Hi, Everyone —

It seems impossible to believe that my week in Louisville is almost over.  Sue will drop me off at the airport tomorrow before heading home to Mendham.  I think I would much rather be driving with Sue!

Today’s class continued much the same as the other days — with us just stitching whatever we wanted and Joan teaching us each new thing as it arose.  Today I learned the fly stitch for leaves and needle-weaving — also for leaves.  I finished two blue flowers and a smattering of pink ones.

Cardinal Country — Day 4

The EGA Banquets are much more compact affairs than the ANG ones — not so many speeches or prizes or drawings.  Sue and I both put in our preferences for classes next year in Phoenix.

Cheers, Rosie

Hi, Everyone —

I think I FINALLY got the name of my class correct — although I still refer to it as Cardinal in the Garden mostly.  Today was day 3 and it was much the same as day 1 and 2.  I did make progress on the female cardinal and a few flowers and trees.  Tomorrow we will use the memory thread for the cardinal claws and flower stems and we will learn needle-weaving for 3-D flowers.  Most of my classmates are loving this class — admittedly our teacher, Joan Thomasson, is a lovely person.  We only have six people in the class and that is a real boost for something that requires so much individual creativity.  Unfortunately, the class does not put me in my Zen space!

Cardinal Country — Day 3!

Speaking of Zen space — I sort of went off at the manager of Thelma’s coffee stand here at the hotel when he had NO English Breakfast Tea available at 7:30 AM this morning.  I must admit that he checked his storeroom and finally volunteered to go in search of it elsewhere in the hotel.  He found some and I thanked (and tipped) him profusely.  Sue and I had tried to buy regular tea bags at two delis and at CVS yesterday.  In my not so humble opinion — this tea crisis is unacceptable!Tonight the seminar attendees from the Metropolitan Region of EGA (Skylands Chapter’s Mothership) went out for dinner at Bistro 301.  Sue and I had eaten there earlier in the week and had already decided that we would eat this last free dinner there as well.

Eleven Members of Metropolitan Region of EGA!

Sue and I both had the wonderful salad of mixed greens, grilled chicken, melted brie, grapes, apples, and candied walnuts with a Merlot vinaigrette dressing.  It was wonderful — and no doubt both Sue and I will attempt to recreate it at home.

Grilled Chicken with Brie at Bistro 301 — Yummy!

I hope to complete my SOTM stitching tonight while I catch the opening kick-off of the Arizona football game!  Go Wildcats!

Cheers!  Rosie

Hi, Everyone!

Greetings from Louisville!

Mint Julep Tours took nineteen of us on a wonderful journey to some interesting Louisville sights!  We started the day at the Art and Craft (NOT Arts and Crafts) Museum which is only a few blocks from our hotel.   The director of the museum explained his vision to show the relationship of craft to art.  There were two special exhibits and a permanent exhibit for us to view.  My favorite was the special exhibit of black and white photography taken in the 1950s and 1960s — from what may have been the original paparazzi!  When the photographer died, he left his collection of photographs to his sister who lives in Louisville.  It was so much fun to go around and guess who all the famous people were.

The other special exhibit showed Judith Scott’s artwork.  Judith is a deaf artist with Down’s syndrome.  You can’t help but be charmed by her and her story as told by her sister.  Her art consists of yarn tied around objects that she finds (the bigger the better).  Here’s an example:

Two of Judith Scott’s yarn sculptures!

Apparently her work is shown all over the world.  The director stressed that the museum wanted to emphasize the art and not the artist’s disabilities.  Several other artist’s works were also part of this exhibit.

The permanent exhibit showed the “Best of Kentucky” crafts.  This lovely quilt depicts Haley’s Comet surrounded by dinosaurs.

Haley’s Comet Quilt!

But by far the most noteworthy part of the Best of Kentucky exhibit was the trash fashion — dresses made from Sunday comics, juice bags, lollipops and …. can you guess what the one in front is made of?  Answer at end of post!

Fashion from Trash!

Next, we drove to the Conrad Caldwell House in a very swanky part of Louisville.   A major flood on the Ohio river wiped out most of Louisville in 1937.  After that, the wealthiest families rebuilt and Mr. Conrad, who had made his fortune tanning hides, was one of them.  He built this stunning limestone “castle” and monument to his wealth.

