Four Days Uninterrupted Stitching!

Hi all - I am finally getting myself back down into the basement (it is cold and we have mice down here - ugh!!!) to share last weekends retreat experience with you.

It was wonderful!  We had such a great time together and we got so much done and we were spoiled rotten!  Since it's late, I'll let the pictures do the talking!

Gift from my friends!
From Bunny^Hop - she felted the adorable basket by herself!  It is just too cute!

 From Big Dog - a wonderful pin-cushion (it is even cuter in real life!):

From the Retreat Host-family - a bunch of super cool kits:

 From myself .... ;-)  (I was actually pretty pleased that I bought so little, so I almost fell over backwards when I heard the total....):

The stack of goodies in the last photo is easily explainable - check out the 6 (!) trunk-shows squeezed into the temporary cross-stitch store!

Kathy Schmitz:

Homespun Elegance - my favorite!

  The Workbasket - love this stuff!

 Rosewood Manor:

Another favorite - JBW Designs:

 

 ...and Designs by Lisa:

The store was crowded!

We checked out our friend's finished pieces and super-finds:

 

 

 

 

 

We checked out each others WIPS:

 

Check out L-bugs fabulous progress here. 

The pattern is a free 2012 SAL by Ellen Maurer-Stroh - you can down-load this Biedermeier style sampler charts here.  Yep, it is on my To-Do-"I-Wish-I-Had-More-Time" list....  I got the linen over the weekend... ;-)  (Speaking of Biedermeier samplers, check out this one by Romy in Austria.  She pulled together this sampler by herself by adding motifs to her growing sampler.  Isn't it just gorgeous!?)

Compared sizes.... (Sandy Orton's American Sampler WIP on 25 ct and 40 ct - yes, I know that I am behind!!!! LOL)

 

We were more or less serious about stitching!  Bzz*Bzz*Bee is 100% prepped and ready to go!

B#1 (aka Froggie) & B#2 take time to laugh:

 We stitched until we dropped, took a power-nap, and got back to work!

We all got a lot of stitching done.  Here is my tally for the weekend -

EH 1669 - Before: 

 

After (yep - too lazy to iron before the shoot...):

 The Hillside Samplings Folk Art Needle Box is finished!  (...at least the stitching part...)

 ...and a new start! - CRC carrots (leaflets 241 through 243.  Note how cheap I am with my linen)

Funny, since I brought the charts, floss and linen form home and it shows up that these CEC carrots were on display in the store.  I need to find a cute tree to display all my junk in too!

Other "important updates" - lookie what I won on E-bay:

Some vintage and very pretty strawberries from eastern Europe for my mini glam-tree!

I also have a super-lame new start (a total of 19 stitches): Altona wool cross-stitch from Fremme.

Well, it seems to be quite a bit past my bed-time again.  Time for some sleep so that I'll have another productive day in the lab!  Things are actually working well right now, so that is a novel feeling.... LOL

Take care and Happy Stitching,