A Finish and Other Gibberish

It is hard to believe it has been over a week since I last did a post. Had meant to do another one a day or two after the last one. Don't know where my time goes. Might be that it took me over 2 hours to do the last one. Problems with the pictures loading and there were a few of them.

Here is a photo of the finish that I spoke of in my last post. I bought some trim at Hobby Lobby the other day and found some fabric for the back to make it into a pillow. Just have not gone there yet. Was talking to someone today at the LNS about a lady that does finishing and I got to thinking it might just be easier and faster to let Sherri do it. LOL!!

Smell My Feet

by La D Da

from JCS Halloween Ornament Magazine

28-ct Mystery Fabric

WDW Mascara and GAST Mistletoe

Recently, (within the last couple of months) I joined a new Yahoo Group. A very small active group name Stitcher's Timeout. What a fun group. This past weekend they had a Halloween SAL. I had big plans to do a couple of different small Halloween pieces. Started with "Night Owl" from JCS Magazine. Got a great deal of it done. There was a KSU home football game on Saturday that interfered with my available stitching time. That group also has an "Elf Stitching Night" on Monday night. Have been trying to participate in that. Elf Stitching is the time to stitch on Christmas Presents. Well, I had to change my Elf Stitching to Sunday, since I have my Sunflower Stitchers group on Monday and the Christmas Presents I am working on are for a couple of people in that group. Therefore, I had to take Sunday off from the Halloween SAL to do Elf Stitching. Are you confused yet? Monday then I stitched on my owl. I finally finished him late this afternoon while working at the LNS. No photo yet. I may not finish into an ornament, instead frame him. He is very cute. Other stitching has been on a Sunflower Seed design model. Of course, no photos of it yet either.

Since the election is Tuesday, I will be working there as Supervising Judge. Always have to go to a 2+ hour training the week before. That was yesterday. They expect us to be very busy all day. It is a very long day. Getting poll workers is very hard so I feel it is my civic duty since I am retired. Ask me next Tuesday night if I feel the same way.

Plans were to provide a Part II of Floss Fight at The Sage Inn. However, I was waiting for some more pictures from others. Have them now, but I have to decide which ones should be published. Others might be too incriminating to my stitching buddies. Janet, I won't put up the one of you modeling your jammies. Hopefully, I can find the time for that in the next few days.

After church on Sunday, we are having a fundraiser soup and dessert lunch like we did last year. I am making at least a double batch of my Taco Soup. That is on the agenda for making tomorrow and Saturday. Saturday noon, I am taking a couple of ladies from my church to a Chicken and Noodle dinner at a nearby church. Nothing better than homemade noodles on mashed potatoes. I can already taste them. Speaking of food, remember the Church Cookbook I had been working on. Well, it has arrived and we have sold around 400 of the 794 received. Here is the cover of the cookbook.

Today and earlier in the week, I did a little stashing at the LNS. I bought fabric for Little House Needleworks "From Sea to Shining Sea" and the 3 designs of the coffee series. Both can be seen at the link provided. I got 28-ct R&R Lt Cappuccino for the coffee pieces (all on one piece) and 28-ct R&R 18th Century Stone for the Sea to Shining sea design. All the patterns come with the Belle Soie silk floss that I love. Again, I am being the fiber snob. Not sure when I will get them done, but I am sure I will get them started soon. The other thing I got is "American Baby" by Willow Hill Samplings. Saw this on someone else's blog and just had to have it for my college roommate's daughter that was going to have a baby in November. Just before I went into the football game on Saturday, I got a phone call and my friend was in Oklahoma City instead of at the ball game because she had a new granddaughter that morning. Sophie Marie was born that morning. So now I have another project. Still working on Precious Baby for my niece's baby Cameron. Not enough time to stitch it all. The fabric I bought for American Baby is 28-ct Heritage Cashel by Picture This Plus. As you can tell, I prefer to stitch on 28-ct.

Thanks to all that stop in, read and comment. Want to say an extra greeting to Theresa in Hays, KS. So enjoyed receiving your comment. Glad you found my blog. Would e-mail you, but don't have an address. Tell the kids "hi" from me too.

Off to put in a few more stitches before hitting the hay. Yes, I am a night owl. Sometimes it catches up with me. Don't forget to change your clocks Saturday night and VOTE on Tuesday.

Happy Stitching!!!!!!!!

Floss Fight at The Sage Inn

This past weekend my Monday Night Stitch Therapy group had our long awaited stitch weekend/retreat at the Sage Inn B& B in Dover, Kansas. Dover is a very small unincorporated community 13 miles west of Topeka. You will remember we made a one night trial run at this same location. We had been looking forward to this weekend and we were not disappointed. A great time was has by all. I even said I thought someone messed with the time and made things speed up and gave us less time there. Everyone arrived around 4:00PM. That is the earliest they would let us come. Some took the entire day off work in anticipation of our big weekend. Since it is a B&B we had to figure out what to eat outside of the breakfast provided. You know we are all concerned about eating. On Friday night we ate at the little community cafe across the street. They had a buffet of mystery meat (beef ribs???), corn, baked potatoes (big!!!) and salad. It even came with chocolate cake for dessert.

