A Wonderful and Relaxing Stitching Weekend

Happy Monday, everyone!  I hope that your weekend was as fabulous as mine was.  

I drove up to Indiana to hang out with Nan and Bzz*Bzz*Bee at Nan's for an entire weekend.  Traffic was crazy on the Friday afternoon.  Road-constructions, accidents and holiday traffic galore extended the driving time from 3 hrs up to 5!  It was definitely worth it, no question about it.

Here is the hostess stitching away on a beautiful piece, Animal Zoo by Blue Ribbon Designs.  She picked the perfect 40-ct linen and a gorgeous over-dyed floss.  This is really pretty sampler and it was a lot of fun to see it close-up.  She did a great progress too and even got time to stitch on a couple of other project over the three days we worked diligently in her basement.

 

Here is Bzz*Bss stitching away, almost lying down.  She did also get a bunch stitched, including a good portion of her I Sigh Not for Beauty SAL.  She is almost there!  She also brought us a bag each of absolutely wonderful gifts, a needle-threader and my absolute favorite being her home-made hand-scrub with a mint scent.  Yum!
We got spoiled by Stitchaholic too - she gave us a beautiful pair of scissors in a super-sweet scissors case.  I will try to remember to post photos next time.

Aaaah - this is life!

Yep, we got spoiled rotten plenty over the weekend... I have to specifically mention the awesome food, the comfortable beds, the gorgeous surroundings and our supportive and absolutely adorable stitching buddy, Nan's puppy (who is 12 years old).  He is just the sweetest!  Here he is posing for a pic before getting a snuggle from mom!

We dis also get a great lesson in how to finish stitched pieces into box stand-ups.  Bzz*Bzz brought a sweet piece and some pretty backing fabric that this efficient but easy technique was demonstrated on.

Ironing with a smile!

Measuring styrofoam.

Ta-daaa - isn't this adorable!?

We have asked Nan to post a tutorial on her blog, so I am crossing my fingers and hoping that she'll get a chance to do that.

I stitched away on the stocking and got a few more fields filled in.  This feels like such a slowly progressing project, but I do enjoy working on it, so it's all good.  DH and I agreed that the Snowman and the Ornament stockings are cute too, so after the Reindeer stocking has been stitched up, it'll be time to order a couple of additional charts and sets of supplies.  I hate when that happens!  LOL

I did also show DH all the BOAF stocking charts I have and he likes all of those as well, so I may have to stitch a bunch more than we need and just use them for decoration.  Does anyone else stitch Xmas stockings?  Which ones are your favorites?

I did also manage to whip out one out of five parts of Merry Cox's class project Victorian Carrier.  I love Merry's design style and that her pieces look so intricate, but that they are not as complex to stitch as they look.  So much fun!  Four more sets to go!

We enjoyed drooling over Nan's stitched pieces that were displayed on walls and shelves.  This is probably my favorite - isn't it pretty?  The designer is La-D-Da:

I loved this display with all the boxes, box stand-ups, and flat-folds in Nan's stitch room (which is a wonder of organization, let me tell you). 

Look at the wonderful finished finishes!

As mentioned before, the surroundings were just breathtaking. 

This is the serene view from the walk-in basement.  Nan's pond is full of large, white cat-fish and we saw a big turtle, a couple of deer and plenty of bird-life - sweet, sweet hummingbirds and goldfinches.

When I woke up in the mornings, this was the sight that greeted me - a green and softly swaying corn-field.  It can not get any better than this!  (Well, yeah, I forgot that we all need rain really badly!)

We had a bunch of fun.  We watched a vast assortment of different TV-shows - some of them better than others...  I can recommend against ever watching the "reality show" Operation Repo.  I hope that the show is not really reality, because this poor team seemed to screw up more than they actually fixed.  It was hilarious, but sad at the same time.  In the name of diplomacy, I will point out that we only watched one episode before we gave up.  It may be a great show, who knows?  LOL

After a long trip back home, greeted by DH passed out on the couch  :-) and a couple of great stash delivery envelopes - wonderful!

Well, it is probably time to get to bed here.   You get exhausted having a great weekend, filled with hours of stitching, chatting, TV watching, food, and sleep.  Happy sigh.
Back to reality tomorrow morning - lab at 7 o'clock!  :-)

Take care and have a great week with plenty of stitching!