This is going to the TOP of my Wish list...

Yesterday, DH and I took a ride down to Cape May, NJ, for an antiques show. Well, the show turned out to be rather small, and we blew through it in under 30 minutes. The weather was cloudy, but on the warm side (warmer than some of our previous off season trips to the Jersey shore!), so we walked around Cape May for a while. If you've never been there, it's a very cute, Victorian-styled sea side town on the southern tip of New Jersey.

We stopped in at Stitch by Stitch, which was very nice. I had wanted to stop in when we were there before, but we never managed to be there when the shop was open. Luckily, it was open yesterday. HOLY COW do they have a lot of stuff in there!! I didn't know where to look first! (BTW, the picture on their website is deceptive - it's not nearly as big as it looks.) It was a little hard to maneuver around the spinning racks of charts, and some of the spinning racks are blocking the stuff that's hanging on the walls. Fortunately, the owner was there and she has a very good grasp on her inventory. She was able to find a chart we were looking for right away, but the size of the store just isn't conducive to easy browsing.

She does, however, have an IMPRESSIVE collection of fibers, fabrics and beads, plus all kinds of neat tools. If the shop were just a little bigger with a little more room, I probably could have spent a lot more time (and money!) in there, but I guess with beach town real estate being so pricey, she has to fit as much as she can into a limited space.

While poking around, I came across an M Designs Tree of Cape May. I didn't purchase that one (we did come home with a different nautical chart, of course!), but it did prompt me to check out the M Designs website. Did you know you could get a PERSONALIZED M Designs tree with either a first name or a last name? I think they're the neatest designs, and I'm definitely going to have to order one with our last name on it - seeing as how it will work for us, my ILs and my BIL and SIL for a Christmas ornament. :-D First names are $12, last names are $24 (unless your last name is a common first name, and then it's $12), plus there's a 2-8 week turn around time.

I am so going to have to order one of these for Christmas next year. As you might have guessed, I really like to stitch very personal pieces - whether it's the theme or adding a name or whatever. I think it adds so much to a piece when it's so personal.