Sad sad day across the nation .. please keep the families of the slain children at Viriginia Tech in your thoughts and prayers .. and hug your kids, call a dear friend you haven't talked to in a long time, call your parents .. reach out to those around you .. you never know when they will be taken from you.

I have a couple of finishes .. finally! lol .. I finished In Every Nest when I was at the retreat last month .. I just love this silly design!


and I finished another Christmas ornament that was on my list .. I didn't realize until I took the picture that I still need to add his bell around his neck .. but here he is anyway ..

and here's my WIP .. the 25th Anniversary piece I'm doing for my best friend and her DH .. it's a Sisters and Best Friends design that I bought at the retreat .. I love the design but the colors just didn't work for me .. I've changed them but like I've said before .. I'm really uncomfortable with making color changes .. Lisa's colors were shades of blue .. that's why I picked the verigated blue thread .. I like the rose above the 25 in all silvers, since the 25th is the silver anniversary .. I think I'm doing their names and wedding date in WDW Garnet .. she carried burgandy roses .. and the little green thingys are actually little roses all over the fabric .. I think I'm going to alternate garnet and gray roses .. or maybe just all garnet roses .. whatcha think?? honesty please *smile*


I hope you all have had a great weekend and are doing lots of stitching!

I'm grateful for my family

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter with their family and friends. We had a great busy day .. the weather really cooperated ... it was sunny and beautiful until about 5pm, then the rains came.

I'm really looking forward to this coming week .. I didn't stitch at all last week and it's starting to get on my nerves .. I'm really looking forward to working and then coming home and stitching. Here's a very loose interpretation of a stitching rotation I've been thinking about ..

Monday - S&BF's class piece; Chicken
Tuesday - 25th Anniversary pattern; for my best friend's anniversary
Wednesday - MDesign's presonalized sampler
Thursday - 25th Anniversary pattern
Friday through Sunday - Christmas ornaments/PIF's/Exchanges

I have sooo much I'm wanting to start .. but I really want to get a couple of the class pieces finished and the MDesign sampler .. I'm about 1/2 done and really enjoy working on it .. but then it's not much fun to not enjoy what you are stitching on is it? lol

I'm grateful for times in the sun .. few and far between as they are this time of year *smile*

Wow, can't believe it's Saturday already .. seems like I just posted about the retreat .. how time flies when you are having fun .. lol. Haven't done any stitching this week .. but I've been sorting and putting all my stash away from the retreat. Today was housecleaning and getting the Easter Baskets together .. we have a family tradition that started about 28 years ago .. we put together Easter baskets and deliver them to our friends and family late Saturday night so when they wake up in the morning, the Easter Bunny has been there :) When Terry and I were a bit younger and we didn't have any kids .. the Easter Bunny deliveries happened about 2 or 3 in the morning .. we really didn't want to be caught! lol .. over the years the amount of baskets that we deliver has increased and decreased, depending on who was in our lives at the time, well other than family lol and of course what's in the baskets has changed over the years .. depending on finances and other stuff .. it's almost like Christmas .. I start looking for fun silly stuff for the baskets about 3 months before .. and sometimes I bake .. we always dye eggs.

Thank you all for the comments you leave .. I just love hearing from everyone :) I've decided what I'm going to stitch next .. I'll post my loose rotation ideas later .. dinner is burning! lol

I'm grateful for family traditions ...

Grab a cup of coffee or tea .. this might be a tad long lol ....

I had the most wonderful time last week at A Stitcher's Retreat, once I got there! I'm really glad when I travel I like to arrive a day early .. I left Seattle Tuesday morning .. arrived in Detroit about 4pm. I was supposed to have left Detroit for a 20 minute plane ride to Toledo at 5:15 .. well Detroit got hit with a spring thunderstorm that decided to stall over the airport! I got to spend 2-1/2 hours in the little plane on the tarmak trying to see if the airport would let us leave .. long story short, I finally arrived at my hotel in Toledo at about midnight .. it was a long day! Wednesday was check in day at the retreat .. I got to sleep in because I didn't have a long drive to Sauders Inn. Once I found the Inn, I was still too early to check in, so I had fun looking around the little town of Archbold and enjoyed lunch at The Barn Restaurant. Stitcher's starting arriving about 2ish ... we all hung around in the lobby stitching and getting to know each other .. I was stunned to see that about 85% of the women were there at last years Stitcher's Retreat. There stitchers from 24 states, Alaska the farthest away .. I think there were 83 stitchers total. We got checked in to our rooms about 4ish and had a couple of hours before dinner to rest or stitch or walk around and investigate the Inn .. I did a little of it all :) Dinner was at The Barn Restaurant, buffet style and very tasty. After dinner we got to do some stash shopping *smile* .. and I had a great time spending way too much money! The designers bring all kinds of goodies to sell, even some things that you can only purchase at a retreat. There's pictures of my purchases, the class pieces and assorted pictures of the retreat in my webshots album titled 2007 Stitchers Retreat.

When we checked in we got our reschedule of classes that we had signed up for .. I forgot what I had signed up for .. it was like 6 months ago that we picked our classes .. well, I found out that I was in classes all day on Thursday! lol .. My first class was from 9-12 with Sisters and Best Friends. The Sisters are really fun and great teachers. The class piece was a sheep with flowers around. They love to play with stitches and emblishments. The sheep design had some over one and some over two stitches .. there was wool for some of the flowers, beads and buttons and a very yummy piece of 19ct cort linen. Lunch was next .. then off to my 2nd class ...

With Ann and Liz from BrightNeedle. I am soo glad I took their class .. their designs are so delicate and different from what I usually choose to stitch .. but I really enjoyed their designs, and I learned something!! woo hoo :) I really really learned how to stitch over one. I've stitched over one a couple of times in the past but always got frustrated, not because of the side of the cross stitch, but because sometimes I would lose my stitch .. and I never really understood why. I'd been told before about a horizonal thread and a verical thread, but never really understood it .. and now I do :) over one is still not the most relaxing stitching for me, but now that I know how to do it the right way, I'm hoping I start liking it more :) The class piece is a bag with a very pretty design and saying stitched on the front and back, a needle holder and a pin cushion. I might not make everything because my finishing experience isn't great .. but I know I'll be stitching the motifs probably more than once lol. So this class ended at 4 and then it was time for the "optional" class I signed up for with Sisters and Best Friends .. again :) This class piece is a companion piece to the sheep .. it's a chicken, using again wool and beads and buttons to create another fun design. By dinner time, I was a bit stitched out! lol After dinner there was more stash shopping to do .. then it was off to bed for me ..

Friday was the last day of the retreat .. after breakfast and checking out .. we had our last classes, it was a round robin 3 teachers and 50 minutes per class .. it was great fun and a nice way to end .. You'll see in my pictures that we really did stitch at the retreat! lol .. I enjoyed myself soo much that I've already signed up for next years retreat!

It is nice to be home .. now my big decisions are what to stitch .. I have like 4 or 5 projects from the retreat all started, plus all my other stash .. I need to retire just so I can stitch! lol Sorry if this post rambled *smile*

I'm grateful for my time with fellow stitchers ...

This one's for Jamie ... my new favorite song! lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXS0nEOx_20