Little House/ Country Cottage Display

This month at work we are featuring the designs by Little House Needleworks and Country Cottage Needleworks.   The shop sent out a call to all our stitcher's to please loan us any of these designs that they had stitched up and we also offered a discount on the charts and the framing if they hadn't already stitched one but wanted to do so for the display.  As usual, our ladies came through for us in spades and we now have a wonderful display for everyone to enjoy!  I have this insane desire to stitch each and every one of these designs although I have to admit, the pastels used by Country Cottage are not me and I have to WWJD them.   HUH?  What does she mean WWJD them?   Deb, one of our customers, has taken that phrase and changed the J from Jesus to Julie and is always saying I have WWJD'd this or that or she'll ask me to WWJD something for her or she'll tell someone else to have me WWJD something. So it's kinda stuck.  Anyway, I thought I would show you the display in the shop, although you have seen part of it in my previous post already.

It's hard to get good pictures of them but I think you can see them pretty good if you click and enlarge each picture.  We're hoping to do this with other designers that don't have a traditional trunk show too.

Bout time to head to work.  Hope you have a wonderful Monday!

Take care till next time!

Julie

    

Stitching Updates

Good Morning!!

It's a beautiful sunny morning here in the Midwest.  It's supposed to get a bit windy though as the day progresses.   I hope where ever you are that the weather is beautiful and you get a chance to get out and enjoy it!

Just a few final thoughts regarding retreat.  I would love to be able to record some of the things said and mash them all together into a video of some kind.  If laughter is the best medicine, the random one liners would cure all the illnesses in the world.  Walking around the stitching area you hear bits and pieces of conversation but not enough to know what they are really talking about.  I heard a few things that had me laughing my fool head off and I would so love to share them somehow.  But hidden microphones and video tapes would probably not go over well with the attendees so I sadly will not be able to cure what ails you at this time.

Also, I wanted to say what a wonderful group of ladies we had attend this year.  Some were what we call the old timers and others were new to us.  Some traveled from as far away as Chicago and others from our own back yard but each and every one of them was wonderful.  Thanks to all the ladies for taking  time out of your busy lives to spend the weekend with us and I for one can't wait to do it again!!

Here's a quick update on my stitching and then I have to eat my breakfast , pack my lunch and head on down the road to work.  I haven't stitched nearly as much as I would have liked but at least some progress has been made.  The flowers are really slowing me down with the constant color changes, but I am really enjoying this project and my husband is in love with it.  The color is more accurate in the first picture but I don't have time to go back and adjust the second one. You get the idea.

And I never showed you my framed Inn at Fox River Mill.  There was supposed to be a fence stitched on either side of the flower/leaf thing at the bottom but I didn't care for it so I left it out.

Gotta scoot!  Have a wonderful day and take care till next time!  And thanks for the comments.  I love comments!

Julie

Fear the Frog part II

Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there!  We're just putzing around the house today, doing odd jobs like replacing the front door lock as our keys are no longer working right.  Took Amy 15 minutes the other day to get in the house.  I don't want to be the one that can't get in at all!  I hope you all are having a wonderful day!  And now...

Part II of Fear the Frog

If you don't have your speakers on, turn them on for the full retreat experience!

First thing Saturday morning I looked out the sliding glass doors in our room and saw this beautiful sight.

What an awesome way to start the day!  Breakfast was again at 8:00,  followed by the History of Adam and Eve Samplers presentation given by Darlene Andersen.  I completely forgot to take pictures so you will just have to use your imagination.  I learned some interesting things about the history of the samplers and enjoyed seeing the pictures of all the designs in Darlene's collection.  Once the presentation was done we set to work putting out all the goodies for the swap table and when that was done it was time for lunch.

I need to back up a bit now and tell you about the goodie bags the ladies were given.  They included several charts, a little notebook, a microfiber cleaning cloth, sunglasses, a quilted coaster, a pin cushion and several other small items.  All but one of the gals received a pin cushion that looked something like this...

But one lucky lady received a pin cushion that looked like this...

Everyone was told that they could steal or swap the frog pin cushion.  The person that had the pin cushion at the appointed time (9:00p.m. Saturday night) would then have a decision to make.  They could keep the frog cushion or they could choose to pick the mystery box.  The mystery box could contain something better...something worse...Fear the Frog!...or the same thing.

