TUSAL - July

It's TUSAL Day!

(For those not familiar, click on the word TUSAL above or the link to the right.)

 

 

Okay, can someone please slow this summer down?!  I'm not ready for it to be over yet.  I feel like I'm still waiting for summer to get here.  It's been so unseasonably cool around here.  I used to think my Granny was just being silly when she said time flies when you get older. Now I know what she meant. Sigh!
 

This month's ORT report is a little late as our home computer is dying but the ORT pile is a biggie!  Lots of wonderful things have been stitched since the last ORT report.  

My lunch time stitch has still been the Parrots but this past week it's been the Russellville group project.  I finished it Sunday afternoon! I'll do a proper post soon. 

 

 

Here's a look at this month's contributors:

 

Snooty Parrots by Barbara Ana Designs ( In Progress)

"Quaker Faith" by Little by Little Designs (In Progress)

Verse and commemoration on the North Post round robin (DONE!)

"Where there are Bees" by Prairie Schooler passport stamp (DONE!)

"Monogram" by DMC passport stamp (DONE!)

"Summer in Bloom - Drum Pinkeep" by BBD (Finished!)

 

I managed to get some progress made on "Quaker Faith" at the guild's stitch-in and am so excited I finished the retreat piece.  I'm going to try to get my July assignment for the Parrots done before Friday.  That's the plan anyway.

 

Well folks, it's a short one this time around.  I always appreciate your visits on TUSAL day since I realize it's not the most exciting post.  Hope you are making progress on your WIPs too!

 

Until next time,

 

The Inspired Stitcher

Russellville Retreat Recap part 2

Let's pick up where we left off last time. My travel peeps and I have a tradition of exchanging little gifties when we go to a retreat together.  This year was no different.  Here are the lovelies I received!

See the needle book, that is what I made for them.  It's from the Tilda book called "Sew Pretty Home Style."  Its a super cute book and was just as easy as can be to make.  I might have to make another one of these! I love the pillow hanger.  It was stitched especially for me in one of my favorite colors, red!  The green scissor fob is a super creative thing that came in the green bag with the box of mints.  It has a needle threader, strawberry emery, and thread ring all attached to a six inch tape measure.  How cool is that?!  I have some super creative peeps!

Every year Queen Bee sets up her "boutique" in the parlor for our perusal.  Of course you have to bring home souviner stash!  Here's what I just couldn't live without this year! I've had my eye on the Hands on Design chart for a while.  You can't really tell but the fabric piece is polka dots.  I want to use it for the needle case chart.  The other chart is a Lizzie Kate.  I love the saying.

On Friday night we decided to have our usual planning session for the following year because some of your New Mexico and Texas folks had to get back home for various reasons.  It just wasn't the same with out them after they left us.  Waves to you girls!  That's actually when we got the pins and the journals I showed you yesterday.

Our beloved Queen Bee made us the lovely pins with the help of some worker bees back in New Mexico.  Each stitched bee was colored differently so they all looked a little bit different.  Kinda like all of us...each a bit different but all stitched the same.

Since some of us departed early we decided to do our exchange before dinner on Friday.  Talk about a talent showcase.  Holy cow we are a talented bunch!  As usual, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves and chime in where I can.

This is what the Queen Bee picked!

I made this one!

Designer: Prairie Schooler

Design: Mini Card Freebie

Fabric:  30 ct. Dark Chino

Floss: DMC 3865, 993, 580, & 725 (1 over 1)

Started & Finished: 6/26/14

Completed: 7/4/14

 

This is what I got!

 

 Queen Bee made this one!  I love this so much.

My peep, L made this one. Does it look familiar?

My peep P made this bracelet.

 

 

This is where we had dinner Saturday night.  It's a B & B called Federal Grove.  It was the most amazing house!  We were taken on a tour to see the rooms.  We are thinking we may have to change locations so we were on a scouting mission.  I doubt this will work for our needs but the food was amazing!

Yes, I'm one of those people who takes pictures of their meal but only when it's an outstanding one I want to remember!  The meal was served family style and there was no menu that night.  Everyone that came for dinner was served the same thing.

We had the salad choices of broccoli salad or tomato, cucumber, and onion salad.  The meat choices were country ham, meatloaf, or fried chicken.  The vegetables were cheesy ranch potatoes, carrots, friend apples, corn and/or green beans.  The desserts were German chocolate cake, banana cake with a maple drizzle (what I had), chocolate pie, or berry crumble.  It was to die for!  Good old fashioned country cooking at its finest!

 

On Sunday morning those of us that were left met back up at the "hive" for a little more stitching and the door prize draw.  We are all given a number at the beginning of the weekend and each day several numbers are drawn until we are down to two.  The winner is drawn on Sunday morning before we leave. This was the prize!

 

Queen Bee stitched this Little House design and attached it to one of those hanging toiletry organizer things.  Her thought was to put your stitching things in there for on the go stitching.  I think it's absolutely darling!  Unfortunately, I was not the winner.  Our worker bee from Toledo was the lucky lady!

