Class with Catherine Theron

I didn't mean to go all quiet on you last week.  I've been busy stitching on a private exchange for a blog buddy and a gift I'll tell you about in a minute.  So I have been stitching, just nothing I could show yet.

Sunday my peep, Marsha and I drove to Michigan to the Kindred Spirits Sampler Guild's "Hidden Magnolia" class taught by Catherine Theron on Monday.  We both fell in love with our guild friend, Janis' sampler and decided we'd go anywhere to be able to stitch it too.   Thankfully we didn't have to go too far...only four hours away!

The class was held in the Spicer House.  This is the same place where my other KSSG classes were held.  (See here and here.)  It was fun to see the gardens adorned in fall finery this time.  Love that maple tree!

Left to right: Catherine, me, PW, PF, Marsha, ES, and LK.

Marsha and I were also joined by another car load of local peeps that wanted to take the class too.  The southern contingent was well represented. Here we are with Catherine and the sampler! 

This is a better look at the sampler.  There is a lot more detail to this sampler than meets the eye.  With the exception of a couple places, every single stitch in this one is a specialty stitch.  I sure didn't pick up on that from looking at the picture.  These stitches really give it a lot of dimension when you see it up close.  I have a new appreciation for Janis' sampler and what a feat it was to finish it!

Here's the huge ring of silk that goes with this sampler!  We were given a floss supply list before class.  We provided 32 AVAS and 4 NPI and she gave us 11 colors in class.  Just look at all that juicy goodness!

I especially like these three Gumnut 'Stars' flosses she gave us in class.  There's just something about these colors that I find really pretty!  I've never stitched with Gumnut before so that should be an interesting experience.  Have any of you used it?  I'd be interested to know what you think of it.

We were also given this super cute flower pincushion that sits atop a golf tee!  It was handmade by Nancy B. who took care of all the arrangements for the class.  What a sweet souvenir from the day!  I picked this one because it reminds me of my birth flower, the narcissus, which happens to be one of my favorite flowers.

Here's Catherine teaching us how to do the padded satin stitch that will be used on the entire house!  It is really effective in making the house look like it has siding on it.  I love the elastic bands attached to the stretcher bars she's using for the example. Clever idea!

This is my progress at the end of class.  The brown line is done in stem stitch and will section off the left side's floral vine.  The beginning of the pine tree is part of the center section at the top.  It's worked in smyrna cross.  It sure does have a nice texture when you run your finger across it!

These are a couple of Catherine's other teaching pieces.  I dearly love the one on the right called "A Stitcher's Envelope!"  I'd take that class for sure.  I've got a thing for Quaker style alphabets and flame stitch these days.  Love that mini hornbook too.  You knew I'd say that didn't you.  LOL!

This is the back of the "Alphabet Primer Pocket" on the left and the inside of "A Stitcher's Envelope" on the right.  Both are amazing!  Just look at all that over one on the village scene.  Impressive!

This is another teaching piece.  It's called "Travel-sized Quaker Sewing Roll."

This is the inside of it.  I love the soft muted colors in this one.  I'd love to stitch this one too. 

Catherine is such a talented designer and a very good teacher too.  She made sure to come around to each and every one of us checking to make sure we understood what we needed to do.  After each part of the lesson, she brought the original sampler around so each one of us could get a closer look and take pictures too.  If you ever get the chance to take class with her, I highly recommend it.  You'll be pleased you did!

~*~*~*~

Design:  Sneak Peek - Summer

Designer:  The Trilogy

Fabric:  32 ct. silver-blue

Floss: DMC as charted

Started:  10/21/13

Finished: 10/25/13

Completed:  10/26/13

This is the gift I mentioned earlier.  I stitched this for Marsha as a thank you for ordering the floss for me while I was away in West Virginia.  It was so helpful for her to do that since I was out of town.  I truly appreciated it!

I wanted to make a floss tag since my thank you was related to floss.  I think it turned out really cute.  I might have to do one for myself sometime just because those bees make me smile.  I just love their little eyes. They just made me crack up when I saw them. Besides that, Marsha loves bees as much as I do...maybe even more! 

These bees remind me of my greeting card rule.  If I find a card that makes me laugh out loud in the store, that's the one I buy!  I've even been known to buy them with no recipient in mind just because they make me laugh.  I'm like that dontacha know.

This is the back.  I had to personalize it.  I also altered the finish after I took this picture.  I put a flower shaped grommet on the tab so the tag would lay flat against the floss bags.  It stuck out weird before I did that.  Maybe Marsha will show a picture of that on her blog.

