Yes, these are old finishes...

...but they are finally framed. Hence they get some blog space. (Well that and I'm tired and the whole nor'eastern storm thing always puts me off doing much of anything except sleep. And yes, I realize what time it is, I'm getting to bed soon!)

On to the eye candy.

This would be Charm Garden. Don't ask me when I finished it, it was several years ago. It's by Just Nan and all those lovely charms just set the whole thing off.

The every lovely Beach Roses, also by Just Nan.

(The cup is from some dishware I traded my paternal grandmother for. She got a set of Corelle, I got her very lovely 1930's dishes. She thought I was crazy, I think I got the best of the deal.)

Finally Last Stitches by, you guessed it, Just Nan. (I didn't mean for this to be an all JN posting, but it kind of happened that way.) I did actually put the last stitch of this piece in on Dec. 31, 1999. How said is it that it's been setting, unframed for that long. Well not as sad as the part where I confess that I also put stitches in "First Stitches" on Jan. 1, 2000 and that's all that's ever been done on that piece, that's sad...really, really sad.

I love them all, but I have to say a special "Thank You" to the wonderful Vicky B. She did all the stretching and framing for me. I bought the frames you see on Last Stitches and Charm Garden when I was visiting in July. The problem was I didn't have the stitched pieces to leave with her so they got sent with DF Jill when she came for the FSU-'Bama game in Sept. By that time I couldn't remember if I got the gold frame for Charm Garden or Beach Roses, they are almost the same stitched size, so I sent both with Jill with the instruction for Vicky to put whichever one looked best in her opinion. When she got them she thought she had the perfect frame for Beach Roses, so she just framed it and told me if I didn't like I could send it back and she's take it apart. First of all, Vicky is a very talented stitcher and finisher and has wonderful taste, so I had no doubt I'd love what she'd done. I was right! Isn't it lovely?!?!

Now I just have to figure out where to hand these pieces. I'm thinking of starting a "JN" wall. I'll let you know what I decide.

Homecoming and Yarn Sales

On the surface these two things do have anything in common, however this weekend they seemed to go together quite well.

Friday I headed over to Tallahassee for FSU's Homecoming weekend. Got a later start then I wanted, but still made it in time to pick up sweet Anna and take her to dinner. (Anna is a "former" youth at my church and her mom & I are friends.) It may have been a few years since I was a student at FSU as Anna is, I still remember that it's fun to get visitors, especially if they will feed you. Mind you all my visitors were my parents, but that's not the point here. We had a good meal and she caught me up on her classes and told me about the mission trip she hopes to go on this spring/summer to Africa.

After I dropped Anna back at her dorm, I headed over to the friends home where Jill & I were fortunate enough to stay this weekend. Gregg & Traci are actually friend's of Jill's, but I like to think they've become my friends as well. They are both wonderful and have a lovely home. Jill was late getting in because of how late she left work, but that have G, T & I time to sit and talk. Mainly about books, but I'm sure there were other subjects. Jill arrived quite late, so the next morning we got kind of a late start, but all 4 of use went to breakfast and I proceeded to stuff myself with yummy food that wasn't exactly the most healthful choice.

Traci had a massage appointment (lucky Traci, sounded like a fantastic idea), so we dropped her off then decided, fairly spur of the moment to check out a yarn store Gregg knew about. (Ok, backstory, Gregg is a potter, so he totally gets the whole tactile thing with yarn and fibers. This is a good thing. Plus he knows the husband of the woman who owns the store.)

It's been years since I was over in what is now Railroad Square Art Park. It's a bit different, but still has that great funky feel you get in college towns. (If you click on the link you get to see some of the great places in the park and even a shot of yarn at the store.) The store is named Really Knit Stuff and is lovely, as is the proprietress Paula. I highly recommend stopping in and visiting this great store. There were some ladies knitting at the table in the shop and they were happy to have us sit down with them and chat while Paula wound our yarn. Yes, we bought yarn! Of course we did. And I have pictures. They are all separated because I'm trying to upload my stash to Ravelry and figured I could start with the new stuff coming in the door.

First the sock yarns...(I know, I know, sock yarns mean I should knit more socks. Well give me a chance will you.)

Lovely Loden from Cherry Tree Hill

Yummy Tea Green, also from Cherry Tree Hill.

And last, but by no means least, Serengeti, by you guessed it Cherry Tree Hill.

Let me explain why I HAD to get the first 2 (because I'm sure you can see by the loveliness of the 3rd why I had to get it. I mean really, it's fabulous. So fab that Jill also bought some.) You see there was a sale and I can't pass up a good sale and let's just say, they ended up being a price I couldn't turn down.


Lastly I bought 2 skeins of a "new to me" yarn from Barlett Yarns. It's loverly! I'm not sure exactly what I'll make, but I totally saw it as a purse of some sort, probably a cable somewhere in it. The 2 skeins will give me 420 yards and at 5.60 each skein after the sale, that's awesome. Oh, the color is called Lovat. (What a great Scot-inspiring name. The picture doesn't show the tweediness of this yarn and you certainly can't smell the great wool smell.) It's just wonderful. Can't wait to see how it knits up.

