Blue Ribbon Sewing Box Class - Travel Report!

Hi and Happy Spring to all!  Thanks for all your sweet comments about the Blue Ribbon Box, they mean so much to me.  I have been dreaming about taking the class ever since I saw Sherri's model about four or five years ago.  I can still not believe that I have my very own sitting at home!  :-)

So - finally, here is the travel report that I promised to share with you!  I took a vacation day the Friday before class in order to make the 6+ hr drive up to Northern Ohio more pleasant and less stressful.  The weather was fabulous (very lucky, since it poured buckets the day before) and I managed to get myself and all the junk I was dragging along out of the house right on time. 

We had made plans that I would pick up L-bug on the way up.  The meeting spot was just a few exits from the Fairfield IKEA exit!  Since I was doing quite a bit better on time than I had hoped, I had to stop in to look for some Cloudberry Jam! 

Unfortunately, I got there about fifteen minutes before the food section was to be open and since I was on a schedule, there was no time to hang around and wait to browse for food.  I did at least find out that there is no Cloudberry Jam to be bought this year, since the harvest had been so bad ...  If you haven't had the chance to taste cloudberries you are in for a treat!  The reason why cloudberries are so expensive and tricky to find is because you can't easily grow them, but they have to be picked out in the wild.  Add to that the fact that they prefer to grow far up north and that they only grow in the wet-lands, so they are hard to get to.  The flowers only carry one berry each and the flowers are not self-germinating since the flower is either male or female.  These factors together with the heavenly taste (generally acquired with age) are probably the reasons why the clodberry has been crowned the "gold of the north" in Sweden. 

 

So I left IKEA with a nice photo of a clear blue sky with the Swedish flag flanked by the US and the Ohio ditto.  Very pretty!

L-bug joined me prepared with a list of stitch-stores that we could swing by on the way up.  We only made it to one store (we shouldn't find the street for the one in Columbus on the GPS), but it was wonderful - Crafty Ewe &  Framing Too.  It is always so much fun to check out the LNS wall models and Crafty Ewe was no exception.

 The new and hot stuff from the Nashville market was on display.  Hard to ignore...

I have never seen linen displayed like this before.  Very cool and easy to find.  This was not all, though.  When I asked the friendly lady who was manning the store about 28 count Newport Red/Natural linen by Zweigart, she pulled out a large bin full of different Newports.  Soooo cool!  I got my piece, that will be used for SamSarah's R is for Robin (I hope that I will be able to start stitching on that in a month or so - it is just adorable!  And yes, I did get the button pack, complete with worm-buttons!  LOL)..

The store has a fun mix of all you can imagine, including all these softies with stitchable bibs.  The pig is just too cute!

There was a huge floss wall, piles and piles of frames and a bunch of adorable accessories.  As you can see, L-bug was as pleased with the selection as I was!

As mentioned in the post before this, we were greeted by kittens when we arrived at my In-Laws.  My MIL welcomed us with open arms and four 1-week old kittens.  Two of them did not even have their eyes open yet!  The were all just dropped off at the animal shelter where she volunteers.  The staff told her that they'll survive if they survive, but MIL didn't like that and brought them home so that she could bottle-feed them every few hours.  She named them Eeney, Meeney, Miney and Moe.  LOL  I was pretty sure that Eeney would not make it over night, but last we spoke, he was better than fine, so that is great!  It's not for nothing that MIL was crowned Volunteer of the Month at the shelter last month!

All four are boys, by the way.  FIL was clearly not thrilled about all the extra pets that landed in the living-room, but as long as they don't stay for too long he'll stand it.

This is Meeney making it out of the basket onto the slick sofa.

After a visit to the lake - it was incredibly cold and windy! - and dinner at the Golf Club, it was straight to be to gather energy for an early morning and a long day of stitching. 

This is our hostess for our Patricks Woods weekend, Rose.  She is the sweetest lady and had planned and taken care of everything you can possible think of, from food, to payment and shipment of pre-stitch kits.  

