Pennsylvania Road Trip

I'm back as promised to tell you all about the grand adventure I took last weekend.  First some back story.  My peep, Linda has wanted to visit the Penn Dry Goods Market for several years now and for one reason or another it never panned out.  This year luck would have it that my calendar was clear so we started making plans!

We left out on Thursday with a couple "friends" in tow. Yep, Senior Frog and his new buddy, Penelope "Penny" Skunk came along for the ride.  That frog is one well traveled dude.  We got into the hotel early evening then set out to find some dinner.  After dinner we went to scope out where we were going the next morning for our first lecture on "A Morass of Berlin Wool Work: The Pennsylvania Dutch Enthusiasm for Berlin Wool Embroidery, 1830-1900." 

Friday morning we got there early so we perused the vendors on the first floor and checked out the gift shop.  Here's what I couldn't live without.

I couldn't resist the faux iron fence.  I plan to put it around my feather tree display at Christmas time.  The calendar may be out of date but the pictures in it are fabulous.  All the pieces pictured in it are in the Schwenkfelder's collection. I really liked the card and the book mark too.

Then there was Mad Sampler Books.  Oh. My. Goodness.  Did I lose my mind there!  I ended up making three trips to this booth.  Yep, I sure did!  The first trip yielded the Scottish wool for needlbook pages, the needle minder and the needle keep.

The second trip was for the Quaker Pinballs book after seeing some uber expensive pinballs upstairs in the other vendors section (more on that in a bit).  I decided I could make my own and the vendor who had them was nice enough to tip me off that this book was downstairs so down I went.

I hadn't even left the booth when the third trip happened.  My peep, Linda spied the SAN book and knew the first edition was hard to come by so she bought one.  Paige, the bookseller, said she had a second copy so I scooped it up while I had the chance.  Score!

One of the highlights of the event was running into Chris from Tot Hill Farm Stitches.  I almost literally ran into her too.  LOL!  I had taken the goodies above to the car before the lecture and recognized her outside on the sidewalk.  It was so delightful to run into Chris.  It was as if we've known each other forever.  How completely cool is that?!  We got to experience both days' lectures together too. I hope we have another opportunity to get together sometime.

After our lecture we ventured upstairs to see the other vendors.  We both loved the name of this vendor, Cat Lady Antiques.  Cute!  One of our peeps, Evie is a huge cat lover.  We couldn't resist snapping this picture for her.

Some of you may know that I collect strawberries, particularly strawberry pincushions.  Check out this huge one!  Needless to say I couldn't afford to buy this one but I'm glad I got a picture.  Funny story about a strawberry, I had purchased one in the gift shop earlier only to find later that evening it had never made it into my bag.  When I went back the next day for it the clerks had found it on the floor and sold it.  Thankfully they refunded my money.  It was a little disappointing but at least they made it right.

Here are the antique pinballs I mentioned.  Check out the prices on these, $725, $850, $1,100 and $1,300!  W-O-W!  Now you know why I decided I'd just make my own and now you understand why I was so thankful that vendor gave me the tip about the book downstairs.  They sure were pretty though. The blue one is queen stitches and the two on the right are knitted.

 

We did find a vendor who's things were within our price range.  This is what I picked up.  

I already have a brass bullet etui and fell in love with this silver one.  I actually think it may be aluminum or maybe tin.  It was the tiny petit point that sold me on it.  I have no idea its age.  I suspect it's not that old since the thread is wound on a plastic center.  Isn't it sweet?

After we checked out the three upstairs rooms full of museum quality vendors, we decided to hop on the turnpike and venture down to Bristol, PA to visit Ye Olde Cross Stitchery.  The last time I was in the area I had wanted to stop here but we ran out of time.  We got the impression this shop does more online business than walk-ins.  Still it was nice to visit a shop we hadn't been to before.

Of course I found a few things I couldn't live without too.  The beads and the red sparkle braid are for a Nora Corbett piece I want to start soon.  I rarely see banding locally so I picked up a small piece of that too.  I have no idea what I'll do with it but I'm sure I'll eventually figure something out.  The purple floss is a replacement for one I'm using on "Heaven Above."