~*~*~*~

Overall, it was a really enjoyable weekend!  I spent it in good company and learned a ton of new things.  I got to see the beautiful Michigan landscape wrapped in autumnal glory.  The many miles we traveled seemed to move along quickly as we laughed and shared stories on the trip to and from.

Special thanks goes to Catherine for the wonderful class piece.  Thanks goes to Nancy B. who arranged a wonderful meeting place, meal, made the super cute flower gift for us all, and I'm sure took care of a million other little details I'm unaware of.  Also, thanks goes to my travel buddy, Marsha.  I appreciate you girlfriend!

It was so nice to see some of the same ladies who were in class with me earlier in the year too.  Waves to you all!  I only wish I lived closer so we could get together more often.  There's always next time!

I hope you all enjoyed reading about my trip.  I'm hopeful to have a couple more posts this week too.  Real life has gotten busy and it's been hampering my blogging time.  Never fear, I still find time to stitch.  It's my sanity saver and I don't know what people do that don't stitch!  LOL!  Have a great rest of the week!

Until next time,

The Inspired Stitcher

John Foster...DONE!

You may have seen my sneak peek in yesterday's post.  Folks, I'm pleased to say I have completed John Foster!  Now, I know I'm a month ahead of schedule but I couldn't help myself.  I present you with my completed John Foster!

Design:  John Foster 1885 Sampler

Designer:  Historic Stitches

Fabric:  40ct. Parchment

Floss:  My own NPI and Belle Soie conversion

Started:  1/1/13

Finished:  10/12/13

 Just for fun let's take a retrospective look at the birth of my version of this sampler.

January

 

February

 

March

 

April

 

May/June

(completed in May)

 

July

 

August

 

 September

 

 October and November

(completed in October)

 

I worked on the bricks a lot in the car on the way down to Alabama and in the hotels in the evenings.   Yes, 40ct. in the car...it confirms I'm crazy.  Seriously though, I actually completed October's installment at the Barber Festival while my honey perused the swap meet.  When we headed home I noticed I really didn't have that much more to do so I just finished it.  It was the perfect way to end a wonderful getaway.

 

I can't wait to see the others as they are finished! We've already had one person finish and I'm hopeful there will be more soon.  Now I need a visit with my framer.  Yay!

 

Special thanks goes to my dear friend, Ellen for inspiring this whole adventure and for her kind advice.  I really enjoyed my time spent with John this year.  Thanks for stopping by today and sharing my finish!  I'm so thrilled with it.

 

Until next time,

 

The Inspired Stitcher

On the road again...part 2

Thanks for all your sweet comments on yesterday's post.  There's just something about the ocean that soothes my soul!  I'm so glad we got to spend some time taking it all in.

After our Florida beach excursion, we got back in the car and headed back toward Alabama only to notice on the map that Mississippi wasn't that far away either. This time it was only about a half hour!

The next morning we got up and made our way to a stitch shop in Ocean Springs and of course, the Biloxi Harley shop for another t-shirt. We've got priorities dontcha know!  State number seven...day three...check!

The shop in Ocean Springs is called Thread Needle Street. She specialized in both cross stitch and needlepoint. It was just blocks from the ocean front too.  Yes, ocean and stitching!  Be still my heart!

There was a little bit of everything in here!  I found her prices to be extremely reasonable.  I finally found my GAST Wood Trail floss for my Mary's Sampler SAL at this stop. I still can't believe I had to go all the way to Mississippi to find it. LOL!

I crossed a couple things off my wish list at this shop. One was the GAST floss and the other was the Brittercup stocking chart.  The little dogs remind me of my Shelby.  I found an OOP Brightneedle called Key West. I'm going to stitch it as a remembrance of the trip.

You may be wondering what that black and white piece of fabric is in the lower part of the picture. It's actually something the shop owner makes to help you see the holes in your linen. You lay it on your lap while stitching. I'd never seen or heard of that before. I couldn't pass it up. This was a fun stop and the owner was so friendly.

All the way down I-65 we kept passing hot rod and classic cars.  We wondered what was up with that.  The stitch shop owner solved that mystery for us.  Come to find out there was a huge car cruise set to kick off in Biloxi the day we were there. Who knew?!

We got behind this homemade hot rod on the bridge from Ocean Sprigs to Biloxi and followed it into town.  I've never seen so many cool old cars in one place before. Love when we stumble onto things like that.

As an aside, I was surprised how close this area is to the ocean shore. There wasn't even a seawall or at least I didn't see one! No wonder they were really hard hit when Katrina blew through here. Wow!