 

Around noonish we started putting the room back like we found it and helped the Queen Bee pack up.  I shoved off a little early so I could get back on the road.  I had a long five hour solo drive ahead of me.  I always worry about getting through Louisville but it went well this time.  I arrived back at the ranch around dinner time.

 

I always look forward to this retreat and am always sad to leave.  Our time together goes so quickly and we always have so much fun together.  Our group has gotten to know each other so well over the years and it feels like a reunion when we get together.  Waves to the worker bees reading!  Miss you all!

 

I hope you enjoyed my recap posts.  I always enjoy a good travel adventure and I enjoy sharing it with you as well.  I hope you all have a great weekend.  I think I'll stitch some more.  Won't you join me?

 

 

Until next time,

 

The Inspired Stitcher

Russellville Retreat Recap

A week ago yesterday I left for our annual Russellville retreat.  I met up with the peeps at a rest stop just south of the city.  This year I drove by myself since my usual travel peeps were heading on to Florida after the weekend.  Me, I had to come back to the grind.  However, I wasn't alone in the car!

I had Señior Frog to keep me company along the way.  He and I listened to my iTunes through the car's bluetooth and away we went!  The girlies following me have now dubbed me Mario...ahem!  Yes....I do tend to have a lead foot.  I blame it on a really smooth riding car.  Yep, that's it!

We made a stop at The Finishing Touch in Louisville to stretch our legs and do a little shopping.  Gotta enhance the stash dontcha know. As you can see a few little things had to come home with me.  We got back on the road for a short hop south of the city for lunch and then we kicked it on into Russellville.

 

Here's a peek at our nest.  We usually spend our first night at the "hive" setting up and settling in.  We have a pizza dinner so as folks straggle in they aren't missing dinner.  The next morning we get down to stitching!

 

This was our group project for this year's getaway.  It's Blackbird Designs' "Summer in Bloom - Pinkeep Drum."  We used the called for GAST floss and 28ct. Silkweaver Days Gone By linen.

 

Here's where I was at the end of the weekend.  I'm a lot further along now.  I've got all the leaves and stems in and am working on the flowers.  I'm hoping to get this one done really soon!

Speaking of finishing things, I've alluded to a round robin group project here on the blog.  Well, we finally got to reveal them.  This was the first time we saw them all together after they were finished.

 

I purposely left the picture scaled small for privacy sake.  Most of these have the names, city and state of the participants on them.  Some things just don't need to be put out there.  I know you all understand.  I can tell you we had participants from Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan.

 

I'm sure you are curious how we accomplished this.  Our organizers distributed the same set of quilt square charts from Susan Greening Davis (used with permission) to all of us.  Each of us chose our own fabric, floss, and layout.  As we received the stitched squares, we tried to choose a block to stitch that hadn't already been used.  We tried to use complimentary colors so all the blocks would look nice as a group.

 

We sent them out each month by the 15th.  We were paired up in groups of two since that's how our geographic location worked out.  After I stitched my square on the two I received, I passed them along to my peep in the city at one of our stitch-ins.  She sent them on when she was finished stitching her squares.  And so it went until we were done!

 

They all turned out really nice and each is so different from the other.  They really do reflect all of us.  There is talk that we may do another round robin.  The Queen Bee was quite impressed and maybe a bit envious that the worker bees struck out on their own.  Giggles!

 

I have another couple tiny finishes to share too.  This bag was given to us at last year's retreat by the Queen Bee.  We were to stitch little "passport stamps" and attach them to the bag.  They could be anything that was meaningful to us.

I chose to stitch a bee skep with tiny bees and my monogram since we all have the same bag.  The skep represents our "hive" where we stitch each year and the bees represent us as stitchers aka worker bees.

In case you are wondering, the monogram is from a vintage DMC chart and the bee skep is from Prairie Schooler's chart #193 "Where there are Bees."  I used 32ct. cream scrap for them both and finished the edges with nun's stitch.  I used the called for DMC on the bee skep and NPI 947 & 572 on the monogram.

Each year the Queen Bee likes to give us little gifts during our getaway.  This year she gifted us with this super cute hand made pin featuring our symbol, the bee!  She also gave us this pretty journal to keep all our important thoughts in it.  She suggested we could stitch our initial and put it in the square instead of the paper one that came with it.  She also gave us a gold bee skep needle minder.

 

See the camel up there?  Each year we like to patronize the local businesses just around the corner on Main Street. The camel was my souvenir from Pearl's Antiques. It's a figurine from the Red Rose Tea Company.  It's made by Wade in England and offered as a promotion in the tea box.  It just cracks me up!

It reminds me of the Geico camel which is my all time favorite commercial ever!  I can't watch this video without laughing.

Well folks, this one has gotten pretty lengthy today and I'm not done yet.  I'll leave you on this funny note and pick up again tomorrow with show and tell as well as the stash I got from the Queen Bee's "boutique."  Hope you enjoyed the recap so far!


