Shepherd's Bush Trip - day 5

On Saturday, we started the day with our second class.  It was with Jeannette Douglas!  I've had class with Jeannette before and I just love her.  She is the warmest and friendliest person you'll ever meet.

Here she is taking attendance!  She had us laughing the minute she walked into the room.  She's so fun and the best story teller ever!

Here's what the Christmas elf brought us in her class.  A little holly needle threader made out of polymer clay!  Isn't it cute?!  It was wrapped in a little wrapping paper bag shaped like a humbug!

Jeannette made the "Be Merry and Bright" tag you see in the picture.  It's from her class project's bag and happens to be the title of the piece too.

This is Jeannette's project.  I was able to get part of the border on both sides done and the pink row below the hearts done in class.  Her project is worked on a natural linen with wool flosses from Gloriana and Weeks!  I've never worked with wool on cross stitch before.  I think I'm going to like it.  They cover really well.  The last time I worked with wool was back in the days of crewel.  How many remember that?!

Before class started, I notied one of my classmates working on her Santa sack.  She said she couldn't decide which motifs she wanted to put on hers so she did them all over one!  There's an over achiever in every crowd.  LOL!  Seriously though, isn't it cute?

After breaking for lunch at the hotel cafe again and yet another trip through the Christmas Shop, we had Ann and Pat from R & R Reproductions for our afternoon class.  I'm not sure what Ann is telling in this picture but she's really into it!

Here's Pat carrying the class project and their "Mary Poppins" bag.  She was quite the talker throughout the class.  I learned a ton of tips from her during class.  Like which side of the linen to iron.

 

Did you know you are supposed to iron your linen on the side that opens like a book?  Meaning fold marks down.  She said if you iron it the other way you'll put the crease in it permanently even though you think you are smoothing it out.  Who knew?!

 

Here's the gift the Christmas elf brought us before this class got started.  It's a paper ORTs box that slips into a sleeve.  Isn't that the bee's knees?

 

 

Speaking of gifts, here is the gift Pat and Ann had made for us by Liberty Hill!  It's a thread pallet that's painted to resemble the design we will stitch.  As an added bonus we got a painted heart scissor fob too.

Pat told us they have been working to get these for 5 years and the classes at Shepherd's Bush are the only ones that will ever have one of these.  The teachers didn't even get one, only the students!  Talk about exclusive!!!  They are amazing!  I love Liberty Hill's work.

Here's the class project.  Can you see the resemblance to the thread pallet above?  I'm thinking I'll do mine as a pillow instead of a box.  They said you could get the box from Olde Colonial and put holiday keepsakes in it if you wanted to.  I was able to get the bottom border and the first three words done in this class.

 Speaking of boxes, this little pretty is Ann's traveling sewing box.  I like how she took a picture of a sampler piece and attached it to the box top with shellac.

Here's the inside of it.  It reminds me of Blackbird's tulip box.  It gave me an idea for another day.

Pat says she also uses Gingher snips instead of scissors most of the time because she finds it saves time and fumbling with scissors.  She also said she threads up several needles at a time instead of changing colors in one needle.  I do this when I quilt and have done it before when stitching.  I'd just forgotten about it.  Hmm...might have to start doing that again.

I really enjoyed class with these ladies and look forward to the opportunity to spend time with them again sometime!  Hopefully soon!

***

I have had some questions about the retreat so I'll take the time to answer them here. 

Q:  "Were they (the cookies) already made for you or was that a project you participated in?"
A:  Parts were done ahead like the measuring tape being attached to the wool and wool circles for the sandwich cookies were all cut out for us but we did the assembly that evening at the various stations.

Q:   "So did the SB retreat get rid of the whole track thing??"
A:  No, they still have "tracks."  You find out who is teaching in what track when they post the brochure in the spring on their web page.  Then you have to choose which track you want to be in and cross your fingers you get it since it's first come, first serve.  The do have a waiting list if you don't get your first choice.

Q:   "Does the fact that there are 178 of you make things feel crowded or claustrophobic or like you're not getting enough attention or anything?"
A:  I didn't really notice any ill effects from a large group.  They broke the tracks into two groups each (1a, 1b, 2a, & 2b) so we were pretty evenly distributed.  I always felt like I got plenty of personal attention in class.  I will say that the Christmas shop was elbow to elbow though.  LOL!

Q:  "Did you ladies bring your own lights?"
A:  Yes, we brought them from home.  They went through security at the airport just fine!

***

Well folks, this one is getting pretty lengthy so I'm going to stop here and continue with the evening's festivities tomorrow! Then that will wrap up the recap of my trip.  I'm so glad you all have enjoyed the posts.  It's always fun to receive such positive feedback!


More tomorrow!

The Inspired Stitcher

Shepherd's Bush Trip - day 4

Friday (day 4) we got up rearing to go!  It was finally class day.  When you go to Shepherd's Bush retreat you sign up for a "Track" of three teachers.  You know what teachers you will have but you don't know beforehand what day you'll have them or what their project will be.