We left Biloxi around lunch time and headed back north to the Barber Motorsports Museum in Birmingham. People, this place was my honey's version of heaven.  He was on cloud nine. 

We stitchers have ornament trees, motorcycle enthusiasts have motorcycle trees!  How about that?! This place was really interesting. There were cool old motorcycles everywhere you looked!  We spent a good couple hours in there.

 The next day we came back to the Motorsports Park for the actual festival.  There were several exhibits, a swap meet and a fan zone to check out.  This is the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club's exhibit space. These are my honey's peeps!

They had a road course and there were all sorts of racing practices going on all day long.  We even got to see sidecar racing!  Talk about acrobats or should I say daredevils!  Those sidecar riders really have to be physically fit.  Wow!

This is the Wall of Death.  It was in the fan zone.  Now these guys were really daredevils!  There's a mezzanine at the top of those stairs where we stood to watch the show.

This is the view looking down inside.  There were three guys that rode these machines around inside this place using the centripetal force to keep them going.  At one point there were two of them going around at the same time.  One of the fellas could even snatch dollars right our of your hand as he was doing it.  Crazy!

 

My honey and I made a pact when we got married that our trips would have things he wanted to do, things I wanted to do and things we both wanted to do together.   My honey has always been very supportive of my stitching and this was my opportunity to return the favor.  It was a really great getaway!

 

I'll leave you today with something stitchy.  Yes, I finished John Foster at mile marker 28 on I-71 at 3:18pm on the way home.  Yay!  I'll share the whole finish reveal with a retrospective tomorrow.

Thanks for visiting with me today.  I've enjoyed sharing my grand adventure with you.  Hope your day is good.


Until next time,

The Inspired Stitcher

On the road again...

My honey and I went on another grand adventure last week.  This one covered seven states in three days but was a week long.  This trip we headed south to Alabama for the Barber Vintage Festival.  We decided to make a week of it so the first part of the week spent doing whatever caught our attention.  The actual festival was the end of the week.

We made a couple stops on the way down.  The first was here at Stitchin' Post in Nashville, Tennessee!  I suspect this building was once a doctor's office or maybe a vet's office because the rooms are off a central hallway that makes a loop around the inside.  It's a super nice shop!

The first room you enter is where this notions wall can be found.

 

Then you enter the floss hall!

The first room on the right is the fabric room.  (sorry for the craptastic pic)

At the end of the hall you make a left and it's frames galore!

 

On around the corner you find the chart room where I found some of this stash haul.  I liked that this shop had "vintage" charts in a special section of the chart room.  That's where I found the "vintage" Prairie Schooler chart!  If you find yourself in Nashville, stop and check this place out.

After the stash enhancement, we hopped back on the interstate and made our way to Alabama!  Our main destination for the week was Birmingham but I convinced my honey that we were really close to the ocean and I needed to see it!  We live in landlocked Ohio dontcha know.  Besides four hours isn't that far to go...really!  So we kept on movin'.

Now you folks who live in the south are going to think I'm a total nutcase and you might be right, but I got to see cotton growing!  Yes, actual real cotton plants!!  It looked like it had snowed in one section of the field but I knew it hadn't since it was 82 degrees.  No, I didn't get a picture or I should say one that you could tell what it was....you'll just have to take my word on it.  Yes, I squealed and my honey gave me the "woman-you-are-crazy" look.  Just had to share that.   LOL!

This also made me squeal!  Yes, palm trees made my day.  We don't have those at home either.  It's the little things people...seriously!

We got to looking at the map at a rest stop and realized we weren't that far from Florida!  My honey said he didn't have a Harley t-shirt from Florida and I needed to see the ocean so off we went. State number six...day two...check!

Now just look at that!  I finally got to put my feet in the ocean.  Squeals again!

 

We spent a couple hours walking the beach collecting seashells and just generally taking it all in!

Here I am with my sea treasure!  Two handfuls of beautiful seashells.  Just look at how clear that water is!  It was a lot deeper than I thought because I got my shoulder wet trying to pick up a shell.  Did I care?  Are you kidding me?!  No way!  I was lovin' every minute of it!

This was the highlight of our beach time.  You'll have to use your imagination a bit here but that splash you see in the picture is actually a pair of dolphins!  They were playing just off the shore.  Yep, this sent me over the edge to crazy woman land again.  It was so awesome!!!

After our beach excursion, we headed back toward Mobile and got a room for the night.  We'd had a big day and the next day promised even more fun.

Since this post has gotten lengthy, I'll save the rest of the fun for tomorrow.  I hope you enjoyed our grand adventure so far.  Stay tuned!

More next time,

The Inspired Stitcher