More to come,

The Inspired Stitcher

Saturday Stitch-in and Quaker Faith progress

Saturday was an outstanding day at the QCSG all day stitch-in.  We had a guest lecturer who brought all kinds of neat needlework necessities, tools and toys for us to all drool over. It was absolutely fascinating!  Most of them were from the 1700's and 1800's.  I took a ton of pictures so I'll let them speak for themselves and chime in where I can.

The bonnet girls had hand drawn faces and the box in the lower left was a child's needlework box.

The two shell shaped pieces were referred to as etuis and held small tools.  The box in the back had secret compartments.

I absolutely fell in love with this chatelaine!  In addition to the watch there is a scissor holder, needle case, thimble holder and pad of paper!

I love these turned wood pieces.  The box in the lower left was made by a sailor from shells collected during his travels.  The basket in the back was a family piece.

I loved all these tiny things especially the needle cases.

 Who would ever look at a walnut shell and think tool holder?  Apparently someone did!

 



 I love the spool holder on the right.  You pull the pins up and load the spools onto them.  The pincushion on the top is worked in bead embroidery!

 These were all made of either bone or ivory.  The carving was amazing!

These were called "third hand" tools.  They were used to hold fabric and clamped to a table top.

All of these were metal and came from England.  I love the chick and the bunny. They were tape measures.

The inlay woodwork was stunning on this box.  You lift out the tray and stow your project underneath!  Wouldn't that be a fun way to travel with your needlework project.

This was my absolute favorite of all.  It's French and was made by more than one crafts person.  Just look at that exquisite embroidery and those breath taking tools.  Swoon!

 

Edited:  Rae over at Reconstructed Fabulousness helped me remember what this particular box was called.  It's a Palais Royal (click here for more info).  The tiny pansy hallmark is a dead giveaway!  I'm adding some additional pictures for your viewing pleasure below!

 

This is the pansy hallmark to look for that identifies them as Palais Royal.  The word pansy in French means remembrance.

 

I was so amazed by the craftsmanship in all these tiny treasures when thinking about the technology back when they were made.  Everything done by hand and with such attention to detail.  There are simply no words.  Wow!

 

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I didn't get very good pictures of the show and tell table but we were able to lay out the three Snooty's and get a group picture!  On the left is Ellen's finished piece.  She had her framer bring it so we could take the picture.  In the middle is J's piece almost done and then you all have seen mine recently.  It was fun to see them all together.

 

I chose to work on my Quaker Faith for the day.  I hadn't touched it since at least April.  I decided it was high time to do something on it.  I managed to finish the church and a wee start on a motif in the lower right corner (that brown squiggle).  I really don't have that much to go on it and should just buckle down and get on with it already. LOL!

 

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Ever had your car just pull into a place like an invisible force field is sucking it in?  Yep, that's what happened to me.  On my way home I got sucked into stopping at the Half-Price Books store.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Something just told me to pop in and see what was there.  Boy, am I glad I did!  I've been watching the top book for ages on the bay of evil.  The second one just looked interesting.  The other cool thing was I paid even less than the sticker price because have a discount card.  One of the perks of my job! 

So yep, it was an outstanding day all around...cool lecture, fun show and tell, progress made and new books!  I hope you enjoyed seeing all the juicy things we saw on Saturday.  I just love days like that!

Well folks, I hope you all have a good week and get to make some progress too.  I need to get packing for my trip later this week.  I've got my stitch bag almost packed and need to do the usual other stuff you do to get ready to leave.  I'm so excited!  I promise I'll come back with a full report!


Until next time,

The Inspired Stitcher

Catching up...The Parrots

I'm finally getting back on track with the Snooty Parrots.  A good couple days was what it took.  I'm now back to where I should be...July's assignment.  Let's have a look at where I was last time we visited the Parrots.

Progress as of 6/22/14

This was actually May's assignment.  I had started this at the end of April and then the Hornbook stitching fest ensued.

Here is May's assignment all completed.  That stag gave me fits.  I swear I stitched that dude at least three times.  I finally got it right.  Who knows what that was all about!  I'm blaming the frogs.

June's assignment brought me to finally stitching a parrot!  I've looked forward to stitching one of the birds since starting this project but I've been patient.  I've tried to stay on task and not skip ahead.  I really love how it turned out.

Now I'm caught up and here's where I am as of last night.  I'm working on the verse.  I really like stitching letters.  I don't know what it is about letters.  They just seem to go quickly for some reason.  I'm hoping I can finish up the verse before my trip to Russellville. I know we'll have a new start on something there and don't want to feel behind again.

Well folks, that's all I've got today.  I'm still enjoying this project.  I think it's all the colors.  I love the pinks and reds in this piece. It's hard to believe we are about half way through it.  I'm hoping to get a good go on it this weekend at the guild's all day stitch-in.  A quilt history friend of mine is coming to lecture on antique sewing tools and toys.  I've heard her speak on this subject before and we are in for a treat!

Hope everyone is enjoying your summer stitching. Thanks for stopping by.  I always appreciate your visits.


Until next time,

The Inspired Stitcher