Stitch Retreat & Class with Lauren Sauer

Finally - here is the first post about needlework, you know the ones that I have been promising to share for an eternity - or at least since September last year.  :-)

Back in October, a quartet of us ladies pulled off the annual Tiara Retreat at Higher Ground Conference Center, Indiana. 

We had a good time planning the event - the part that is always the most fun is planning the give-aways and the door prizes.  I stitched up a couple of pillows with a pattern that Big Dog found.  The pattern is pretty much as made specifically for our little group; Oops, I Dropped My Tiara by Bobbie Ashley.  I enjoyed myself picking out the linen, floss colors and beads.  I chose the Williamsburg Sampler fabric from Windham Fabrics.

  

I stitched up and finished one girlie pink pillow and one in pale lavender.  If I had started this little project on time, I would have finished the edges with something sparkly-glitzy, but as always I was running late...  I was lucky to finish these on time as it was!  If I get the time end energy, I might even stitch up one for myself one of these days.

Bzz*Bzz Bee and another lady made a couple of super-sweet gifts for all the participants!  As you can see, we have a mason jar made into a fall pincushion with the help of apple print fabric and the jar contains a fabulous home-made soap.  The other gift was a full kit with an very pretty original design to be stitched in rich fall colors. 

We do also frequently enjoy exchanges of smalls and such on our retreats & meets.  This year we decided to make a "whatever you want" theme, where people got to pick whether they wanted to stitch a fall theme, or maybe a Thanksgiving or Halloween themed small. 

Since I have been getting more and more enthralled with Just Nan, I decided to stitch this sweet little pocket designed to hold an owl thread winder.  (I learned that the thread winder is stamped, so the back is nothing but a "hollow" surface.  Maybe not the best quality item to wind thread around, since the edges seemed a bit sharp.)  I did have some trouble with the cardboard that was included for the pocket to be mounted around.  I seem to recall that it was too small, so I believe that I cut some mat board to a better fit instead.  As always with Just Nan - a fun stitch, pretty quick, with about a million color changes!  :-)

-  A quickie insert here!  Speaking of Just Nan - have you seen her new series with gingerbread critters?  After scouring the Internet, I was lucky enough to get hold of the mouse right before Christmas.  I found a decent color scrap of linen in the linen box at home and I did even get a little bit stitched before the girls started to take more of my time.  I hate to waste linen, so I decided to stitch up the mouse three times.  Two of them will have to do without the fancy tail included in the chart pack.  I am really impressed with Just Nan - how does she keep coming up with all her adorable ideas?  I especially like her 3D designs; they are just so clever.

As you may already know, three more gingerbread critters are to be released during this year, with the next one being an adorable bunny.  Silverneedle has an auto-ship sign-up for the remaining critters and you can get the linen cuts through them as well (scroll down on this page to check it out).  -

All right, so back to the retreat!  I got really lucky in the exchange.  A couple of ladies had decided to make "surprise" their theme, and I decided to take a chance and go for it (we made the exchange a "brown paper bag exchange" with the theme written on the top of the bags.).  I got this adorable needlebook and scissors-fob (scissors included!) set - how sweet are they!?  They are stitched on 40-count, I guess, and the stitches are tiny!  I just love the colors - my jaw literally dropped in joy when I opened my brown paper bag.  And the scissors are awesome - I use them all the time now.

A few weeks after the fall retreat, in early November, I drove up to Cleveland for a wonderful weekend.  It started off with a fabulous class with Lauren Sauer at Rose's.  We got to learn about and stitch Lauren's latest wonder, the exquisite (and very, very long) band sampler "Mistress L's Sampler of Bands, Emblems, and Motifs".  Lauren mentioned in class that she just kept designing until she ran out of space on her linen cut. 

 

Here is a close-up of Lauren's initials - don't you just love the colors!?

A couple of additional views - both of the sampler itself and Rose, Lauren and me.  Check out my impressive belly - and keep in mind that in this photo, I still had over another month to go....  

Lauren treated us all by opening up a shop with her high quality and sought after kits.  It was hard not to run amok in the store.  I got the very pretty Drawstring Beach Bag kit (I am a sucker for black-work) and a fairly new design, Anniversary Roses, which is another gorgeous band sampler kit. You can see Rose's finished sampler here, if you'd like to take a peak (8th photo from the top - Rose got Western Reserve Sampler Guild's Members' Choice Award First Place for her finished sampler - belated congrats on your win, Rose!!!).