Last time we stitched in the living room, but this time we decided that the dining room was better. Better light and a little bigger for all of our stuff. I did not get any pictures of the room with us all in there.

Although we have been stitching together for some time, we had never come up with a name for ourselves. We had tried several times, but nothing really stuck. Did not feel the Stitch 'n Bitch Club was unique enough for us. Finally this weekend we named ourselves the "Sunflower Stitchers". I think all or almost all of us were born and raised in Kansas and the Sunflower is our state flower. Besides the LNS where we stitch weekly is called The Sunflower Seed. Also, we are also beautiful that we should use a flower in our name. Here is a picture of all of us that was taken Saturday afternoon. We had said that we were not going to get out of our jammies all day, but you can see that we did. Comfortable clothes, but not jammies.

Our picture was taken on the back deck and this is the view of the backyard from the deck.

Have any of you heard of the children's book, Flat Stanley? flat Stanley is a flat drawing of a little boy. I took a page out of that story and something done by my STO Yahoo group when they had a retreat. Had been getting comments from Martha of Gone Stitching regarding us going on our retreat and how envious she was of our chance to do the retreat. She is trying to set something similar up with her stitching group and encountering some issues. So I decided to take Flat Martha with me to the retreat. I went to her blog and printed off the picture she had of herself on her blog. Now she tells me it is a really old picture of her. Whatever, I just needed one fast, since I only thought of doing this on Friday morning. So here are some pictures of Flat Martha at the retreat.

Flat Martha in the middle of the Dining Room Table


Flat Martha in amongst the snacks

Day 1 Breakfast

Day 1 Breakfast with all the other things served

Flat Martha with Day 2 Breakfast

Yes, that is stuff French Toast

I made up goody bags for everyone with things that others donated. Included were colored loose leaf rings, floss drops, initial note cards, colored binder clips, tootsie pops, highlighter and many more fun things. Since the note cards were specific to each person, I had to put name tags on them. In trying to figure out how to tie them on, I came across a bag of Loose Threads from GAST that I had been given some where. It contained 2-3 lengths of various Sampler Threads, but not labeled. I picked colors that fit each person and then tied the names on with the thread. Now they all have to figure out which color they got.

Reina has made lots of beaded fobs and other jewelry. So she brought all her beads along and assisted us all in making a fob for our scissors. Here are Jan and Reina working on fobs. Anita is seated in the background and Marcia is off to the side.

Here is the fob that I made. Purple, of course. While I was making my fob, I figured out that Reina had made this wonderful bracelet she gave me a while back. My fob has some of the same purple beads in it that my bracelet does. Love that bracelet because it fits nice and does not slip off like a lot of mine do.

Anita, The original Sunflower Seed, designed a little piece for us to stitch at the retreat. And to most people's surprise, I stitched it all up while at the retreat. I meant to get a picture of her model, but I did not. It goes in a black frame with some glued on wooden ornaments of a witch and her boot or hat. So very cute. My door looks a little wonky in the picture, but I have since re-done the back stitching and it looks a lot better. It is at the shop for framing. The fabric color does not show up very good since I laid it on a white table to take the picture. Fabric is R&R 18th Century Rook stitched with sampler threads and a brass bat charm. I just love it.

We also played our games of CLR Floss, Scavenger Hunt and Stitcher's Bingo. There was a bag of stitchy stash items donated by others in the group for the winners to draw from. Anita won the Scavenger Hunt. Various people won in Bingo. We played 3 rounds of CLR Floss. Two rounds with DMC floss and one with overdyed floss (Sampler Threads, WDW or Crescent Colours). I had planned to divide the 9 of us into two tables so more people could win, but the group thought it would be more fun to do it all together. So each winner won 27 skeins of floss. Reita and Janet won in the two rounds with DMC and I won the Overdyed Floss. Woo Hoo!!! I did not even cheat. Everyone really liked playing the CLR Floss game. I had put 82 items on the Scavenger Hunt list and I only had 48 of them in my stitch bag. Guess I should have read the list closer. I was going to list some of the things include on the Scavenger List, but my post is getting rather long and I still want to include some of funny quotes that I recorded during the weekend.

When we first started having retreats or special stitch days, I started writing down all the strange and funny little things that were said. Most I can attribute to the correct individual, but will leave that off so as not to ruin some of the quoted's reputation. Many of these are "you had to be there", but others you will find the humor in just reading them.

- We need to loosen up. response: Jan, you are way to loose.

- Aged Pewter-I sort of feel like that some mornings.

- All in favor of Jan ripping out---unanimous

- Whole lotta slapping going on, led to "Let's Get Physical", led to a discussion of John Travolta being fat, old and pointed headed. John your Hunk days are over.

