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.

How old is your brain?

Yes, yes, ok, first a quick update on recent trips. And, yes, I know, I owe you stitching updates and pictures.

I have been back to the NC mountains the last 2 weekends. Weekend before last, I was in Asheville, NC for my LNS' Mountain Retreat. This is the "Christmas in July" stitching retreat, even though the trip was in August. This past weekend, the Dixieland band had a gig in Valle Crucis, NC. Valle Crucis is a small NC mountain town, very pretty area of the mountains, not too far from Boone, NC.

I have 2 of the projects from the mountain retreat done, and have some other WIP's I keep bouncing between. Tonight I will upload pictures from the camera and will post some stitching pics.

Now. How old is your brain. I thought this was fun and figured I would share.

1) Click the link below:

http://flashfabrica.com/f_learning/brain/brain.html

2) Most of the website is in Japanese, ignore that. Click "START".

3) Wait for the 3, 2, 1 countdown. At the end of the countdown, various numbers will flash in the box.

4) Try to memorize the positions of the numbers and, when the circles appear, click on the circles in order of the numbers, going from lowest number to largest number.

At the end, the age of your brain will be displayed.

First time I played, my brain was 38.
Second time I played, my brain was 32.

A view from the NC mountains

Saturday evening the Blue Notes Dixieland Band performed in Blowing Rock, NC. We were performing at a fundraiser / auction at the Westglow Resort and Spa (this was a paid performance). We performed on a small stage in the corner of a huge tent on the croquet lawn (very swanky). We definitely were the "hired help". The people attending (who paid $150 for their "ticket" to attend the event and auction) did appear to like our music, they even paid us a little extra for "tip". The auction was not for the faint-of-wallet. Most of the items auctioned sold for $800 to $2000. There was a "dinner for 8" package at a very expensive restaurant in the area (including very nice wine) that went for $4000.

The resort is on a 20-acre estate about 3 miles out of Blowing Rock, NC, was once the home of Elliott Daingerfield, artist and writer. The views from the lawn were beautiful. Drove through a nasty thunderstorm maybe 20 minutes before getting to Blowing Rock and it continued to rain off an on. The rain stopped about the time we arrived at the resort. At one point, there was a beautiful rainbow arc'ing into the valley.

The road trip to the NC mountains and back took most of Saturday. Sunday I relaxed more than I intended, only stitched a couple of hours Sunday night.

On this Day in History - August 1st

Hi everyone. I do not have any stitching photos to share. I am trying to finish up a couple of Patriotic designs, but I don't have progress photos handy. I haven't had time to stitch since Monday, work and life have been super busy this week. I do plan to stitch some tonight, and hopefully more on Sunday. I got the idea to look on the internet for things that have happened today.

On This Day - August 1

1790 The first U.S. census was completed, showing a population of nearly 4 million people.

1876 Colorado was admitted to the union as the 38th state.

1914 Germany declared war on Russia at the onset of World War I.

1936 The Olympic games opened in Berlin with a ceremony presided over by Adolf Hitler.

1942 Rock musician Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead was born in San Francisco.

1946 President Harry S. Truman signed the Fulbright Program into law, establishing the scholarships named for Sen. J. William Fulbright.

1946 The Atomic Energy Commission was established.

1957 The United States and Canada reached agreement to create the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).

1966 Charles Joseph Whitman shot and killed 14 people at the University of Texas before he was gunned down by police.

There were more listed where I found these, I chose to only list the ones that happened prior to 1970.

I hope everyone has had a good week and will have a great weekend.

Happy Monday....

My work week started with waking up with a headache this morning. Not a bad headache, but annoying enough to take some Ibuprofin. The headache finally left around 11am. I also started the work week by sleeping late (I hit the snooze button a few too many times).

For my continuing saga of Patriotic stitching, after finishing the stitching on Shepherd's Bush "Glory" scissor fob last night, I took a break for a few hours and goofed off on the computer and heated up something for supper. After supper, I looked through the small Patriotic designs and started Trail Creek Farm "USA" pillow:



The design is very small, and it's mostly done. I could have finished it last night, but it was getting late and a wave of sleepy-ness sent me to bed. I was going to finish it during my lunch break, but alas, I didn't toss the white-dmc into the ziplock bag (and that's all that's left for it to be finished). I'll finish it this evening. Next in line is Shepherd's Bush "Scatter Freedom":



I do have everything I need to start this in the ziplock bag I brought into the office with me this morning. I think I'll spend a few minutes of my lunch break getting this one started.

Tonight is stitch night at my LNS. I tossed my digital camera into my stitch bag this morning. Thought I would take and share photos of "stitch night" with everyone.

A relaxing weekend....

How is everyone doing? I hope everyone has had a great weekend so far. We had some rain Saturday evening, rain that swirled inland as tropical storm Cristobal moved up the South Carolina / North Carolina coast. Today is sunny and a little muggy, a great afternoon for stitching.

My Patriotic stitching continues. I have 2 finishes from the weekend. Last Saturday I picked up Shepherd Bush "Sam" kit from my LNS. I had most of it stitched earlier in the week, finished it Friday night. I went to a coffee shop Friday after work to listen to some friends that play in a dixieland jazz group. I finished "Sam" at the coffee shop.



Then after getting home Friday night, I started Shepherd Bush "Glory" scissor fob. I finished the last stitches a few minutes ago:



I still need to join the sides together and stuff it. The red ric-rac is the "cording". It will go around the edge, being tacked in place with white beads. I'll show another picture when the sewing is complete and scissors attached (not in the mood to "sew" today, but will finish it up this week sometime).

I have a few other small Patriotic designs ready to start. Of course I could be working on Mirabilia "The Lady of the Flag", but I'm in the mood to work on some small projects. I will be working on "The Lady of the Flag" soon and will post a progress picture.

Hello everyone...

Ok, Ok, I'm finally posting. Between work and rehearsals and everything else, time has flown by. June is gone and it's now almost mid-July. I hope everyone had a very Happy July 4th. I had my usual 3 concerts, one the evening of July 3rd and two on July 4th. The concerts went fine .... lots of Patriotic music and flags waving. I love playing Patriotic music. The concerts on July 3rd and July 4th are my favorites. Now for my stitching update:

Here is photo of Fair&Square 4th of July squares I stitched and mailed early June (yes, finally posting a picture).



Around the end of April, I had posted a picture of a needlepoint star I had stitched from a class at my LNS. I finished it into a biscornu several weeks ago. Here's a photo.



Since it was a needlepoint piece, using larger size fibers, the fabric used was a larger count. I also didn't stitch anything for the back side of the biscornu, so it's a little on the plain side, but I still like it. It's going to be a pin-cushion next to my sewing machine.

For the Society RR, I stitched "K", "L", and "M" from Elizabeth Designs "Nature's Alphabet". It's on 40 count fabric, stitching over 2 threads. I love how this is looking on the 40ct fabric. I finished these a few weeks ago, sorry for being so late in posting a picture.



I was late in finishing Fair&Square Round 7 square, but it is finally finished and in the mail. I'll post a picture once it has reached its new home in Austrailia.

And tonight, I finished a needlepoint piece from the May class at my LNS. The design is called "Log Cabin in the Woods". Everyone got to choose their own colors, one being a metallic. For my metallic, I chose a lavender shade in Rainbow Gallery FYRE WERKS. It's a metallic ribbon. I love how the metallic ribbon worked for this.



I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.