The fat lady sings in 2 weeks...

Yes, it's all over but the shouting down here.  But what  gorgeous weekends we've had.  The sun was shining all weekend during Sunfest, biker's weekend which was beautiful during the day, rained one night and so the weekend was a success, and then last weekend for Winefest it couldn't have been more beautiful....so I'd say the fall has started off beautifully.    The temperatures were comfortable in the 70's...not too hot, so you could go on the beach if you wanted and at night you might want a sweatshirt, although many of us don't need one.   Starting tomorrow however, it's suppose to go back up into the 80's...whew I don't do well in heat...I'd like to refer to myself as a delicate flower....however, if you have seen me you would know I was anything but delicate.  Anyway, I'm thrilled that the Delaware Sampler Guild coming down next weekend and having their retreat at the hotel will be able to sit in the rockers on the porch and view the ocean as they stitch.  Our retreaters have been coming down and we have Judy's crew here for Pat Podziomek's birthday...Happy Birthday girl, a  week or so ago and Syd Serson was here from  Pa. for a few days.  It's always so strange to see these ladies here when we're not having an event, as they are always here for events...it's like an early event but Sara doesn't have to do the cooking and I don't have to have a goodie bag ready.  But it's fun to hear about their stitching, and connect with people that know what DMC floss is.    The picture above is the Winter Box from Victoria's Sampler, and beautifully stitched and finished by Carolyn Newman who entered it in the Delaware Fair and of course won with it.  We also have a few other pieces that Carolyn is letting us display so I'll get the others up soon, hopefully.  I'm having my usual issues with getting pictures up.  But I won't give up.  I love this box and also have it in my stash to stitch along with the 2 other boxes from Victoria Sampler.  At the rate I'm going, Sara will inherit all 3 charts (not the finished boxes), but I always have hope I'll get to everything stitched before I go (well if I live to be 300 that might happen, but since I'm 65 and circling the drain...not holding out much hope.    Anyway, Carolyn was gracious enough to let us have this to display in the shop so you can see it up close when you are here.  With the events right around the corner,   Sara has been like a demon ordering supplies and of course I've found some neat things for the goodie bags.  These goodie bags drive me nuts because I'm trying to find new things we haven't  used before and since we've been doing this for a while it's become a lot harder, but I'm ever vigilant and always on the lookout.  Thankfully Ruth at Nordic Needle knows I'll be calling her at the last minute and she can usually help us with the quantities we need or she has excellent suggestions for us...and this year was no different...although it wasn't quite the last minute since we ordered over a week ago.  Now let's keep our fingers crossed that the weather cooperates.    The Sherri Jones kits are in so you know what that means...more pre-stitch for me.  Barbara Nunez and I were trying to get the mermaid purse done by Jamboree as we had taken this class in Hilton Head, several years ago,  so we will be way ahead of others who don't have their kits, but I'm struggling with this.  I can't believe it, but I am.  I'm not sure I'll have it done for Jamboree, but I'm plugging along and hopefully I'll get there.  I'm one of those stitchers who will tear out if I've miscounted, but....I don't have time and for some reason no matter how  careful I've been this piece it has several miss counted placement issues, but I've plugged along anyway.  It still is a beautiful piece and I love it.  I've actually managed to stitch the back in a couple of days so I'm almost home....one more piece to do before Jamboree.  However, I had a tragedy with my ornament exchange.  I stitched an over one santa...it was so cute....and I did back and front and I was thrilled to have it done so early.  Only one problem...it was too small to put together properly, it was star shaped,  so I've had to chunk it and now I've got to start over...damn, I thought I did so well and was ahead of the game.  I can't seem to catch a break sometimes.  Debbie Liming was down for a week and got here last Monday in time to watch Hotel Impossible where The Lankford was featured.  While Sara, Mary and I were a red hot mess (thank you Anthony for showing that!) everyone felt we did just fine.  Sara, Debbie, Mary, Brian, and Vernon held the viewing in the lobby with some of the hotel staff.  I chose to sit at home by myself but called Sara every commercial to bitch and whine about parts of it (O.K. all of it)...because while they mis-represented things a little (like going into Sara's shops and saying while the town was filled (with high school seniors) her shops were empty.  The truth was, she took him into the shops before the shops opened in the morning so no one was in there because it wasn't open yet.  When they filmed in my shop their production person asked people to stay outside until they were done filming.  I'm telling you I was having screaming fits at the T.V. and on the phone with Sara.  But since she and everyone else in the lobby  were partying at the hotel while watching, and booze was flowing freely she just kept saying, "Mom, they have to show somethings wrong so they have a story to tell for t.v.  Calm down and don't worry about it."  I never did calm down and was glad I wasn't in the lobby with them since I seldom drink.  But in the end we all lived through it and we've had a steady stream of people coming in because they saw the show and wanted to see what was  happening here.  I didn't realize how many people saw this until people started coming in and introducing themselves to me and asking all kinds of questions.   It makes it hard to have a discussion with anyone (in this case Debbie) when people are pointing, waving and then just coming up to you and introducing themselves and then chatting us up.  Vernon says he's had  many, many people come in on his shift (he thinks around 300).  I had no idea since I'm never in the lobby unless a stitcher is here.  Who knew.  I was still fielding questions while working in the Shell Shoppe last weekend and also having to go down memory lane with old tenants.  Mercy...it wears me out.  But it's been a lot of positive feed back from the folks who caught the show so it's all good (as Sara would say), but I need to get out of here.....I'm not taking it as well as the girls.  Plus Sara is giving me some serious time off....last week I only worked 2 days....whoppee!!!! It's like snow days in the summer...I don't bath, get out of my P.J's,  although I did brush my teeth....that makes me a better person even if no one else is around.  I also started the annual clean up of my stitching room which after a summer of dumping bags in here resembled a room on hoarders.  I'm even throwing stuff away...oh it's hard sometimes, but I envision the kids having to clean this up when I'm dead and can see the eyeballs rolling and the "what the hell was she going to do with all this stuff".....I just can't let that happen, so I'm going to really start going through this stuff and unload some of it.  I tend to pick up the same charts that have been here forever, think "I'm never going to stitch this now" but then I think, well I'm never going to read all the books on the shelves either but I'm not throwing them out, so I put the chart back in the pile and leave it for another day.  I'm a work in progress.  Anyway, I wanted to thank everyone  for their comments sent to our e-mail, regarding the show...we appreciate your kind comments and I look forward to seeing  several of you over the next couple of weekends.   I will be somewhere on the property, although this weekend I'll be relegated to the Shell Shoppe...I can't figure out if I've been demoted or not, but the events tend to wear me out so being downstairs for me isn't as tiring.  Wait until you see the finish that Debbie and Sara did Sunday.  They had made plans earlier to put their  Sherri Jones Blue Ribbon boxes together during the week  Debbie was here (she's actually here for the nursing convention....but it's only 1 day so she has plenty of stitching time).  Anyway, Debbie got here and discovered she had forgotten to finish it so Sara and I both thought that was the end of the "put together of the box piece".  But Debbie worked all week to get the pieces done that were involved and Sunday during work she and Sara put the boxes together.  They are gorgeous and I've asked Sara to leave it in the shop so stitchers can see it.  Gorgeous!    I did the pre-stitch and decided to put my initials on it in hopes I'd get to keep it at my house for a while.  Since Mary doesn't stitch, all of my stitching will end up with Sara anyway, unless Mary shows an interest later on, so she will get it back and the initials are her's as well....before she got married so we can both take ownership.  When I stitched Hare Pyns for her (the 2nd Sherri Jones class) I put here initals on it so we would each have one.  But Hare Pyns hasn't been finished yet....but at least my piece is done...another whoppee!!!!  Well I've got to go.  I stitched Shepherd's Bush "Fright Night" for Sara to wear and of course, I decided that just putting it in the tin frame and using a black cord wasn't good enough....so after a visit to Michaels for beads, etc., I'm trying to jazz it up, but it's cute as it is so the black cord may end up as the necklace but I'll drive myself crazy tonight trying to make a silk purse out of this .  Wish me luck!