Here's a comparison.  The one on the left is the new one and the one on the right is the one I already had.  It's interesting to me that the new one is from the old company and the one on the right is from the new one.  I understand that over-dyes vary from batch to batch too.  Anywho, I feel like the new one is more the same intensity as the rest of my floss and won't feel as heavy as the one I started out using.

Before we left the shop we asked for a recommendation for lunch.  We ended up here at the Golden Eagle Diner.  We don't have diners where we live so this was quite an experience!  Their menu was practically as big as the phone book.  So many choices it was hard to decide what to get!

This was the first thing we saw when we walked inside.  A huge pastry counter!  It was like there was a bakery in there with the restaurant.  Is this a normal thing for a diner?!  Holy smokes!

Even though we were stuffed from our sandwiches, we couldn't resist a the canoli.  We each took one of those with us to go for later consumption in the hotel.  And, yes, they were as good as they looked too.  Yum!

After lunch we made our way back to the hotel.  We decided we still had time to go back to the museum to check out the exhibits.  When we got there we decided to look around the first floor vendors again.  This time I had to pickup this homemade lucet from Liberty Linens.  It's made of the nicest maple and is super smooth.  It feels good in the hand.  It even came with the skein of floss and instructions.  I have a small collection of lucets after taking Sherri Jones' class.  Since it was getting close to closing time, we changed our plans and decided to check out the exhibits the next day.

On our way back to the hotel, we remembered we'd seen this roadside honey vendor.  She was still open so we stopped.  We each tried a couple samples before choosing our jar.  This is the sweetest honey ever.  The kind we got is a bit crystallized so it's spreadable.  Can't wait to try it on some biscuits.

Well folks on that sweet note I'm going to stop here for today.  There's more to come!  Stay tuned!


More next time,

The Inspired Stitcher

TUSAL - May

It's TUSAL Day!

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

 

Hello stitchy friends.  Here we are at TUSAL day again.  I know I'm a day late but I have a good excuse.  More on that later.  LOL!  It feels like we just did a check in the other day.  Then again, I'm still amazed we are nearing the end of May too.  This year is speeding by us.  My granny used to say the years fly by the older you get.  I used to think that was just old people talk but now I believe it!  Does that make me one of the old people?  Hmm...oh, never mind.

 

Okay, enough of the silliness.  Here's a look at the ORT pile for the month.  The box above was made by my peep, Linda and gifted to me when she was my Secret Stitcher in 2011.  It's one of my favorite things.

 

Here's the list of this month's contributors:

"Speak to the Earth" by Donna Kooler Designs (In Progress)
"Heaven Above" by Midsummer Night Designs (In Progress)
"Love My Stitching" by Hands on Designs (In Progress)

Yep, it's a pretty boring list...isn't it?  Nothing much new to report this month.  I've been plugging away on all three.  "Heaven Above" has the most noticeable progress but you saw that already in my last post.

"Speak to the Earth" is coming along.  I'm toying with the idea of changing the queen stitches on this month's assignment.  Mine just don't look that good.  I don't mind doing them but they just don't suit me on this one.  We'll see how that shakes out.  

 

"Love My Stitching" is getting ever closer to being finished.  I'm a little more than half way there.  I'm thinking I want to change one of the motifs to my initials.  I need to chart that out to see if it will fit.  I was also lucky enough to find the perfect dot fabric for the lining this past weekend.  Now I really want to speed this one along so I can do the finishing and actually use it!

 

You may be wondering where I found that fabric?  My peep, Linda and I took a road trip last weekend to Pennsylvania to the Penn Dry Goods Market.  I found the fabric at a quilt shop in Bedford on the way home.  I plan to do a full report once I sort out my pictures.

 

One of the many trip highlights was getting to meet Chris of Tot Hill Farm Stitches while I was at the market.  It was just so fun to actually meet one of my blog friends in person.  Chris is just as sweet in person as she is on her blog.  Waves to Chris!

