised you a road trip. My mom wanted to go on a road trip somewhere, anywhere! I thought about it a little bit and immediately knew where we could go. We departed last Wednesday.

Every road trip starts with a selfie, right?



Here we are making our first pit stop. As they said in the movie Field of Dreams, "Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa."





We drove all day and arrived safely at our destination.



Our drive took longer than planned. So we headed straight to bed anticipating an exciting day ahead!


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My Poor Neglected Blog

Updates to this poor neglected blog are so infrequent these days. I promise to do better.

Our Evening Counted Thread group is going to stitch a humbug in November. We were looking for a simple project that wouldn't require much time and with supplies that could come from our stash. We thought that the humbug could be a Christmas ornament, or with a longer cord it could be a scissor fob.

I stitched up a model today using a 28 count remnant from my stash and some Manor Red floss from Crescent Colors. Added some beads that I had to the corners and voila! It's a cute little Christmas Ornament!



My mom and I are going on a road trip on Wednesday. Guess where we are going? Will try to give you periodic reports while we're on the road.




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A Sweet Little Finish

Our evening counted thread group that meets once a month is working on this sweet design from Jackie du Plessis. Just a little bit of stitching and some easy finishing and voila....



A scissor fob and thread holder!


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A Million Things

There are a million things I could work on, but lately I've been drawn to the 1837 Crown Sampler from Plum Street Samplers. The colors in this picture aren't particularly accurate. I'm stitching it on 40 ct. Vintage Light Examplar with the alternate color palette that Paulette had shared on her blog. I love stitching words and letters, so I stitched the verse in the middle first. Now I have lots of vines, flowers, and other motifs to stitch!



Hope you had a nice weekend. It went by so fast!


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Collections

I attended a work event this evening. We enjoyed a delicious dinner at Firelake, the restaurant in the Radisson Blu hotel at the Mall of America.

The gentleman sitting next to me at dinner was talking about cigars. He was talking about Cuban cigars, and cigars from Santo Domingo. He talked about how he stored them and so on. I asked him what a typical cigar cost (I was just curious) and then received a 15 minute dissertation on how some cigars are very inexpensive ($2-$3) and that you can a pretty good cigar for about $15 but you can buy cigars for almost any amount in-between. He went on to say it's just like any collection, wide range of prices, etc. I told him I could relate and explained that I had a collection of thread. If I don't want to spend a lot of money I can buy a skein of thread at JoAnns for about 45 cents. If I want to spend more, I can buy a skein of overdyed threads for about $3 and if I want to buy the very best I would buy a skein of silk for about $6 or $7!

Ha! He probably didn't think I was paying attention!



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Beautiful Weekend

Not only was it a beautiful weekend, but a productive one! I spent some time on Saturday morning working on some needlework finishing for a dear friend; looking forward to delivering these goodies to her next weekend.








Last night my DH and I headed down to Hastings, MN; there is a car show there every other Friday night. Hastings is a historic town located right on the Mississippi River. The weather was beautiful,and it was an enjoyable evening.























Today was equally as nice. After the grocery shopping was done and some of the laundry finished, I set out to hand sew the binding on a quilt I made a few years ago. It was recently finished by the sister of one of my stitching buddies; she did a great job quilting the top.





I never dreamed it would take me several hours to get it done. I had a little help in the process.

It's done....wahoo.

Enjoy the week ahead...Happy Stitching.


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