Hop Recovery Complete

Well I have finally recovered enough from last weekend's Shop Hop to take pictures and write about a great weekend. I worked at the LNS-aka-The Sunflower Seed on Wednesday to finish getting things ready for the Shop Hop on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. There were displays to get together, rearrange things in the shop to accommodate all the new things we had in. One highlight of the Hop was to be a "trunk show" from The Workbasket. It was to be in our shop by May 1st. As of yesterday, we still had not received it. The patterns available for sale came directly from The Workbasket and there were there, but no models. They were to be coming from a shop on the East Coast. Maybe we can blame the postal service or UPS.

The shop hop was a wonderful time and we were busy virtually all the time each day. The busiest was almost always first thing in the morning. At one time on Saturday morning, we had at least 16 shoppers in the shop at one time and there were 3 of us writing tickets and people were still in line. After spending that much time on our feet, Saturday night Anita and I were toast.

Here are a few pictures of our displays to give you a little taste of some of the things we had for the Shop Hop.

As you saw in my last post, this is the Shop Hop Sampler made from all the designs that are picked up at each shop participating in the Hop. Anita designed the border and incorporated beads as eyes for the bats and spiders. We had available cuts of the fabric (R&R 18th Century Stone) and packets of beads that were used. In the foreground you can see hand painted Sunflower needle boxes Anita made. Oh, and what is Halloween without some Candy Corn. Yum!! Yum!!

Each year Anita designs a little piece as a souvenir of the Shop Hop and it is related to the theme of the hop. This year it was finished into a little flat hanger to put around a quart Mason canning jar to be used as a candy jar. Kit had fabric, buttons and ribbon for hanging. Oh, so cute. Jar had candy corn and peanuts in it. Can you tell we like candy corn? We have also found out that you cannot eat just one. LOL.

As an added bonus, Anita designed this little one over one Sunflower, too. She made up little kits with the pattern and fabric and put them in the little boxes that DMC comes in and tied them up with raffia. Made cute little kits. The fabric is R&R 18th Century Clove.

All in all the Shop Hop was a huge success and we thank everyone that came in to join in all the fun. It was nice to see old friends and make new ones. We heard about lots of projects in process and plans for others. One idea that we heard of that just really intrigued us all was there were 2 gals in that they were in the process of stitching the Shepherd's Bush stockings over one on 32-ct fabric. One of them already had 3 of them done. Those have to be amazing to see. Now that has given all of us in our stitching group new ideas.

Most of my recovery time has been spent stitching or doing stitching related things. I have not been to ambitious to much of anything. I did make it to both Monday night and Wednesday afternoon stitch therapy sessions this week. One of the ladies has asked me to do some charting of names and date for a sampler that she is turning into a wedding sampler. Will need to have that done by Monday night for that stitch therapy session.

My friend Sandi will be celebrating a birthday tomorrow, so we went to lunch yesterday. She is going to be out of town tomorrow and we were both going to stitch therapy yesterday afternoon anyway, so decided to do lunch too. I have her The Sunflower Seed's Celtic Needle Box kit, Belle Soie to stitch it, needles and a mesh bag to carry her stitching in. Sandi is the friend that I started a retirement stitching gift for a long time ago (I won't even tell you how long ago). I kept struggling with the piece and she kept offering to finish it. So finally in February, I think it was, I gave it to her. Talked to her on Saturday evening and she asked me to run by on Sunday on my way home from church because she had something to show me. Well, when I got there she had the piece done, framed and hanging on her wall. I did not have my camera with me so I did not get a picture. I will and show you how nice it turned out. She told me that I had already done the most difficult parts of the sampler. Thanks Sandi.

Here is my progress on Quaker Christmas. I have not put in almost 17 yards of 12-strand green silk in at this point. I think I have one more piece and it will be the 17 yards and I am not quite half done. This is such an awesome design.

Have also put a few stitches into a kit piece that I received for Christmas. Not enough for a picture of the stitching, so I tried to scan a picture of the kit and blogger would not accept my scanned picture. Don't know what I did wrong. This is the one that my MIL gave me and that I felt I needed to show some work on it when we go up there Memorial Day weekend. This is the strangest kit that I have ever done. It has a lot of half crosses. So far I have done some with 2 strands and 4 strands and the next part that I will put in calls for it to be done with 5 strands. Never heard of using 5 strands. Will see how it looks and then decide whether to do it that way or not. I think they are doing it that way to show texture for the garden greenery. Also am undertaking some sewing. I have a wedding to go to in June and I don't like any of the dresses in the stores. So decided to take a stab at sewing one. Don't know how this is going to work out since I have not done any of that type of sewing in years. Used to do it a lot, but it interferes with my stitching. I have all the pattern pieces trimmed and ready to cut out. Wish me luck in this project.

This week I don't work my usual Thursday at the Sunflower Seed. We have tickets to the Kansas City Royals tonight and would not be done with work in time to go, so Anita and I switched. I am working on Saturday so she can go see her little granddaughter.

Well, I can hear Quaker Christmas calling, so I am off to stitch. Thanks to all who stop in for a visit. You visits and comments are very much appreciated. Keep those needles flying.