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Thursday, April 7, 2011

At the retreat

Here in Branson with all my stitching buddies and having so much fun.  There are 13 of us here from the St. Louis Stitchers.  We have shopped and shopped and shopped again and have only been to one store....Cecelia's Samplers.  It's 4 p.m. and I haven't taken a stitch yet today but I did stay up until 3 a.m. this morning stitching.  Fuddruckers just pulled up to set up their grills for a cookout.  I hope they have those wonderful brownies again this year.  Be back later.......

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

I'm sitting in a hotel room waiting for Harriet to arrive.  Tomorrow morning we are on our way to Branson for Cecelia's Samplers' Spring Retreat.  I'm so looking forward to this.  It's a miracle that I made it this far as it seemed that everything I did took twice as long to do and nothing seemed to go right.  It was a two steps forward 10 steps back kind of day yesterday.  I at least got this new computer up and running and have the wireless network at home installed.  I hope I get used to Windows 7 soon.  I have the software to upgrade my desktop computer and will do that when I get home. 

I've started back re-stitching that blasted border on FAS.  I found a mistake over half way back on the bottom border and had to rip out almost 12" of stitching.  Of course, it had to be this scroll border which is a bear to stitch.  That probably why I made the mistake in the first place.  If it hadn't been for all the frogging, I would have FAS finished by now.  I hope I get it done at the retreat.  It would only be fitting to finish it there since it was at the 2010 Spring Retreat that I started FAS.  More tomorrow on my retreat adventure.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

It's Feeling Like Spring

The window by Sawyer's perch is open and he loves watching the birds and dreaming of catching one.  I think I can finally put away those winter sweaters. 

I realized I hadn't posted a picture of Taylor's birth sampler that I finished last year, so I' ll get one on here. The pattern is Bienvenue by Long Dog Samplers.   Two of my stitching friends have stitched this same sampler and all look different as we did them on different fabrics and with different fibers.  I used a mauve hand-dyed silk fiber from Vikki Clayton on 28 ct. cashel porcelain from Silkweavers.  I modified the chart at Taylor's request to include her late brother's initials and the years he lived. 


This is Terri Martin who stitched her sampler for her daughter Natalie and used a pastel variegated silk. 


Cheryl stitched her sampler for her granddaughter and did it over one.  It is stunning and she picked the perfect mat and frame for it.