We discovered our first class was with Linda Lautenschlager of Chessie & Me.  No her name isn't Chessie!  That's the cat's name.  She says she gets that a lot.  LOL!

Here's Linda taking attendance!

Before we got started with class, one of the Shepherd's Bush elves came in and gave us our first Christmas present!  It came in the decorated library card pocket on the left.  Isn't it just so pretty?!

Speaking of gifts, isn't this the cutest little counting pin ever?!  Linda told us these were from Chessie.  She wanted us to think of her while we were stitching.  I used mine to score a line in my fabric so it works for that purpose too.  Love it!

Here's Linda's project again.  I love the fabric she chose.  It's called tarnished silver.  I also love the overdyed silks and all those cute little sheep too.

Here's Linda's demo of the long arm cross we'd be doing for the border.  I like this big stitching card she had.  She said she picked several of them up at Market this year.  The teachers really like these cards and so do I.  Great for a visual learner like myself!

Here we are working away at our projects!  Linda's class was a lot of fun and I enjoyed hearing her cat stories.  After class we made one more trip to the Christmas Shop and then into town for some souvenir shopping before dinner.

We were invited by these ladies to join them on their patio for a grill out!  How can you resist that?!  My friend Sara's girls made my favorite squash casserole just because they knew I was coming.  Aren't they the sweetest?!  It was really good too! We also had grilled burgers, corn, and peaches!  If you've never had a grilled peach, you must try one sometime!

 Here we all are enjoying a wonderful dinner together outside.  Great food and great company made for a memorable meal.  I could have stayed there for hours listening to stories and visiting but we had to scoot off to the hotel for our dessert project!

Here we are, all 178 of us!  At least that's the count I believe I heard.  Lots of stitchers happily chatting away.  The room was a buzz with excitement.  You can kind of see the dessert on the table in the lower right corner.  It was a layered chocolate mousse!

This is the inside of Cece's group project.  We were given the design to stitch the night before when we made "cookies."  Once it's stitched it will be backed with quilt fabric and made into a pocket.  You can almost see the tiny bee's wax snowman peeking out of the pocket in the lower right corner.  Cece said she used a vintage chocolate mould to make them!

This is the outside all completed on her example. We were given a packet with all the wool, floss, buttons, ribbons and embellishments to complete our own.  I've done wool applique before so this project should be a snap to finish.

That wraps up day 4.   Another great day!  Tomorrow we have class with Jeannette Douglas in the morning and R & R in the afternoon.  We also have the banquet dinner and ornament exchange too.  I'm not sure I'll be able to fit all that in one post but we'll see.


Still more to come,

The Inspired Stitcher

Shepherd's Bush Trip - day 3

Day 3 we spent the majority of our time in the host hotel.  We got up and had a quick breakfast.  We were prepared to be in line at 9:00 when the Shepherd's Bush girls opened the Christmas Shop in the hotel next door.  They set up shop with things the teachers bring specifically for the retreat and of course a few extra cute goodies just for good measure!

Well, we got down to the plaza and met a sister stitcher (my new friend Teri from Utah) who told us there was a sign on the door that said they weren't opening until noon!  What?!  So we marched ourselves, a little degected, back up to the room and stitched until 11:30.

When we finally did get to the Christmas Shop the line had already formed!  So we decided to hop in the hotel restaurant for some lunch and then we'd try our luck again.  Lucky we were indeed too!  I found several things that had been on my wishlist that I didn't find the days before so I was a happy girl.

From the Christmas Shop we went downstairs to open our registration packets and get started on our Welcome Projects! Our project this year was a Santa sack!  Well, I don't think that's the official name but that's what I'm calling it.  These are some examples the teacher's made ahead of time. They came in two colorways, red ticking or green ticking.

Of course you know I wanted the red one! I stitched on mine throughout the treateat and on the plane ride home. I've got mine done and am trying to decide if I want to put words on it or not. I'll show a picture of that later.

 

Inside the bag was all the floss you needed and a little handmade booklet with designs from each of the designers. You got to pick how you arranged them and which ones you wanted to use. There were more designs to pick from than there were squares to stitch thanks to Jeannette designing more than one. It was hard to decide which to pick because they were all so darn cute!

Here we are scooting back to our home away from home.  The building you see in the picture is our condo. We stayed on the mountain view side.  We called in a pizza for dinner before heading back for before the evening's group project and festivities.

We got to see a "preview" of Friday night's dessert project with Cece of The Threadgatherer.

Our class project with Linda of Chessie & Me.

R & R's class project.

Jeannette Douglas' class project.

Our evening group project was a "cookie exchange" or at least the idea of one! There were stations in each corner of the room where you went to make your "cookie." We were all given a Christmas themed tin and asked to put our name on stickers on both the bottom and the lid. Then we made our way around to the different stations.