So during everything else that was going on there was a game taking place in the background.  It was fun to watch where the frog would go and how long he would stay before being swiped by someone else.

One other activity that we had at retreat was a display of Little House and Country Cottage Needleworks pieces stitched by our customers.  It's amazing to see them all hanging together in one place and it was amazing that there were not more duplicates amongst the many pieces there.  We've brought them all back to the shop and they will be on display for the entire month of May.  Stop in and take a look if you're in the area! These are just a few of the many that are now on display.

After lunch on Saturday we opened up the swap table and I think everyone that was interested was able to find a treasure or two.  We also provided a masseuse  for the afternoon and those that signed up were in and out  getting their massages.  I have to say it was wonderful!!  Wish I could afford one every day!

Paulette arrived at the tail end of lunch on Saturday and hung out with us until supper.  She signed charts, and the spools for those that wanted them signed and even stitched for a little while.  Everyone was pleased to see her and as usual she was very gracious to everyone.  Thanks again Paulette!

Saturday night after supper we had shop night.  Jim and Mary Ann brought everything out from the shop except for floss and the large cuts of fabric.

The ladies were able to shop for a couple of hours before we closed down for the night at 9:00 and called a halt to the game of pin cushion, pin cushion, who has the pin cushion.  It got a bit aggressive in the last couple of minutes of the game but in the end Deb had the pin cushion in her possession when we yelled GAME OVER!  I wish I had been able to watch the scramble in the last couple of minutes because judging by the laughing going on it must have been hilarious but I was busy watching the clock and missed it.  After consulting with her sisters in crime, she decided to take her chances with the mystery box.

Everyone laughed when she pulled out the pin cushion!  But wait...could there be more??

I didn't remember (do you see a theme here?  I think my brain has turned to mush.) to take a picture of the prize up close so I had to have Deb send me a pic.  She said she loves it and it goes perfectly in her home.

After the game was over we drew numbers and gave out the door prizes and then people started to drift off to bed.  It was probably midnight or so when Connie and  I called it a night.

Sunday morning we had breakfast and then opened up the shop again for an hour or so.  After that people started to pack up and head on down the road.  Some like Shay and Diane had a 3 hour drive ahead of them before one of them hopped a plane back to Chicago, Mary (who came to retreat in spite of having pneumonia) decided to head home and get some much needed rest and Doreen's husband had purchased tickets to Bill Cosby for that day so she left too.  But there were many that stuck around to the bitter end and didn't leave until 3:00.  Thankfully the rain held off that day until about 2 seconds after we were done loading all the cars and were pulling out of the parking lot!  Now that is good timing!!

The group

And that my friends is the end of another fantastic retreat!  At least I think it went well, I can't speak for anyone else.  Our no frills retreat is the last weekend in October if anyone is interested.  Registration will begin in June.  And it looks like our Spring Retreat for 2013 will be the first weekend of May but I'm not 100% sure of that yet.

I've had a couple of folks inquire about the spools and where I found them.  They were not found.  My husband and I made them using this spool table by Ballard Designs as the inspiration.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about our retreat.  We, meaning Mary Ann, Connie and I enjoyed it and I hope all the ladies that came to the retreat also had a good time.  And I apologize for the lousy pics.  My camera just does not take good indoor pictures.  I'll blame the camera rather than my poor picture taking skills!  LOL!

Take care till next time!

Julie

Retreat part I

Finally I have time to sit down and tell you all about our Retreat.  It's been a crazy couple of weeks leading up to it and a busy past couple of days catching up somewhat on all the things around the house that were let go while I was getting ready for retreat.  I have a lot to tell you so I'm going to have to do this in several posts or I'll scare all of you away!

Mary Ann, Connie, Carole and I left Papillion last Thursday in three separate cars...all loaded to the top with luggage, food, retreat goodie bags and projects.  Calvin Crest is only an hour away so we timed our arrival in Fremont to coincide with a stop for lunch at Arby's.  Arriving at the retreat center sometime around 12:30, we quickly set to work unloading our cars, setting up the greeting area, assigning rooms and putting chocolates on everyone's pillows.

Chocolates

There were only 9 of us attending Thursday and 4 of those were "staff" so once we had everything set up we sat down to catch our breath and cool off a bit as it was very hot and humid outside.

