Thursday, March 28, 2013

Can Spring finally be here?????



  Today the sun is out and the snow is finally starting to melt.....I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this time Spring has decided to stay.
My poor daffodils don't know what to do!  Every time they pop their little heads out, we get hit with another snow storm!!

I'm packing up to teach for Stitchville USA at a wonderful conference center outside of Minneapolis, Mn. and am hoping the snow will be gone by the time I get there...fingers crossed!!!!!  I'll share all the details when I get back.

In the mean time I have to share my progress on "Lucy Redd"..............I've been wanting to stitch her for years and then last year when Jean Lea of Attic Needlework came up with a silk color palette for her....it sent me over the edge!!!



I just love the soft colors....it's actually soothing to stitch.




I've been enjoying discovering all the little idiosyncrasies within her sampler.........apparently she didn't mind going outside of the borders to fit in a word or two or add one above if she missed it in the verse........she has provided me with many giggles in our journey together thus far!!



I'm hoping once I finish the alphabet and three dividing bands, all done in Algerian eye, it should be smooth sailing because I'll be getting close to my favorite part.......houses!!!


Now for some fun news........I'm starting up another "Club".....
.........this time with one of my favorite shops.......Old Mill Stitchery in Liberty Mo.  We're calling it "Seasons of Chessie"
and it will consist of 4 designs within a year, starting in May 2013.  Here's a little peek at the first one.  If you're interested in joining , you can contact Old Mill Stitchery and they can give you all the details.......


..........I always love to stitch on designs that match the season and this club should offer you that same incentive.  And of course, "Chessie" will make an appearance in each design.
Hope some of you will join us for this seasonal journey!!  It should be fun.

Until next time....enjoy your Easter holiday and may you find time everyday to take a stitch!!!


Thursday, March 7, 2013

Back from Market

I'm back from the Nashville Market and still riding high!!!!

We had a GREAT trip down, avoiding most of the snow, and finding some great new shopping spots along the way.

It's always wonderful to connect with all of the designers and shop owners we've become friends with over the years.  I pretty much keep my nose to the grindstone when I'm working on new designs, so it's always interesting to me to see what everyone else has come up with.....and this year seems to have been very prolific for a lot of us.  

Here's a peek and what my booth looked like.




Thanks so much to all of the shop owners who showed up and bought and bought and bought........your enthusiastic response to my designs really  keeps me going !!!!

Over all, I think this was the most positive show I've been to in a long while.....the shoppers were thrilled with all of the great new designs......... the designers were thrilled with the over the top responses of the shop owners.......who could ask for more???

As usual, the time went much too fast .....we ate well, drank well, laughed often and tried to catch up with as many people as we could and then it was time to pack up and head home.

We lucked out again and beat the storm home .  Tuesday morning when I got up this is what it looked like out our back window.



It's amazing to me that as soon as John fills the feeders.....the birds appear like magic !!!!

I was happy to spend the day unpacking the van and doing book work while watching the birds with Chessa and Brewster.  Of course, both cats were glued to the windows ,watching their every move and periodically making little throaty sounds at them.

Chessa did manage to take a little time out to snag a "rummage" in one of the boxes I was unpacking, but quickly returned to the birds as they were far more interesting!!!



Hope you all get out to your local needlework shops and find some treasures to take home .  There's some GREAT new stuff out there!!

          KEEP STITCHING!!!!!!!