The Conrad Caldwell House

Unfortunately, Mr. Conrad died soon after the house was finished and his widow sold it to Mr. Caldwell who had made his fortune in constructing water tanks (after prohibition killed the bourbon vat business!).  So the giant Louisville Slugger bat in Sue’s post was one of his creations.  It seems that the city would not allow the bat to be erected unless it had a useful purpose.  So there are water pipes all inside that giant bat!

Anyway — this was one of the coolest house tours ever because the three tour guides for our group were all related to Mr. Caldwell.  The house had passed out of the Caldwell’s hands and had become a rest home for Presbyterian widows.  When their numbers became too large, a new facility was built and the church turned it over to the city and a non-profit organization was founded for its upkeep.  So, the great-granddaughters of Mr. Caldwell run the tours and provided us will all manner of Caldwell history and anecdotes!  They knew which furniture was original and which bannister their father had slid down as a kid.  What a wonderful way to get to spend time in the old family homestead!

We saw an old vacuum cleaner that took two people to function — one had to work the bellows while the other moved the hose over the floor!  We also saw a very old sewing machine — and you know what?  It still works!

Old Sewing Machine!

Can you see the brown book at the left had side of the picture (next to the dress?)?  Do you know what it is?  It was our tour guide’s great aunt’s stitch notebook!!!  Here’s a sample page:

Stitch Notebook!

After the house tour, we went to a  local cafe for lunch.  Our waitress was able to take all nineteen of our drink and food orders, deliver them without a hitch, and provide separate checks with zero mistakes.  I think she earned the huge tips that we all left her!

After lunch we drove up into the hills to the Little Loom House.  This is a series of three log cabins in which Lou Tate perfected her art of weaving and where she researched woven coverlet history!  She was visited by Eleanor Roosevelt who fell through the floor of the cabin.  Today, many school children come for tours and are able to weave a few rows in the weaving studio.  As I understand it, the small looms that are used in the studio were designed by Lou Henry Hoover!

Weaving Studio

Two sisters who were neighbors to Lou Tate are credited with the original “Happy Birthday” song!  It was a variation on a song that school children used to sing to their teacher each day!

A fun day and a welcome break from the cardinal!

Did you guess condoms?

Cheers!  Rosie

Hi, Everyone —

Today the work progressed on the Cardinal in the Garden — mostly stitching, so that felt better.  I loved doing the Florentine variation and the leaf stitch, but the long and short stitches on the flowers are not my cup of tea.  I did learn how to do turkey work (the purple flower center — unfinished) and it isn’t at all the way that I taught myself from diagrams.  This afternoon, I started stitching the tree branch that the cardinals are sitting on and I realized that the branch had gored the male cardinal.  So, I pulled out some stitches and filled in the cardinal so that he is whole again!

Cardinal — End of Day 2!

I know that I will learn a few more new techniques before Friday, including needleweaving.  The piece is beautiful, but the guidance is “Do whatever you want” and I am not finding this do it yourself stitching to be relaxing.  Hard to get into my zone!

Tonight was merchandise night, so I bought a glass of wine and prepared to wander around.  Alas, unlike ANG, I was not allowed to enter the room with wine — so I sat outside until my glass was empty.  Then I started my power browsing (and shopping).  I caught up to Sue quickly and bought two projects before I left to return to the room.  Total elapsed time:  about 15 minutes!  It is interesting to compare this merchandise night with the one at the ANG seminar.  The biggest difference is that the space was about four times larger than the ANG space.  This prevented a lot of jostling and it allowed better visibility of the wares.  Several well-known designers were on hand with most of their designs fully-kitted.  Lovely items from Kathy Rees, DebBee Designs, and Ann Strite-Kurz.  Most of the regional EGA groups had booths to support their fund-raising.

Tomorrow is tour day and I am looking forward to getting out and seeing some of the sights of Kentucky!

Cheers!  Rosie

Hi, Everyone —

Today was the first day of my seminar class and it wasn’t at all what I expected.  Joan Thomasson is the very sweet lady who is teaching this class.  Our kit consists of two blank canvases and about 50 skeins of DMC and silk flosses.  WOW — every color but blue!

First off, we had to paint our canvas — we did this by painting on paper and then ironing the paper to transfer the paint to the canvas.  The paints got really bright with the heat of the iron.  One canvas was blank except for an area which we had screened from paint by pinning on a cutout of the cardinals in the tree.  On the second one, we had to trace the overall design onto the canvas before ironing the canvas.  Joan challenged us to pick the one that we then wanted to stitch.  She lost me at “paint” — not to mention “iron” or “trace” or “choose”.