This is the Sandwich Cookie and was hands down my favorite! It's made with two buttons and rounds of wool sandwiched between them held together with a ribbon and embellished with a charm. Is this just too dang cute or what?!  Here are the others.

 Pinwheel Cookie closed.

 Pinwheel open and it's a tape measure!

 A Truffle ornament.

 And finally, counting pin sprinkles!  So cute!

Here's our whole group!  The girls on the right side of the table are my peeps from the Russellville Retreat.  They came up from New Mexico and Texas!  It was so much fun having them there.  I miss them already!

Well folks, that's day 3!  I hope you've enjoyed our trip so far.  There's even more to come. So stay tuned!


More to come,

The Inspired Stitcher

Shepherd's Bush Trip - day 2

Day two we decided to make a trip down the mountain to visit Antelope Island State Park.  It's located in the Salt Lake.  It's the largest of the 10 islands located in the Great Salt Lake.  You reach the island by driving across a causeway and are greeted by this sign at the intersection.

We couldn't have asked for a better day to visit the island.  There was a gentle breeze and the weather was perfect!

We drove up to a lookout point up on the mountain and this was the view from there!  Isn't it amazing?  We definitely don't have views like that here!  The lake is to the left in the picture.  The water table was way down from the drought this summer.

I absolutely fell in love with these flowers on the island.  They remind me of sunflowers but I'm fairly sure they aren't sunflowers.  They may be related but I'll call them sunflowers anyway.

They grow pretty tall since I'm a shade under 5'9" and they are almost as tall as I am!  I just love the contrast of the yellow flowers and that blue sky!  On of my traveling peeps picked a couple dried blossoms in hopes of starting some from seed.

You might be wondering if we saw any antelope while on the island.  Well we did but they were too far away to get a good picture.  However, we did see this herd of buffalo!

And this guy! He was standing right by the road just watching us.  I still can't believe he was just standing there.  It was almost like he was posing!

This time we drove all the way to the end of the road and visited the Fielding Garr Ranch.  The ranch  is located at Garr Springs, one of the strongest and most consistent of the 40 springs on Antelope Island.  The Mormon Church operated the ranch until the mid-1870s.  I'm sitting on the back porch of the ranch house in this picture.

The park ranger advised us to pay special attention to the curtains in the kitchen and this is what we saw!  I think I may have to do this in my own kitchen.  Love it!

This is something else that grabbed my attention in the ranch house.  It's a Starr phonograph!  Now you might say well big deal a record player and your point is?

This is what blew my hair back!  It was made by the Starr Piano Company in Richmond, Indiana!  Who would have imagined I would travel all those miles to find something that was made in a place near and dear to my heart.  It made this transplanted Hoosier smile.  Amazing!

On our way back to the causeway this fellow crossed right in front of us!  I kid you not, I didn't even use the zoom on my camera.  I just opened the window and clicked!  He was a very impressive fella to see up close like that!  That's what I love about visiting the island, you never know what's going to cross the road right in front of you.  We definitely don't have these at home!

After leaving Antelope Island, we headed back to Ogden to visit Jill Rensel's shop for her open house.  That's Jill in the middle!  She is just the sweetest lady ever.  She's very soft spoken and makes you feel like part of her family the minute you walk in her door.

I fell in love with this sweet Blackbird Designs' piece!  It was so t-i-n-y!  It's stitched over one and I dearly love it!  I actually bought that chart the day before at The Craft Center.  Hmm...I think I see some over one stitching in my future.

Here it is with another sweet over one piece.  I don't know who designed it but I like it.  If you know, tell me in the comments.  Love that crow and jack o'lantern.

Speaking of sweet, just look at this sweetness right here!  These are Jill's babies.  Two of the cutest Yorkies ever.  They greeted us when we walked in the door.

After we left Jill's we headed back over to Shepherd's Bush shop for one more round of stash enhancement!  Yep, we didn't get enough the first time around and had to go back for some things we couldn't live without.  Oh darn!

On our way back up the mountain to Park City to find some dinner this is what we saw!  I had never seen a rainbow shoot straight up with no curve before.  It was raining in the distance and the sun was setting behind us and the mountain.  It was simply beautiful!

Here we are toasting a wonderful day at  Robert Redford's restaurant, Zoom!  It was a really nice restaurant and our waiter was from Pennsylvania of all places.  He got a kick out of chatting with us.

This is what I had, the tomato basil soup with goat cheese swirled in and their famous mac and cheese.  Everyone we talked to said we must try the mac and cheese!  It lived up to the hype and then some.  It was very cheesy with a slight peppery taste and a crunchy crumb topping.  I washed it down with a nice glass of bubbly too.  Yum!

After all that we went home thoroughly stuffed and happy!  It was a great second day in Utah and the next day promised even more good times.  Stay tuned!


More to come,

The Inspired Stitcher