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 Lauren is one of the sweetest ladies you'll ever meet (as are all the ladies that I have met at Rose's).  I have probably mentioned before that the first time I met Lauren (and the only time, up until this class), was back in 2007 at CON.  When she learned that I was Swedish, she sent me her Lucy design as a gift a few weeks after the class.  Such an incredibly thoughtful gift.  Lauren has Swedish heritage as well, so that was a real neat connection.
This time, she spoiled me again with the Mister Snow companion piece - can you believe how generous she is!?  I can't wait to stitch them up.  I would love to finish them as stand-ups, if possible.  I may pick a lower count linen, to make them a bit larger and they can stand and guard our Christmas tree! If I could only find a stitch store that sells time and I would be all set! 

 

After class, my MIL and SIL treated me to a fab family baby-shower!  This is an even more special treat for me , since we don't do showers in Sweden - when all was said and done, I had gotten three showers!  The theme for the shower was Sweet Peas and the decorations were so pretty!  SIL painted these wooden letters - aren't they precious?

Here are a few on the ladies with SIL on the far left and Grandma-In-Law in the front.  Cousin Kelly next to SIL had a baby just a few weeks after I had mine.  These are the first great grand-babies on this side of DH's family.  This is a great bunch of chicks to hang out with - they are absolutely crazy and some of them have a knack for saying things that make even me blush.... totally hilarious!

Check out the decorations!!!

 And check out the loot!!!  We did almost not get all of the stuff into my pretty sizable car when I was ready to drive back home.  I am probably the most spoiled mom ever!

 

And just for fun - this is DH and me exactly one month before the arrival of the twins - pretty impressive size belly huh!?  (Nothing compared to the day of the actual birth, though.  It felt like I was dragging my belly on the ground...)

 

 

At this point in my pregnancy, people unbeknown to me (you know, people in the grocery store, the car wash and on the beach.... wait, scratch that last one, LOL) started blurt out things like "about to pop any day now, ain't you!?" (add the KY accent here for full effect) and other similar types of 'encouragements'....  Yeah, that's right - pick on the pregnant lady who can't even get up out of bed on her own anymore (which wasn't really a problem, since at around this time I was already sleeping sitting up)....  LOL

Well, that's it for now.  I hope to get back with another post before too long.  Maternity leave ends on Monday and I will finally be able to eat one meal a day in peace and quiet and maybe even use the rest-room when I need to.  Oh, happy day!  ;-)

Gotta run, someone is complaining!

Happy Stitching!

Belly-flop!

Brrrr - it turned freezing as soon as I came back from Sweden.  From being in the 80s, I hear, we went down to below 32 in just a few days.
Spring did a belly-flop this weekend.  The ground was covered with a thin layer of snow on Sunday morning and the outdoor birds were complaining loudly and repeatedly about the lack of seed in the bird-feeders.  My hyacinths looked accusingly up at me - almost double-bent in the chilly air.  Even the daffodils looked less than amused.  The snow melted away pretty quickly though and the spring bubs stretched back out again.

Note the seriously impatient clematis and peony plants in the last garden pic below...  Boy, I thought that I had issues with patience..  ;-)

This last pic show "the big birds" haning out in my kitchen.  See the blue stuff on the right in the door-way?  That is a drape, hung there specifically to keep the little monsters out... they like to hang in the kitchen, isnce the sliding glass door makes this room so bright and since there is a hot air vent right below them.  They are so cute that it is hard to get really mad.  And they know it!  Oh, and yes, my ironing and sewing machine stations are placed smack on the kitchen table....  I guess that I ought to feel bad about that...  :-(

Well, what better excuse to stay in and stitch than freezing weather?  I got time to stitch up a storm this weekend!  I started off on Friday evening with finishing up as much as I can on the PS Birth Sampler.  Now the baby boy needs his full name to be decided and we are ready to get this sampler on the road!

Saturday got interrupted with taking care of the fuzz-balls.  I was left as the single parrot parent on Saturday, since DH had to work (I keep forgetting - I think that I am married, but I am not sure if we actually live together anymore...)  and to be nice to him and the birds I had fun leaning over the bath-tub for a couple of hours.  I have probably mentioned it in the past - 6 large bird cages take time to clean...
Anyway, it's definitely worth it - as you can see below, Rocky and Hugin are quite pleased.  Rocky is munching away on a large chunk of apple.  I remember that I thought that it was absolutely fascinating the first time I saw a bird eat like this! 