Well that's the knitting haul from the weekend. The evening was capped off by a win in football by my alma mater. As is our tradition, Jill & I stuck around after the game to watch The Marching Chiefs perform their post-Homecoming game show. They always end with "The Hymn to the Garnet and the Gold" which I like a lot more then our actual alma mater song. It totally caps off Homecoming for me. So glad we decided to stick around.

Came home today to some chores, mainly laundry. I'm also a bit behind in getting my Hogwarts sock finished. All this travel has not been as conducive to knitting as I thought it would be. It would be so much easier if I could knit and drive at the same time, but alas I've not figured out how.

Weekend Update part deux

Saturday arrived fairly bright and early. DF Heather and I had decided to skip the huge breakfast downstairs and instead head either to the lovely local java shop across from the hotel, or if they were closed, the Starbucks in the hotel. Unfortunately the local shop was closed. DF Jill joined us and we partook of some nourishment and plenty of caffeine (in my case) to get us ready to tackle Rae Iverson's class.

I am never disappointed by Rae's designs and classes. Sure there are classes that I have taken that I may never finish, or really need a refresher course on, but all in all, I love her designs. This year was exceptional. (For some of us it was more then exceptional...Heather.) Let's just say that when Heather saw the piece she let out a slight scream, or maybe a squeal. You see, the lovely piece has squirrels. Cute, adorable squirrels. Heather loves her some squirrels. Here's some pictures of the main pieces...


The front and back of one piece.


My very blurry picture of the front and back of the cute pin cushion.

Well, there was nothing to do but start on this one in class. It's just adorable. This is what I was able to accomplish while there. I've actually worked on it since then and finished the border you see started and am working on the inside part.


One last look at the cover, you can see all the pieces, including the very cool scissors sheath.

From there we went to Barbara Rokosnik's class (Periwinkle Promises for those who aren't familiar with her name.. She's lovely and the class piece is adorable. The best part of the class was learning a new way to go Queen stitches. I love learning new ways to do stitches, especially when it makes it easier for me. (Plus now I'm stoked about getting the new Ellen Chester purse pattern with all those Queen stitches. This new way of doing them will make it so much easier to I think.) Anyway, Barbara's piece is this cool tin and it's not one of those tins you have to eat candy for (although I personally love that candy and a few of those tins around here just waiting for toppers that I have the patterns for...but that's an entire other posting...). This tin is way, WAY cool. It has holes on the side and you can actually do some stitches on the side. Swanky huh? oh, you want to see pictures....

(Sorry these are smaller, but this is getting to be such a long post. You can click on them and see a larger rendition.) The picture on the right shows you what I managed to accomplish over the weekend. I'm not keen on the bubble-gum pink color she used with the kit, so I'm doing a bit of rearranging color-wise with the kit. I'm going to add in another silk that I think will work as the outer most border of Queen stitches. Yes, those are Queen stitches, eventually there will be 3 rows of them total in the border. Haven't decided what overdyed to use yet. Still looking through my stash and if I don't have something I like I'll have to go shopping for something. I also purchased the companion kits for the tin, a scissors fob and needlebook. Well, I purchased the scissors fob at ASG, thought I'd gotten the needlebook, but apparently I forgot to pick it up. Thankfully Barbara is very nice and has rectified that little problem, probably before I manage to get this posted.

That's it for the classes. Saturday night some people dressed up for dinner. Others of us just wore crazy shirts.
Yeah, that's almost all of the "Stitch Queens". These are my dearest stitching friends...and regular friends too, funny how that has worked out. From left to right: Judy, Jean, Ann, Jill, myself, and lastly (The Magic That Is) Heather. The original group can be seen over on TMTIH's blog in a picture from a few years ago when we originally formed to do a round robin. From there we've grown a bit. But these are my buds, both in stitching and in life.

Sunday morning was fun. Not only was the now obligatory slide show present, but there was also a surprise 40th Wedding Anniversary for Ron & Rae Iverson, who put the whole thing on. It was a great surprise and a wonder the group who did all the work for it was able to pull it off without being found out.

So, that's it. I arrived home safe and sound Monday evening and have been catching up ever since.

Contest Alert

Wow, 2 posts in one day! But this is important. See the new button on the left? the cute one with the pink Dyson? Well, you can enter too. Just click the button and follow the directions to enter. How cool is that?

Just in case you missed it over on the side!

Weekend Report

And what a weekend it was! I think everyone had a fantastic time. I know everyone I hang with did. Sometimes you go to things like this and you like one of the projects, sometimes a couple, but this weekend I liked all three! This ranks right up there as one of my all time favorite ASG's.