 

Hope your week is off to a good start.  Thanks for stopping by today.

More soon,

The Inspired Stitcher

Heaven Above...Progress

It's been a while since I shared my progress on Heaven Above so I thought I'd do a quick post to catch you up.  This one has become my Sunday stitch.  I seem to be able to stitch for longer periods of time then.  Although lately, since the weather finally warmed up, I've been outside on the weekends more.  Let's have a look at where it is now.

Progress as of 2-15-15

Here we are last time I shared progress back in February.  I was still working on Snooty then and really not devoting much of my time to this one.  It's a good start though.

Progress as of 4-30-15

Here we are last Thursday. I have to tell you I had a repeat visit from the frog.  See that big flower, yep, stitched it three times!  Oh yes I did.  Turns out the angel wings are what was throwing a wringer in the works.  It's hard to tell from the top picture, but I had put an extra square at the bottom of each wing and that threw everything off.

Thankfully the third time I stitched it I started working motifs down on the lower left which brought me up to the big flower again and to the realization that there was something still not right.  Normally I'd say whatever and probably leave it.  However there is not much wiggle room between these motifs so some of them would be running into each other if I did that.  Funny thing is, it's been off since January.  LOL!  Darn frog!

Progress as of 5-5-15

So since I got that sorted out, I decided to fill in the sky.  I've been making myself stitch at least one length of sky floss each time I sat down with this one.  Last Friday I went to stitch with some peeps and worked just on the sky.  I was tired from working all day and needed a "no brainer" kind of stitch.  Filling in is about as "no brainer" as you can get.  By the time I left, I could easily see myself finishing up that section.  So last night, I buckled down and got it all done!

I really like how it looks!  It's one of the parts of this sampler that drew me in.  It still reminds me of the Hornbook.  I think because it's nearly the same shade of blue.  I also love the tiny pup angel.  There's a kitty angel too but I haven't gotten that far yet.  There are a lot of fun little motifs yet to stitch!

You may also have noticed the tail and feet above the pup angel.  That's going to be a bird.  It's charted for CC Plum Paisley.  The skein I have is really dark and almost what I'd call a royal purple.  I'm thinking I'd like to find a different skein that's a bit lighter.  So for now I'll just have a body-less bird till I can get to the LNS to look for something different.

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So now we are all caught up on Heaven Above.  I plan to keep working on this one at least on Sundays and maybe more throughout the month.  Right now I have my May assignment to do on Speak to the Earth.  Can't wait to share the progress on that one too.

I hope you all don't mind these progress posts.  I feel like they aren't the most exciting posts but I like having a record of where I am on things.  As always, I very much appreciate your visits and comments.  I hope where ever you are you are making progress too!


Until next time,

The Inspired Stitcher

Happy May Day!

Happy May Day everyone!

Bon Heur!

If you'd like to learn more about the meaning of May Day as I know it and its traditions click here.

My wish for you today is happiness and good luck in the coming year!

~*~*~*~

The Inspired Stitcher

New Start Progress - Hands on Design

Last night was our guild's monthly stitch-in.  It was fun to get together with the peeps for the evening to sit and stitch.  Since I'd worked all day and was pretty tired, I decided to work on my new start I mentioned in the TUSAL post the other day.  I knew stitching on 40ct. was not happening.  Oh the hazards of banging away on a keyboard all day long staring at a computer screen.  LOL!

Here's a progress picture taken at the end of the night.  This was the perfect stitch for me since my eyes were already tired.  It's worked on 28ct. even weave with three colors of DMC.  It was such a change only working with a small selection of colors.

Here a link to Hands on Design's blog.  I just love her stuff!

 
This is what it will look like when it's all stitched.  I was even lucky enough to find that actual aqua print!  In case you are on the hunt, it's by Riley Blake Designs.  The fabric line is Polka Dot Stitches and this particular print is called Polka Dot Doily Blue.  If you type in any of that into a Google search you should come up with something.