Rocky and Hugin have had 19 babies together and they are out only mating couple (thank goodness!!!).  Rocky (Rock) is the female and is quite a little overachiever, laying up to 10 eggs per clutch.  There is not a chance in the world that she can sit on all 10, so generally about 4 of the eggs hatch.  That keeps mom and dad quite busy as it is...  The first time Rocky sat on her eggs, she was so devoted that she refused to come out of her nest-box to eat.  Hugin  did actually have to go in to the box, chase her out and guard the entrance until she had eaten some food and drunk a bit of water.  She was really skinny when the eggs finally hatched and I am sure that she would not have survived without him taking care of her.
After the babies hatch, she is generally not too interested in family time anymore.  See, she loves DH and probably wishes that she could have married him instead of Hugin.  She does not even bother trying to keep it a secret.  :-)  She will sit and kiss DH on the forehead and tell him "Hi baby!" for hours.  Luckily neither Hugin nor I are the jealous type! 
Hugin is a great dad!  It is pretty cool to see how birds are taught how to fly in your own living-room.  He will line up all the babies beside him on the top of a cage, look them all over to make sure that he has the undivided attention of all babies and then he will fly over to another cage or object close to where he started from.  Then he turns around and all the babies fly after, one by one.  Then he makes sure that they are all lined up, paying attention, and it is off back to the point of origin.  It is quite a sight and he has the patience of a saint.  And I must say that the concentration and discipline of the babies are simply awesome!

Well, after bathing birdcages for a while, I thought that it would only be logical to finish up the final stitches on Just Nan's "Birdcage"/  I had some beading, back-stitch and charting to do, so I opted to do that at home instead of at work.  I switched out the text on the outside back for my initials and a large egg.  I like the egg, but I am not certain about the letters just yet.  (They are taken from the PS Birth Sampler book btw.)  After that, I read that finishing instructions about three times and fell asleep...  Snore!

I did also finish up a small stitch for Littelest Sister.  I always used to call her my little piglet, since she is very blond, has a beautiful rosy complexion and has the cutest little button nose (oh, how I wish that I had gotten that nose...)!  I think that it is only fitting that I could be called a chicken, so this design is  dedicated to her as a symbol of the two of us.  If you surf the on-line stitch stores as often as I am, you probably know that this little square is only the part of this design.  I am sorry that I can't show all of it to you, but LS, "Herr Slusk", follows my blog regularly.  I promise to show you as soon as I have handed it over to her.

I was a tad tired on Sunday, but managed to start on a brand new kit; the LH 1818 Quaker Pocket, which is an old kit from The Goode Huswife.  This was the very first kit that I bough by contacting the desiner directly.  I got two kits - one to sticth for my Mom and one for me.  I have been thinking that I'd better stitch on these ni parallel, or I have a feeling that only one will be done...  Supposedly, the pre-finished pockets that came with these kits werer accidentally made with the wrong count linen, so I feel a bit like I am living on the edge...  It will be very pretty when it is done and I think that it will stitch up a lot quicker than I originally thought.

So, since I can't stick to just one new beginning, I started on yet another kit tonight.  I have the opportunity to take the Hare Pyns finishing class with Sherri Jones of Patrick's Woods through the QCSG in October.  I took this class at CON back in 2007 and never even opened the kit.  I even missed the class!  I do have a good excuse; I took Forget-Me-Nots-in-Stitches "A Victorian Melon Bag" that year too and the classes were scheduled during the same time slot.  Well, Sherri's class was jam packed and there were only three students in Lauren Sauer's  class, so it was an easy pick of which class-room to sit in!  I think that Lauren is the sweetest person, by the way!  Oh, and Sherri is also a lovely lady.

Anyway, I have told myself that I am not registring for the finishing class unless the stitching is done.  Basta!  It is a lovely design, but the vast majority of the stitching is over-one I think, so nothing that I will whip up over a weekend...  ;-)  Here is the beginning of the needle book.  Herringbone stitch and over-one..... 

Before I say Good Night, I guess I'd better post a picture of the Melon Bag!  It was a fun prooject and the first one that I ran amok and redesigned a big part to be more personal.  I will have to go back and change out all the rings that the drawstring goes through.  The keep snagging the string and it drives me batty!!!!
The secon pic shows my monogram - that was the panel that I redesigned.

So, Good Night all friends - talk with you soon!