Russellville Retreat - day 2

I need to back up a bit and talk about day 1 a little more.  We made our annual stop at the Needle Nest in Shelbyville, Kentucky, for a little stash enhancement.  I know you want to see the stash enhancement because I can hear you saying "yes, please show me the stash!"

I found a couple of things I've been stalking hunting for on the bay of evil.  That would be the Lizzie Kate chart and the Bent Creek chart.  I also found some petite pearls for a project I need to finish.  I can't wait to show you that finish.

Of course I couldn't pass up the new Prairie Schooler!  You know me and my love for PS.  I splurged on the Praiseworthy Stitches chart because it came with the beads and charms to do the finishing.  I know I would have spent way more hunting up the individual packages of these things, so in my mind it was more cost effective to just get it kitted up with the chart.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!  Oh yes I am!

When we got into town on day 1 we had some time to kill before our dinner meet up time.  One of my roomies needed a nap after all that driving so my other roomie and I headed into town to shop the local boutique.  We always find goodies when we shop there!

I like to pick up a little piece of jewelery when I travel.  This time I found two super cute pieces as well as a silk pouch to keep them in!  That shade of pink and purple are two of my faves!  I wore the earrings to dinner that night and the bracelet the next day.

Okay now were are caught up!  On Friday we all met back up at the Breathitt House to start our day of stitching.  We were all given this tote bag along with a baggie of floss and a hunk of fabric for our group project.

Here's the inside of the tote!  Our hostess lined each and every tote her shelf and even put pockets in them for us.  Isn't that great?  I just love that happy fabric!

You might be wondering what that green ribbon is for that's hanging off the tote in the picture above.  It's for our official retreat pins!  Each year one of our very talented attendees makes us all a pin.  They are themed to go with whatever we are making that year.

So far I've attended three retreats.  The first year we had a bee theme, the second year we had birds of a feather, and this year it's butterflies!

This is the beginnings of our group project.  It's going to be a band that we'll sew around our tote.  Both ends of the band will have the fence and sunflowers.  It will be joined by the "garden gate" button you see in the picture.  We are to freehand stitch random flowers, bees, butterflies, birdhouses, signs, whatever you like across the band.

This will take a bit of time as since we are making it up as we go along and the band is pretty long too.  We were told to bring our totes with us next time because we are going to do something else to them.  I can't imagine what that will be!  It's going to be fun to see what everyone comes up with when we meet again next year.

Remember this?

We turned it into this!  It's a name tag for our tote bags finished ornament style!  I really love how this turned out.  We all got to choose how we wanted to do our twisted cord.  I chose to the simple route and just went with one color.  Some folks went wild and used multiple colors.  They were all really cool!

We were also given a hunk of fabric and this skein of floss in case we wanted to make a second bag like some of the New Mexico girls made at their retreat back home.

Here's Bobbie's tote bag.  I love how they used the black ric rack to cover the fabric edges.  We were told that both the black tote bag and the canvas ones came from Hobby Lobby.

Here's Valerie's tote bag.  You can see all her retreat pins up there at the top.  She's been coming a lot longer than I have.  I really like this tote idea and as soon as I can get to a Hobby Lobby I'm going to look for one of these bags! 

You can never have too many tote bags, right?!  I can see my honey rolling his eyes at that statement.  He thinks I have an addiction to tote bags.  Sorry honey, I couldn't resist.  Giggles!

Here's Senior Frog in his new ride!  I think he likes the new tote bag.  LOL!

Speaking of Senior Frog, he met a girl on this trip!  Her name is Fiona and her mommy is one of my peeps.  I think they look pretty cozy hanging out there!

Okay, let's get serious again as in more stash shopping!  Every year our hostess brings us things from market and sets up a mini shop in the front parlor.  Just look at all the juicy fabric!  The charts are on the tables under the window over there by the flag.

Here are some of the things that came home with me!  I couldn't live without some of that rose and purple fabric.  I also got rather large chunk of that 40 ct. too.  It's close to the Gentle Arts color called Peach Ice Cream!  I also got some banding since it seems to be harder to find.  I have plans for that tiny frame too.  It's only 1 1/2 inches square!  Who knows what I'll do with the floss.  It was just too juicy to pass up!

Of course there were charts!  You knew there had to be charts.  Oh yes there were!  This year she brought in an Erica Michael's trunk show.  I fell in love with a couple of the EM's.  I plan to put the Random Threads one in the tiny frame I bought!

I also loved the Cherry Wood dictionary charts.  Our hostess has these stitched up and framed in her house and let me tell you, they are awesome.  I'm totally copying that idea!  I'm like that dontcha know.

The other chart you see is a La De Da and I liked the saying on it.  We had a discussion over what that company's name was earlier in the day.  All we could come up with was Fa La La or Sha Na Na or Ooh La La!  Yeah, we were in a silly place at that hour!  LOL!

Well, it looks like we've come to a good stopping point for today.  I still have more to share.  I've still got pictures of  our exchange, show & tell and some other random stuff.  Stay tuned!


More later,

The Inspired Stitcher