Emma and Owen wanted me to thank you all for your Birthday greetings. They were less than thrilled with me when I left them here on their birthday and took off for Wisconsin for the weekend.
Sorry pups... you know I'll make it up to you!
Last weekend I headed to Wisconsin to attend my stitching guild's Spring Retreat at Sinsinawa Mounds. A last minute decision had my truck heading towards Madison, WI for a stop here:
The Scarlet Letter had some of their sampler models and antique samplers on display at Lynn's. I wanted to see The Manifesto model in person as I'm participating in the Manifesto SAL. Glad I didn't see the model before I signed on for the SAL because I may have been scared off by the size of this beauty.
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| The Manifesto |
Hannah Carter moved to the top of my 'must stitch' list once I saw the model.
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| Hannah Carter along with other Scarlet Letter models. |
I was also delighted to see The Lady and the Castle as I'm stitching The Lady for one of the door panels on my 17th Century mirror surround.
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| The Lady and the Castle |
Imagine my surprise when I walked into Lynn's and discovered that a group of stitchers from the Chicago area were also shopping at Lynn's. They had planned a weekend away at the Country Sampler's Second Story. Read all about their adventures on Laura's blog, maude and mozart. Laura has wonderful photos of Country Sampler and all the lovely goods on offer in their shop. You'll even find a photo of me!
Part of the pleasure of guild retreat weekend is a stop at .... you guessed it....
That's my truck parked right at their front door. I didn't have far to carry all those great purchases.
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| Lincoln |
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| Colfax County |
I didn't come home with the kits for either the Lincoln quilt or the Colfax County quilt, but I do have the patterns. I think my collection of red French General fabrics are going to look lovely made up into the Colfax County quilt.
I did come home with the quilt kit for the Nottingham Star quilt.
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| Nottingham Star |
Next stop, Sinsinawa Mounds, for a delightful time with the Guild members and lots of time for stitching. It's always tough deciding what to bring along to work on during the retreat. I find that projects on larger count linen works best as my traveling light/magnifier isn't quite up to the task of assisting me with stitching on the higher count linens.
So I started two new projects. The first is Esther Charlton. Esther came kitted with 25 ct. linen and fine English wool. I've stitched two samplers with the GAST Simply Wool and enjoyed both projects. The fine English wool included in the kit was thicker than Simply Wool and I had to take care not to shred the wool while pulling it through the linen.
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| The Esther Charlton Sampler - The Scarlet Letter |
I also brought along Freelove Hazard. Most of the stitching on Freelove is done over one, but the border and the capital letters of the verse are done over two. I thought I could stitch some of the border while at the retreat. I'm stitching the sampler on 29 ct. Glenshee linen with AVAS as charted. I did do a little of the over one and thought I could use a tent stitch rather than a full cross, but changed my mind. I'll have to go back over the leaf and add a full cross.
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| Freelove Hazard - The Scarlet Letter |
On Saturday night we had our gift exchange and I was the lucky winner of Barb's handmade stitching pouches, mouse pincushion, stitched floss bag holder and spool scissor holder. I was thrilled to be able to bring these all home with me.
The pups were happy to see me when I picked them up from the kennel and couldn't wait to get home. Thankfully they forgave me for putting them in 'prison' for the first nice weekended, weatherwise, that we've had in 2013.
Since coming home I've spent a lot of time selecting fabrics for my next quilt - Snow Globes by Tula Pink. Way back in 2005 I went on a quilting tour to France and purchased some cotton fabrics at the factory we visited that manufactured quilting cottons. I also purchased some Dutch chintz fabrics at the International Quilt show we attended while on the tour. Snow Globes is the perfect pattern to feature my special fabrics. I'm pairing them with shot cottons. Decisions still have to be made about background fabrics.
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| Snow Globes - Tula Pink |
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I've been stitching too and I'm celebrating a finish this morning. It's not finish finished and I am planning on doing my own finishing on this little beauty. Be looking for that finished finish in a future blog post. I used the over-dyed cottons as charted on 40 ct. Vintage Light Examplar.
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| Needleworker - Little House Needleworks |
Laurie
