Howdy Everyone! Happy Friday!

I finally uploaded pictures from the digital camera. First, my recent trip to Asheville, NC. Each year, my LNS has 2 stitching retreats, a beach retreat to Myrtle Beach in March and a "Christmas in July" retreat to the NC mountain town of Asheville. The mountain retreat was August 8 and 9, yes, this summer our "Christmas in July" retreat was in August. Asheville is a small to medium size town I would say. To me it has become a town that is a mixture of generations of families that have lived there their entire lives and lots of new folks.... a mixture of arts and crafts and business. To me the one word that describes Asheville is quaint. There are some beautiful old churches in Asheville. One church you will pass as you head into downtown is the Basilica of St. Lawrence.



It is beautiful inside. It has the largest freestanding elliptical dome in North America. Here's a picture of the inside (you can see part of the dome ceiling).



Another church is the First Baptist Church of Asheville.



This church has a domed roof and every time I pass the church I love looking at the colors on the roof.



More about the retreat. Susan Greening Davis is the guest instructor. Susan is a wonderful person. If you have met her or attended one of her classes or retreats, you know what I'm talking about. Here is a picture of Susan (on the left) and Sarah, my LNS owner (on the right). Both Susan and Sarah are wonderful designers and both have class projects for us at the retreats. NOTE: The red purse in the chair was Susan's first project.



Here is my finished purse.



Other designs (or photos) can be inserted into the front pocket. I will eventually pick a patriotic design to stitch and insert into the bag for non-Christmas time.
Susan's second project was a Christmas ornament. Here is my completed ornament.



Susan's project include red and green ribbon that she added around the perimeter. I decided to just use the white ribbon. If I decide to stitch another, I'll use the other colors of ribbon on it.

Sarah's 2 projects were also ornaments. I don't have them finished yet, but here is a WIP photo of project #1.



Each square will have the gold "box" and within each gold box are various designs. Once stitched, it gets folded and finished into a cube. The designs Sarah designed for the sides are very cute. I'll keep you posted with WIP pictures as I continue working on it. Along with this project, during the last few weeks, I'm bouncing between a handful of other projects, including a couple of Patriotic projects not finished in July. Here are current WIP pictures of the others:

Susan's "large project bag" from the March stitching retreat (a picture of the "small project bag" can be seen in April 08 posts on my blog):



Shepherd's Bush "Scatter Freedom":



Shepherd's Bush "Land That I Love":



And, for the Stitch a Fantasy blog, Teresa Wentzler's Needle Guardian:



I love the colors used on this.

Sorry the post is so long, but I had lots of photos to share. I hope everyone has a wonderful upcoming weekend.