I will say a lesson I learned from my quilting days, if you don't buy a fabric shortly after it comes out you may not ever see it again.  Knowing this, I feel extremely lucky to have found the aqua fabric.  I'm less concerned about the lining fabric but am leaning toward a small red and white polka dot or maybe a gingham.  We'll see what I can find.

There's an element of this particular bag's construction that I really like.  It has an interior pocket that runs the entire width of the bag on the inside back for your chart!  How stinkin' cool is that?!

This bag is also going to be a bit wider than the bags I've made in the past.  It will be closer to 14" wide.  I'm thinking I may try to make it a bit taller too to accommodate my 11" q-snaps.  As you can tell, I'm already getting excited to finish this one so I can actually use it!

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Well folks, that's all I have today.  I hope everyone has a great weekend.  I can see it from here!  Thanks for stopping by today!


Until next time,

The Inspired Stitcher

TUSAL - April

It's TUSAL Day!

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

Well folks, spring has finally made an appearance in my neck of the woods.  We had storms last week and it seems to have helped everything grow!  I missed posting on Saturday when the actual TUSAL date was because I was road tripping.  It was the perfect day for a drive!  Some of my quilting friends had pieces displayed in a museum a couple hours away so I just had to go see them.

Here's a look at the ORT pile for the month.  Not too shabby a pile if I do say so myself.

Here's the list of this month's contributors:

"Speak to the Earth" by Donna Kooler Designs (In Progress)
"Heaven Above" by Midsummer Night Designs (In Progress)
"Cross Stitcher's Count" by Rose Sartore (Done!)
"Love My Stitching" by Hands on Designs (In Progress)


Yes, I've started a new project since our last TUSAL check-in.   The floss on the ring above are the colors I'm using.  I bought this one last summer at our Russellville Retreat and have wanted to stitch it ever since.  It didn't help that Stasi showed her finish back in February and it's haunted me ever since. So I decided it would become my lunch time stitch.  I'll do a progress post soon.

I also started and finished a quickie project for our annual getaway in Russellville for this year.  Our Queen Bee is going to finish the stitched pieces into something special for us but we won't know what it is until we get to the retreat!  I just love surprises like that.

I'm still pluggin away on "Heaven Above."  I'm currently working on the blue background fill behind the stars.  I had a visit from the frog a couple of Sundays ago too.  This set me back since the error was on a motif that I'd counted off of for several other motifs.  Rats!  I hate when that happens.

I'm still loving "Speak to the Earth."  I still have a hard time putting it down when I'm finished with the month's assignment.  I'm down to the point I need to work a row of queen stitches.  There was a frog visit there too and in the same weekend I might add.  I don't mind the queens it's just the placement had me a bit off.  I'm back on track now.  Whew!

So there you are, it's not too exciting this month but progress is being made and that counts in my book!  Hope you are moving things along in your stitchy world too.  Thanks for visiting today!


Until next time,

The Inspired Stitcher

Speak to the Earth - March Progress

I slid in just under the wire this month on the Speak to the Earth SAL.  For some reason I procrastinated on the over one words.  They aren't that big a deal really.  I just have to be in the right frame of mind to work on them on this tiny count fabric.  So I buckled down and just got on with it already.  Enough of my yip yap, let's see the pictures!

Progress as of 2-15-15

Progress as of 3-31-15

I got on a roll on the right side with the green floss.  I don't know about you all, but I hate to cut a thread when there's a long bit of it still in the needle.  So I stitched it to the end!  I figure it's just time saved later when I get to that part.

I can truthfully echo the sentiments of the other peeps stitching this with me, this is one that is so hard to put down once you get going.  I really enjoy stitching it.  I like that the motifs are smallish and you can whip one out fairly quickly and the colors really sing to me too.  I find the colors make all the difference for me.  How about you all, what really draws you in and keeps your interest?  Let me know if you care to share.

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Well friends, it's a quick one today.  I switched over to Heaven Above once I finished this month's SAL assignment.  I made some more progress but not enough to show yet.  I'm hoping to spend more time with that one this month.  It's another that's a joy to stitch.

Hope all is well in your world.  Thanks for stopping in to visit with me today!


More next time,

The Inspired Stitcher