The end is officially in sight....

Yes the end of summer is almost officially over.  At least 6 more days, Sunfest will become a memory and Ocean City declares summer is over and our second season begins.  Here we declared summer is over but we have two very busy weekends ahead, Delaware Guild's retreat on the first weekend of October and Jamboree on the 2nd weekend. Here's Sara with her second completed knitting project....done in about 4 hours on 35 knitting needles. The yarn is called Faux Fur and comes in a variety of colors.   I'll tell you at first when she first walked in I said, "Good God, it looks like you're wearing a shag carpet, but after looking at it for a few minutes, it works.  By the next hour I was telling her how cute I thought she looked it in.  Anyway, that girl is really on a knitting jag.  She has also finished one of Noni's "Lipstick Purses" which is now being dried in the shop after felting.  These little purses are sooo darn cute.  Anyway, she's a knitting a rug now again on the 35 needles.  Me, well I'm still doing the old counted cross stitch and loving it.  I've got several projects in the works but getting things done for Jamboree is taking all my time.  But that's O.K....I'm only working days now...whoppee...we've started our off-season hours so we're open 10 - 4 now and I've got my nights to stitch so when I'm not dozing I'm stitching.  And this week I've got 2 days off again...another big whoppee...of course I said I needed 2 days in a row to get my house cleaned up...we'll see what excuse I come up with this time....too busy stitching to pick up the mop!  UPDATE:  O.K., no one called us but Brian looked up the schedule for Hotel Impossible and evidently our show will be aired next Monday (September 23) at 10:00 p.m.  He said Anthony's promo is that we are dilapidated and feuding..and of course I take offense at that since we are outdated but not dilapidated and we are a normal family that doesn't always see things the same way.  But the kids reminded me that he had to say something and he'd already said how well we maintained the building and we were cleaner than any other hotels he'd been to...but don't we think he could have said outdated instead of dilapidated and still make a point?  Anyway, I think all who have visited us for retreats will agree that we need updating to bring us to 2013, but hardly dilapidated.  But I still love Anthony and his crew and they were wonderful to us while they were here, regardless of the amount of crying that went on.  Well, it should make for interesting conversation if nothing else.  We just had Bike Week down here....oh, the noise of it all, however, I hope all the bikers had a good time.  They do bring a lot of money into the resort, not necessarily into Salty Yarns, but they help fill the hotels and I am grateful for that....but I am also grateful that the noise is gone.  Mercy, can you just get on a bike and start the darn thing without revving it up for 15 minutes?   NEW EMPLOYEE....we feel very fortunate to have a new employee with us, and we love that she was one of our retreaters so she knows the store.  Judy Brunclik,  is our new asset,  and she and her husband decided to retire down here...so they are picking out a home in Delaware near Fenwick and Rehoboth so she's a short drive away.  Judy was the main instigator of the stitching project so many of you were involved in earlier this year as a surprise to me.  Which by the way, is still hanging in the lobby of the hotel and has provided us with wonderful compliments all summer.  (how could Anthony call us dilapidated with all the beautiful needlework hanging in the lobby?...apparently I'm not over it).  Anyway, we're still here, busy working away on events and we hope to see you all soon.