I started things off with a bit of fun. My DF Jean and I had arranged it so I'd be on the same plane as her, DF Jill & DF Heather. However, we hadn't told Jill or Heather. I almost got found out Wednesday night. DF Jill called and I was waiting in the truck for mom to pick up our dinner at the local Chinese take-out. She hadn't asked about my flight for this year at all, but she did then. I think she assumed I'd arrive before them and would be meeting them at the hotel. I told her I had to be up at "0-dark 30", I thought we had to leave around 5:30 or so. Which was the truth. We were leaving that early to be able to have a good breakfast before I got on the plane and mom & dad headed up I-95 towards West Virginia. We had planned to have breakfast at Cracker Barrel which is in my top 5 for places to get a good breakfast, hence the entirely too early wake-up call. When I landed in Atlanta Jean helped me figure out where they were by way of cell phone calls. (How did we plan surprises before cell phones? I mean really. You'd have to plan way ahead and that's just not possible with this crowd.) They ended up at "On the Border" in the concourse we were headed out of for some lunch and I surprised them there. It was a lot of fun to see the look on Heather's face especially, she was flabber-gasted.

Finally we arrived in Louisville and at our hotel, the Seelbach (which is nice but is old and there are issues with old hotels...like ghosts and small rooms and small bathrooms, and bugs in beds - but we won't discuss that because it just freaks me out. Luckily the bug wasn't in my bed.) We met our DF Judy at the airport and other DF Ann arrived later after driving from her new home near Knoxville. (BTW Ann hasn't updated her blog in awhile, but she's been very busy and hasn't had a lot of time to blog, much less the ability what with the move.)

It is our custom to go to dinner at Lynn's Paradise Cafe on Thursday evening. We love the food and the fun atmosphere. This year we found out we also love the staff. In case you didn't know, Louisville had some tornado and tornado-like weather that evening. Which meant we found ourselves in the basement not long after we arrived. The staff was AMAZING and took care of us by feeding everyone snacks off the line and bringing us some cokes and lemonade...although I didn't see that until we were leaving to go back upstairs. For pictures and a more indepth coverage check out DF Jill's post about the experience.

Friday the festivities began with a lovely lunch/tea. This year we could not only wear our favorite hat, but also bring any well behaved dolls or teddy bears. I decided this year to wear the hat that I finally finished and got felted before I left last week.That's Heather and I with our bears. We were the only one at our table with bears.

After lunch/tea we had our first class of the weekend. Our group started with Eileen Bennet of The Sampler House. I have always wanted to take a class from Eileen, but never had the chance, so this was a real treat in my book. (That's Eileen in class. I'm sure she's describing how to do a stitch...yeah, I'm sure that's what was being discussed....)

Eileen designed a lovely band sampler in wonderful autumn colors.Not a great picture, but it's called "Little Green Acorn Band Sampler". I actually got quite a bit worked on the top band, both in class and during the weekend as you can see below.
The fabric isn't that green/yellow, but you can see what' I've done so far. Eileen was an excellent teacher. She also did the lecture Friday night after dinner. She talked about Catherine of Aragon, but mainly about the people around her, like family and of course Henry and some of his other wives. Very interesting history. That of course led me to have to purchase Catherine's Sampler. I also bought a few other things from Eileen's portion of the boutique... Accomplishments and History in Miniature. There were plenty of others I loved, but settled for those three.

Friday night most of the gang gathered in one hotel room, mine & Jean's I think, to stitch and talk and drink some Cosmopolitans...yeah, alcohol was consumed by some of us. Believe me, Heather and I needed it the most. That night we started doing the finishing work on the infamous "cubie".

So, there's the info on the first two days....more tomorrow.

SBQ

This week's SBQ is:

Do you railroad?

The permalink to this post is:
http://blog.blondelibrarian.net/archives/2007/10/sbq-working-on-the-railroad/

The simple answer is yes. But that's not always true. Sometimes I use what my mother calls a "nose picker", which by any other sane person would be called a laying tool. Specifically it's a laying tool that fits on your finger so it's easier to hold and use. When I use a laying tool, I don't railroad because, well I don't have to since I use the laying tool to accomplish the same thing. Sometimes I only railroad the top leg of the cross stitch, other times, both legs.

Short and sweet today since I haven't felt good all day. Woke up with a nasty pain in my right shoulder. So far it has refused to go away even with alternating heat and cold and taking some ibuprofen. Off to see if some sleep will help.

Decisions, decision

Sometimes it's fun to make decisions. I need to make a fun decision, what stitching to take with me to ASG tomorrow. I only want to take 1 item. I thought an ornament, but I don't want to take something that I have to start. Too much trouble. I narrowed it down to 3 items: 1)part 1 of Leporello book and yes, I'm still on part 1 which is crazy since the whole thing ended in March of this year and it started last year some time. I like to start things you know; 2) Halloween Fairy & 3) the class piece from Catherine Theron from last year's ASG. My DH Heather said I should bring Leporello, but as of right now it's not in my carry-on. What did make it was Halloween Fairy and "B is for Bunny" (which wasn't one of the original choices which tells you about my decision making abilities lately). I do have Leporello Book fixed so it doesn't take up much room, so I may stick it down in my bag. Crazy things have been known to happen.

Otherwise, I'm packed and ready to get some sleep. Tomorrow morning will come way too early, I have to leave my house at 5:30 A.M. - no that's not a typo, that's the real time and if you know me you know that I don't usually see that time of day. I'm gonna need a nap tomorrow...or lots of coffee.