Anyway, you will see by my choice of canvas, that I painted a lot of blue into the sky.  So at the first break I had to run to the store to buy some blue thread — Sue can tell you that I had nightmares about HAVING to go to the store for this class.  All true.  So — finally, after the break, we started stitching the male cardinal.  Random long and short stitches, buttonhole stitches that I hadn’t done before, and satin thread.  Now this is what you would call a nightmare in the middle of the day!  After lunch, we finished the cardinal and moved on to flowers — another new stitch — the Lazy Daisy.  My chest hurt, me head ached!  But still — I think the result turned out okay.

First Day Progress on Cardinals in the Garden

So…when Sue got back to the room, she could tell that I was feeling pretty gloomy.  We took out our SOTM since neither of us had any homework and IMMEDIATELY I felt better — this is the kind of stitching I like to do.  How therapeutic!!!

Around 6:30 we decided to walk around to find a place for dinner.  We ended up at Bistro 301 — we had tried to get a reservation there on Saturday, but the wait was a few hours long!  What a delicious meal we had tonight.  Sue had a local vegetable risotto and I had a salad with grilled chicken, brie, candied pecans, grapes, and apples.  We walked past the Fifth Third Bank on the way home.  Hmmm.

So all is well as we prepare for bedtime.

Cheers!  Rosie

Hi, Everyone —

Sue has filled you in on most of our trip so far.  So I’m just going to offer some random stories.

Many of you may remember the midnight fire alarms at the seminar in Philadelphia — when Sue and I laughed ourselves silly!  Well — you guessed it — last night we had a fire alarm here in Louisville!  The voice on the loud speaker was much more calm, but never came on to announce that the crisis had passed.  We finally called the front desk to determine whether we could “resume our normal activities!”

To make it worse — twice early this morning (2 and 4 AM) — the same alarm beeps went off in our room.  At first we thought it was another fire alarm, but it sounded like the alarm was coming from my laptop.  I couldn’t find any issue with the lap top, but then I spied my cell phone and checked it.  Red Alert text messages were coming in — warning us about flash flooding in the area!    We did laugh hard at this one!  We had fallen asleep to some serious thunder storms earlier!

Oh and the kickoff of the Stanford game was awesome!

So today I visited the EGA book store while Sue was volunteering at the registration desk.  I found this wonderful fiction book called “The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen”.  It probably has nothing to do with stitching but I just couldn’t pass it up!  I bet there are quite a few Jane Austen junkies in this crowd!  (The store also carried dozens of mystery series with stitching in them — some of them even have cats, Mom!)

As Sue explained, we spent some time looking over Finca threads in the store.  Here are my colors:

Rosie’s Finca: Red, Brown, Aqua, Yellow, and Ecru

I have the greatest roommate — here’s why:  As we were standing in a very long line to check out with our threads, I lost my patience with shopping and was ready to abandon my threads and leave.  Sue volunteered to continue to stay in line and to purchase my threads for me.  We would settle up later.  I’m a slacker roommate because I took her up on the offer!

One of the things that we did was look over the offerings of classes for next year’s EGA in Phoenix.  There was a magnificent Or Nue piece with two butterflies.  The gold was couched in swirls.  It’s going to be a one day class focusing on the technique.  I wasn’t allowed to take a picture but I understand that all of next year’s class pictures will be up on the EGA website at the end of this week.  I guarantee that it will be worth your while to take a look.

Diane had mentioned that she had a friend from college, Jackie, that was a teacher of canvas work.  It appears that Jackie has a piece in next year’s EGA seminar called “Diamond Panes”.  It’s lovely and one that I circled as a possibility for Phoenix.  So please check that one out on the EGA website also!

Sue and I stitched most of the afternoon here in the room.  My goal was to get the October SOTM stitching done…I failed.  Here’s my status at the end of our Sunday stitching.

Rosie’s October SOTM Progress

Did anyone who was at Carol’s get this completed?  Sue teases that I stitch fast, but this month’s stitching was slow going!

Last and most odd:  Yesterday Sue and I watched barges loaded with coal going upriver.  This afternoon, they returned down river — STILL loaded with coal.  We figure it must have something to do with the government shutdown!

Cheers!  Rosie