Great Weekend again with all the retreaters....

Great weekend with the stitchers from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware who stayed at the hotel for a retreat for Super Bowl Weekend.  While we were missing a few from Pennsylvania and Maryland, we still had a wonderful time and saw many beautiful projects and were absolutely inspired by what we saw.  First let me say we missed those who couldn't be here, Kay who had a fall a couple of weeks ago and just got out of the hospital, Jackie who had issues on-going from last year and Kathy who is on a cruise.  We missed you.  We also missed the regulars from Pennsylvania, Jayne, and Sherry who couldn't attend.  But this year we had a few day-trippers who joined the stitchers so a party still ensued.  The three states joined up for lunches and dinners in one of the apartments as everyone brings food, it was a constant shop, eat, stitch, repeat.   This is what is so nice about retreats.  Stitchers love to join with other stitchers to eat, share tips and stitching info and new friendships form.  Thanks to all the stitchers for coming and supporting our event, as well as entertaining me in the shop all weekend.  Thanks, to everyone who brought show and tell, which you know I love to see...I find it so inspiring and I have to say since you left I have been stitching more so my mojo is returning.  Special thanks to Debbie Shiozawa who brought her "box" of stitching finishes.  Debbie  is part of the Delaware Valley Sampler Guild who has 2 events here every year and each time Debbie brings her box of show and tell.  It is simply amazing the amount of stitching she gets done, but finishing as well.  She takes a lot of classes all over the country so the projects are incredible and the stitching and finishing are impeccable.  It is such a fun stroll to go through her box and see all the goodies.  It is also a great inspiration to us all, I think.  It just makes me want to stitch more and more.  I think it helped get me back on track this week.  I see a lot of class pieces stitched, but when it comes to finishing, that's a different story so when Debbie brings in her box I'm seeing projects finished that I've never seen finished before.  While she had the most, many of the stitchers brought in Show and Tell,  also beautifully stitched and finished.  Stasi Buhrman brought in her Year of Celebration in the Cigar box in which the entire series is stored,  which is such a lovely finish, plus her green sampler done on banding which she had shown on Facebook which I loved, so I was thrilled to see it in person as well.   Oh, I loved all the finished pieces, as I always do as it gives me wonderful ideas for fabrics to use with projects I have in mind, and also great finishing ideas.  So thank you to the retreaters, as well as thank you to those who ordered online, by e-mail, text and phone orders.  You helped us have another successful weekend and we appreciate it so much.  As I've mentioned a thousand times, my stitching mojo left me in November and I've been trying to amp up my stitching since then with little success.  I was getting a little better before the stitchers came in but with all the girls here and all the show and tell, I do feel it's come back, perhaps not as fully but I'm getting there.  I worked on the Brr...Berry for about 6 hours last night and thought to myself, "yes, I'm almost back to pre-Thanksgiving stitching."  I've missed it so I'm glad it's returning.  I did work on a couple of new projects before the weekend when Brr...Berry wasn't going to be done. 

 Plum Street Samplers, Hares' Winter which was a fun stitch and just the right small project to pick to get me back to stitching again.  I love the Hares and have done one other on large count linen which I loved a lot.  But this time I decided to go with 28 ct. Country Mocha just to make it easy on me.    I used the colors recommended and the only change I made was I used Mill Hill Petite Black Beads for buttons and eyes, and I added Turkeywork to the scarf for the fringe.  Then because February was right around the corner I had to do something for February and what better than Brenda Gervais, Holiday Hoopla-Valentine.  Stitching these small projects is helping me get my stitching mojo back.  This was only a few hours stitch, but my stitching room is torn up, well not torn up but packed with everything out of my bathroom as they are renovating it so that I couldn't find the oval pedestal frame I wanted to use, because I couldn't even get in the stitching room.  So I looked at some of my favorite hiding places in my living room where I keep some of my display pieces and came up with a red tart pan the correct size.  Voila...project finished.  I used a light pink Weeks Dye Works linen and changed the red dress to a deeper red from Weeks, (went with the pink linen better) but the rest of the colors are the ones listed on the chart.  

 I also got West End Frames to make a patriotic frame for Shepherd's Bush Flag Box which has been sitting in my guest room for about 4 years waiting to be completed and since we carry the Jill Rensel mat I pulled that to use.  I'm trying to get projects stitched,  but not finished,  out of their drawers and get some of them to the finisher.   Looks better than sitting in the drawer in the guest room.  Love it!

 I also gave up and had West End also make a white frame for the Brenda Gervais Peppermint Pals because I'm tired of trying to come up with an idea.  Without the use of my stitching and craft room, I'm unable to look for things, so here it is for now.   I'll update should I ever get it revised.  I can always change that out anyway, but at least it's out of the house. 

 Now I'm back to Brr...Berry.  Although after the weekend I've got a couple of projects I'm thinking of starting.  That's always a good sign.  But I'm halfway through Brrr...Berry  so I'm hoping to get it done soon.    Must get back to my stitching so I'll end here.  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend no matter what weather you are experiencing.  We have had rain for the past 24 hours and now it's blowing a gale....but by 5:00 p.m. that is suppose to be over.  Sara let me take a wind day today so I'm home cleaning up the mess to get ready for game night with the grandchildren.