I loved that we started off both days with a really nice breakfast (I am still in awe) and let me just say that her egg-casserole is fabulous!  She shared the recipe, so it'll be real interesting to see if I can duplicate the yumminess.  I must also say that I was so impressed with the help she got from her husband.  Not only did he sleep in a recliner down in the basements (together with the cats, since Sherri is allergic to cats) to make room for some extra over-night guests, but he also helped in the kitchen, heating up food and loading the dish-washer.  I have a feeling that my DH would be MIA in a similar situation at our house... just sayin'!

Rose is a very accomplished stitcher and has displayed many of her samplers around the house.  The sampler she is standing next to was the first she ever stitched!  Quite a challenging first sampler, don't you think?

 

Oh, and did I mention that Rose is a published designer!?  Shows up that I have stitched a number of designs from her company Tomorrow's Antiques.  We got to see all of them in person during the weekend (Rose's friends insisted that she'd show them to us - I am so glad that they did), so now I will have to get the kits I don't have - especially the snow-flake!

I also want to tell you that some of the other ladies spoiled us with sweet gifts that went with the theme of each class.  We got buttons and button-headed pins during the Sunday class and we were spoiled with a beautiful and very useful home-designed and printed note-book for the Blue Ribbon Sewing Box class.  I don't have a photo of the treats now, but I'll try to show you in an upcoming post. 

 

We did also get to spend time with the sweet dogs of the house.  The house rule is that Ozzie is not allowed on the couch.  He gets away with a technicality; Rose is under him, not the couch!  

 

Below is a photo of the beautiful and canine lady of the house.  She got abandoned after she was too old to race on the tracks, so Rose and her husband rescued her.  She was a great champion in her days and won several racing competitions.  Now she is 14 years old and lives the comfortable life.  Rose told me that she has run off from home twice and both times she was found running around the horse tracks!  Racing is obviously in her blood and her backbone. 

 

I am sooo jealous of Rose's fantastic sun-room.  I want a sun-room!  I love the way it has been decorated - Isn't this the coolest shelf!?  I am a sucker for stained glass and this is such a neat idea.

 

Enjoying breakfast in the sun-room!

Rose gave me the green lights to show her samplers and stitched pieces to you, so sit back and enjoy!  

This is an old Birds of a Feather sampler (Happy Hearts Sampler).

Another classic BOAF; Sally Spencer.

This is another very cool display idea - this reversible sampler has been hung in a doorway, so that you can admire both sides.  (Rose has strategically placed her large ott-light below, so heads are spared that way.)

The sampler wall in the sun-room:

The beautiful boxes, idea courtesy of The Twisted Stitcher.

Display case with all kinds of goodies.  Merry Cox, Lauren Sauer, Leslie Rudnicki, and many more designers' pieces have been gathered here.  Note the pretty Liberty Hill box on the floor.

Our second day carried with is an extra treat in the form of Jane and her pickle tree.  What is so incredible about this tree is not all the beautiful ornaments, but the fact that Jane made all of them (except one) all by herself.  She does have a much more extensive collection at home; this tree is only for the small pickles.  It looks very festive, don't you think?  (I found this article about the myth of the pickle, by the way.  I have no clue whether the contents of the article is accurate or not, but an interesting read nevertheless.)

One of many beautifully beaded pickles:

A large button pickle, another beaded version, one made from green bottle glass and one made with felt:

Semi-precious stone and a felt pickle with some gorgeous beaded leaves in the foreground.  The latter ornament was made by Jane after a beading class were she learned how to make these leaves.

Another button pickle, complete with curly tendrils:

The tree was admired by all.

As you can see, the weekend was wonderful.  We were welcome into the gang with open arms.  The ladies were all so sweet and they are good friends.  They meet and stitch once a week and they really have a great thing going!  Oh, how I wish that I lived closer! Especially when I was informed that Lauren Sauer comes to the stitch-group every now and then too!  Wow!  I hope that I will get to see these delightful ladies sometime in a not too distance future.

Once again it is well past my bed-time so I'd better get off this computer.  I just wanted to share some of the beautiful things we were treated to over our class weekend.

Take care and hang in there - it is almost weekend!
Happy Stitching,