Shop Model Happy Dance

I just finished this Stacy Nash Sampler called Grace Bridges.  It is a model I stitched for The Country Sampler Shop in Spring Green, WI.

I will have to say I enjoyed this stitch.  I was fun doing a spot type sampler.  This sampler took me exactly  a month to stitch.  I started it on March 21 and finished today--April 21.

Now I am going to do a bit of stitching for me.  Between this sampler and my Stitchville/Thea Dueck retreat stitching I have been doing some type of commitment stitching for the last two months.

 Here is a picture of the whole sampler.  It is about 15 X 19 inches.

I took a couple more pictures of the sampler so you could see some of the motifs up close. 

Just a little stitching update.  Hope everyone is having a great weekend.  Weather here is

kind of crappy but it makes for good stitching:)

Spring Fling Retreat 2012 and Happy Dance

I just arrived back home from this year's Spring Fling Retreat.  The teacher at this retreat was Thea Dueck from The Victoria Sampler. 

Here she is either on Friday night or Saturday morning.  I just can't remember which day--bad memory caused by a retreat and food hangover I'm sure:) 

This is the group of girls that were at my stitching table.  Chris, Joyce, Vicki and Cathy B.  It was a good group of girls. 

These are some of the goodies we received from Stitchville, our LNS and sponsor of this retreat.

 

Here is a little giftie Cathy B made for all us girls.  A very cute needle holder. 

Thanks again Cathy.

On Friday night we received a kit from Thea to make our own name tags.  Thea designed these for our Spring Fling Retreat.  We had a basic design and then could "freelance" some of our own ideas on our name tag.  Here are some of the name tags that were finished. 

This is my project all stitched up pre-finishing. 

Another view of my project.

This is where the Happy Dance part comes in.  My finished project.  I must tell you I stitched and finished this project kicking and screaming!!!!  More on the stitching part as I felt this was a very putzy stitch for me.  But I am so glad I stuck with it and finished it because it is just lovely.  I even had some wooden spools of thread from my grandma's stitching basket to put on the base.  Doing this project opened up some new stitches and ribbon embroidery for me.  It broadened my horizons--which is a good thing.   

Thea and I.

 She came around to each of us and visited with us and even asked us questions on this project.  It was nice to have her tell us how well we did on our projects. 

 Thea took time to sign our books which was very nice.  It was great to get to meet and talk with Thea.  I felt like I have made a new friend:)

 

These are all of the projects that were finished this weekend.  We had about 53 people at this retreat.  People were at different stages in their stitching and finishing. 

 One last view of our stitching room.  

I had a very good time at retreat.  It seems like the time went so fast.  

Can't wait until next year's Spring Fling. 

I am late in updating because...

Well I thought I was done with my birthday...but I have one last thing to share about it.  My children gave me money towards this for my birthday:  A NEW sewing machine.  I have been looking at new sewing machines for sometime now.  It has been over 30 years since I have had a new machine.  I have an old Kenmore which I have been quite happy with but I have been doing so much quilting and I wanted to do my own free motion quilting and I thought it would be nice to have a new sewing machine to do that.  So I bit the bullet and bought a new Huaqvarna Viking Sapphire 875!!! 

Here is it pre-opening.

Just out of the box!!!

Set up and ready to go.  Just let me tell you I LOVE it.  I have been busy getting acquainted with it.  Hence the reason I did not blog sooner.   With that being said here is what I wanted to blog about last week.

 Last Tuesday, April 4th Jill and I went to Osage, IA to meet up with Wendy Jo.  Here we are in the quilt shop it's called Debbie's Quilt Shop.  We had been to the cross stitch shop-The Stitchery Nook but didn't think about pictures until the end of our visit.  Pictured from left to right is:  Jill, myself and Wendy Jo.

We had a great time.  I met Wendy Jo through blogging and we have met up once before and have been talking about doing it again, so we just made plans and did it.  So often you always talk about doing something and unless you make plans it just doesn't seem to ever happen and life it to short not to try to do the things you want:)  Sorry I didn't get this picture out there sooner for you Jill.

On our way to Osage we happened to drive through Dexter, MN and since I am hooked on Dexter I just had to take this picture!

 

 We also drove by a lot of windmills and I couldn't resist a picture of them.  I also had to stop and listen to them.  I thought the sound was quite soothing.

 

 Back to my new sewing machine.  I bought this baby quilt as a kit and sewed it together.  Then I tried my hand at some free motion quilting. One of the reasons I bought my new machine is because it has a wide opening between the needle and the arm of the machine.  Not sure right off hand what that space is called but I have 10 inches of space and it sure makes a difference.

 

 Here is a close up of my quilting.  I will have to say it really isn't to hard to do, just need a lot of practice.  So this is not perfect but I am happy with the results so far. So I need to say Thank you to my children for helping me give this wonderful sewing machine for my birthday--with how much it cost it should be part of my Christmas present too:)

 This is what the back looks like. 

 Here is another reason I have been busy.  We spent quite a bit of time with this little guy, our grandson Silas last week while his daddy--Kyle helped grandpa with some yard work. 

I hope everyone is having a great week.

  I will be going on a retreat this weekend with our LNS--Stitchville.  Thea Dueck is the teacher this year.  So I should have some things to blog about early next week. Can't wait till Friday:)

Last Birthday Post

I had one last birthday lunch on Thursday.  My stitching bud Jackie had my birthday gift and wanted to take me out for lunch.  We were also going to work on a Christmas gift project.  Jill also came over and helped with the project and the birthday lunch.  We had a great time

 This is what I received from Jackie.  She gave me a Dinky Dye heart scissors, Plum Street Samplers--Brothers Keeper, which I wanted and a bag of sinful Cadbury eggs.

Thanks Jackie:)

On Saturday I received this little gem in the mail from Wendy Jo.  She stitched up this cute fob and the band that is around the spool.  Plus she included the scissors.  Can't have enough scissors!!!

Thank you Wendy Jo.  

Wendy Jo and I will be meeting up tomorrow and I can't wait.  It will be a fun day:)

Here is what I have been working on.  This is a shop model for Country Sampler in Spring Green Wisconsin.  It is a Stacy Nash design.  It is called Grace Bridges Sampler.  It is a fun stitch.  I started this on March 21st and have made some good progress.

In between stitching the shop model I finished up this BBD.  It is Ann's Sewing Tray from the book--A School Girls Work.  It was stitched on 32 count tea dyed linen with DMC threads.  Can't wait to get it framed.

Also did this Trilogy--Secret Egg Hunt.  I have had this one for awhile and since Easter is just around the corner I thought I should stitch it up.  This was stitched on 32 count summer Khaki with DMC threads

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One last quickie for the a Lizzie Kate.  This is Peep from Spring Things.  It is stitched on 28 count cream with DMC threads.  

Now I have some more finishing to do.  

This is my first post since blogger made it's changes.  Need to get use to the new changes.  How are the changes going for you?