Connie waiting to scare greet the stitcher's.

 As each attendee arrived, they were greeted by one of us at the curb with a cart to help bring in the massive (some more than others) amounts of stuff each stitcher brought with them.  I'm not going to name names but some of these ladies do not travel light.  Of course I have no room to talk, I had enough stuff with me to last at least a month!

 Linda was the first to arrive.

She was followed by Mary, Pam, Doreen, Stacy and Laurie.    Upon entering the retreat center, they were surrounded by the sound of Frog song in keeping with our theme of Fear the Frog. At this time they were asked to sign up for a massage and the beaded fob class if they were interested.

Then they were given their goodie bag, their Fear the Frog tote if they purchased one and the retreat project.  Each attendee was also given a raffle ticket for the door prizes.  They had to put one half of the ticket into the frog on the desk.  When you opened it's mouth it croaked at you.  Surprised a couple of them!  Fear the Frog!!

Paulette Stewart of Plum Street Samplers once again designed our shop exclusive chart and I must say she did an outstanding job of tying in the theme.  Paulette...you rock!  Thank you so much for helping to make our retreat a success!

Notice the little frog stealing a stitch in the lower right hand corner?  And the lady with the cage trying to catch him?  Too stinking cute!  Some of you might have noticed that there is something missing in this picture.  I didn't notice until I was viewing it on my computer screen that I had completely left out one flower!  Don't worry, I corrected my mistake but by then I had already stitched the ends together and didn't want to take the time to "ripit" so I wasn't able to take another full picture of the piece.

Once stitched the piece would then be placed if the stitcher so desires, around the "spool" that was provided for each person attending retreat.  Like this:

 The lid of the spool lifts off  to store orts or whatever else one might wish to keep in there.  When they received it the floss and fabric were inside along with a thread holder that included fun frog facts

Once the business of retreat was taken care of we showed each person to their room and helped them take their stitching paraphernalia  to the stitching area where they lost no time in getting down to the important business of stitching.  Before we knew it,  it was time for supper.  As it was such a small group Thursday, it was pretty laid back and easy going and after eating we spent the rest of the evening stitching and visiting.  For Connie, Mary Ann and I, it was a nice break from the craziness that would be the rest of the weekend.    Friday morning we had breakfast at 8:00 followed by more stitching until lunch at noon.  After lunch we set everything up to greet the rest of the stitcher's that were scheduled to arrive after 3:00 that afternoon.  Then we all chose our beads for the fob class to be held later that night.  As the rest of the stitcher's arrived and got settled in Carole and Connie helped them choose their beads so that by supper at 6:30 everyone had their beads chosen for their fobs and we were able start class as soon as we got back.

I believe everyone had a good time making their fobs and it was amazing how pretty and unique each persons fobs were.

Here's a close up of mine:

After class there was more stitching until one by one the stitcher's drifted off to their beds.

I hope you are enjoying part one of our retreat recap.  I'll try to post part 2 this weekend if not before.

Take care till next time!!

Julie

Short and Sweet

Well shoot, I turn my back for one minute and the powers that be totally change the layout of blogger on me!  When did this happen??

Just posting a quickie as I really have nothing much to say that's happy and upbeat and I am tired of always posting negative stuff.  So here goes...

Progress on Parrot

New kitchen floor was supposed to have been installed last week.  Due to estimator error it did not happen.  When the installers arrived to install the new hardwood floor they discovered it was not going to work.  So they left.  And this is  how we have been living ever since as Dan refuses to move everything again.

Top vote getter of Reflections 4th annual Needleart Exhibit:

February Word Play stitched by my boss and framed by me.  It's stitched on 30ct Dolphin if anyone is interested.

Retreat is less than 2 weeks away.  I think we will be ready...cross your fingers.

Adam and his girlfriend are settled into their new apt and are as happy as can be.

Abby is going through a tough breakup

Amy is looking down the barrel of finals week and will be home in a week and a half.

Dan has been working his tail off getting the retreat project finished.  His part is done now and he is extremely happy to have them all finished.

Gracie is a miracle dog.  Doing well and is off the medicine they told me she would never be able to be off.

I have had a terrible case of the dizzys since Saturday.  Hope it goes away soon.

Have an awesome week everyone and take care till next time!

Julie