- Oh, my ears have stopped bleeding. The owners insisted on playing elevator music for us and no one liked it. So when they would leave we would change it and then when they came back they would change it back, so one time after it was turned off we were relieved. This could also apply to the fact that the owner spent all afternoon mowing the front yard right outside the room where we were. Most of that part of the yard did not even have grass. Maybe he just wanted to look at the lovelies. LOL!!

- Be careful I can see your cord.

- Snot sisters, sniffling sisters. We always end up sniffling at the same time and especially after a major laughing episode.

It is getting late and I have been working on this way too long. I will put more in the next post. I have another finish and a couple of other things ready for the next post, so these quotes will be continued later.

After all this I did not mention that we even did some of our own cooking for the other meals besides breakfast. Next post.

Janet decided that we needed to award a booby prize to one member each time we have a retreat. This time the overwhelming winner was Jan (aka TP). Her is Jan with her new doll with stick pins. This will become a tradition in future retreats. Jan will make the award next time. We are betting that Janet will get it back.

As we were all packing up Sunday morning, plans were being made for the next time. We are hoping to do this again in the spring. If not then, we will absolutely do it again next fall. It is hard to put in writing all the fun and pleasure we get out of each other's company. We are truly becoming stitching sister, maybe even snotty sisters. Several other took more pictures than I did, so I will try to get some more pictures to post with the next round of quotes.

Blogger has been a little temperamental tonight, so this has taken way longer than I planned. Taking valuable stitching time. Tomorrow I work at the LNS, so need to go get things together to be gone tomorrow. Been rainy, dreary and cool the last couple of days. Supposed to clear up by the weekend. Love fall, but not sure about the winter to follow.

Thanks for stopping in and reading all this babbling. Hope it was not too much. Keep on stitching.

Stitching Instead of Blogging

Tonight at Monday night stitching I was severely chastised because I have not done a blog for almost 2 weeks. It seems I have been doing a lot of stitching and not taking time to blog. Mostly because several of the things I cannot show here. Two things are Christmas presents for for people that read my blog and the other is a design model for The Sunflower Seed. Over the weekend, I decided to stitch something as a shop model. It is a really cute JBW design and have been wanting to do it for some time. I have become convinced that I could stitch fall/Halloween designs most of the time, with a little time out for Christmas things. We ordered a frame for this tonight. Sorry the picture is a little crooked.

Autumn Harvest

by JBW Designs

28-ct Lt. Mocha Cashel

Fibers- WDW Carrot, Terra Cotta, and Pumpkin

GAST - Dark Chocolate

Also have gotten a little more work done on the Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet from the JCS Halloween Ornament Magazine. Maybe I can finish it this week. Found some black stringy type fringe at Hobby Lobby the other day. I think it would look cool on this, if I make it into a pillow. Will decide that later.

Picked up the Purple Cow from the framer a week ago. It turned out very nice. Not sure whether the frame comes through as purple as it is IRL. Purple is one of the most difficult colors to photograph. Joann's birthday is later in the month, am saving it til then to give to her.

Quaker Cow

by The Workbasket

28-ct Anita Original Linen

Needle Necessities - 196

On one of the Yahoo Groups that I belong to, an individual posted that she had closed a LNS and had some fiber to sell. She also mentioned that she had quite a bit of Needle Necessities in her stock. If any of you know me, I was on to that real quick. So I think I ordered another 40 skeins of NN plus some Waterlilies silk. I guess I am just obsessed with NN fiber and have to have as much as I can. When I will ever get it stitched up, I don't know, but I have to have it!!!

The church cookbook has arrived. Had planned to take a picture of it for use here, but I forgot. Try to remember it for next time. Talked to the committee chairperson today and we have sold well over 230 of the 700 that we ordered. I have sold 9 to friends and a lady at the bank. Still need to get some to use as Christmas gifts.

Had home KSU football games the last 2 Saturdays and that sure cuts into my stitching time. The worst part is they are not playing well. Last Saturday, I could have left a halftime and I would have been happy. I know I am a sore loser, but when it seems like they are not even trying, I get fed up.

This weekend is a cousins reunion in the town where my dad lives. My cousins that plan the reunion want to have it where he lives as long as we have him. He is the last living of 9 in his family. Planning to take Calico Beans in the crock pot and will make a peach cobbler too. Got my box of Colorado peaches tonight. They are awesome. Some of the peaches are the size of softballs. I could almost make a cobbler out of one of them.

Been working to get things ready for our Monday Night Stitchers Retreat in a little over a week and a half. This past weekend, I finalized the Stitch Bag Scavenger Hunt list. There are 82 items and 4 extra credit items on the list. Tonight we finished up the menus for the weekend and everyone signed up what they are going to bring. Since we are staying at a B&B, we need to do our meals other than breakfast. However, as much as they fed us for breakfast the last time we were there, we might not need any other food. Also made up the goodie bags for everyone with the stuff I have to put in them. Waiting on stuff from others that are going to provide stuff.

Hey, stitch girls are you happy now? I have done a post. Will try not to wait so long between posts next time. Thanks to all that stop by even if you don't leave a comment. Your visits are appreciated.

Have a good week and keep those needles flying. Christmas is coming.