Stitching Retreat

What a great day at Ann's annual stitching retreat! We left in the morning, anticipating getting there early and getting a good seat, only to find about 8-9 cars already there! But with Ann's new stitching room, there are lots of great seats and fantastic lighting provided by the sky lights. Lunch of course was amazing as always, as everything always brings such delicious food and its too tempting to try a little bit of everything. The dessert table was so enticing....with so much goodies and cakes, but with diabetes now, I resisted and only ate a small piece of carrot nut bread and fruit only.

It was so great to see and catch up with stitching friends that I hadn't seen for a couple of years and I was looking forwards to finally meeting my new blogging friends. Its so funny to meet people face to face that I feel I know already through their blogs!

I did get a few pictures, although not enough I realize now, as I must have taken them later in the afternoon and I have too many shadows from the skylights. Believe me, the lighting was much better in the room than what shows up in the pictures!


Here is Christin (Christin's Ramblings) and Beatrice (Stitching with a View) showing off their partially completed TW's Castles.



Just outside is a peek at Rebecca (Rebel in Ontario), and inside are Beth on the left and Kathy (Kathy's Sit and Stitch) sitting next to Ann's amazing Prairie Schooler quilt on the wall.



A not very clear picture of Kathy at the end of the table in the stitching room, with several of the ladies in Ann's Thursday afternoon stitching group.



Colleen and Marj mostly kept to the much quieter dining room with Carmen and Paula for most of the day. I didn't get a picture of several of the people who were there, including our lovely hostess, Ann (Knowledge and Needles), or Dani (Dani...Black Belt Stitching Wizard), who was always visiting at different areas of stitching groups, nor did I get a chance to meet everyone! There were over 20 people there - what an amazing group!

Of course I did pay a visit to Ann's shop, Knowledge and Needles, conveniently located next to the house, and with Anita's (ahem) encouragement only managed to fall off my stash diet a little. I did want to pick up some 25 ct fabric so I could try some over-one stitching with my super-fantastic new Dazor magnifier at hand, so I found two fat-quarters in cream and antique white. Ann had some of the new JBW patterns, these are just so sweet and too hard to resist these cute little patterns. I found a Prairie Schooler Christmas Ark pattern, that I thought I could adapt into a birth sampler, as I just found out I am about to become a great-auntie again. And 3 of us, Anita, Marg and I bought the last of Ann's Spring Fever biscornu kits. Not such a bad stash haul and actually it was only $2 over my stash budget that I had saved up, so no guilt on my part! I can climb back up on the wagon again....at least until my birthday :-D

PIF from Cindy

I got a very nice gift in the mail today ~ a very sweet biscornu from Cindy (Random Stitching Ramblings) as a PIF gift. Cindy was so sweet to note my love of purples and stitched this in a lovely variegated purple floss! I love it and it is taking a place of honour as my very first biscornu. She noted that it was the first one she had made and I was in awe of her amazing work. I have been too chicken to attempt such a thing myself! I only wish my photography skills were better!!

I have been enjoying my very quiet house, but I can admit that its actually a little too quiet for me? The first 2-3 days were great but now its eerie and even the dogs have become too quiet for me! I keep thinking I must remember this when the kids have me ready to pull my hair out and when they come home bringing in 3-4 friends a piece, expecting all to eat. Hubby and I were so bored with each other last night that when our brother-in-law dropped by with a friend, we almost jumped all over them.

So I will be very much looking forwards to Ann's (Knowledge and Needles) annual retreat this Saturday. She is expecting 30 stitchers to be there. I missed the last 2 retreats because of illness so I am very anxious to get to this one! There are going to be several other bloggers there so look for lots of pictures after this weekend!

Sadly to say though I am officially on a Stash Diet, so other than perhaps a little fabric, I don't expect to be bringing home any new stash...... :-(