Robin’s Progress on “Sho Noshi”!

By the way, for those of you who are only following the e-mail updates on the blog, you might want to go onto the official site to see some of the pictures that were uploaded late and inserted into the blog via edits.

NJNA Table at the Awards Banquet!

NJNA President Susan H with her gift (fox pin) for becoming a Fellow Teacher in ANG. She also won a scholarship toward her pursuit of the next level of Teacher.

Cheers and Happy Labor Day to All!  Rosie

PS — Kudos to Anne Carol for winning an opportunity basket!  See blog post from earlier this week.

Hi, Everyone —

Another fun day of stitching!  We did a few more stitches on Illusions — a great border of which only 1/5 of the design is shown in the picture.  Mostly, we walked through the remaining stitches on the piece and were promised an e-mail if we sent our questions to Ro.

Friday Progress on Illusion

The exciting thing that happened today was that I won a door prize in yesterday’s drawing!  My prize is a small kit from Orna Willis.  It is stitched on metal screen.

Orna Willis’s “TEVA” and Rosie’s Door Prize!!

After the day’s stitching was over, I did my 45 minute swim — five adult lap swimmers in the one lane pool!  A bit crowded to say the least.

So I’ll try to take some pictures at the awards dinner tonight, but I won’t post them until I get home — I don’t want to pay for another day of internet.  Harold will drive down in the morning to pick Sue and I up.  I think we are all ready to get home.  All in all this was a glorious week and I’m already looking forward to Anaheim!

Cheers!  Rosie

Hi, Everyone —

Another great day at seminar!

Today and tomorrow I am enrolled in a Ro Pace class called “Illusions.”  It is called illusions because it acts like an optical illusion with cubes ebbing and flowing into three dimensions.  This piece consists mostly of Jean Hilton stitches and (!) there is no need for thread laying!  This allows the stitching to move along quickly.  I would have said that there were about thirty people in the class, but Sue tells me that the maximum is 24.  All I know is that this is a BIG class.

Unfortunately this piece doesn’t photograph very well, so I will post two pictures — one showing the overall progress and the other a close-up to try to show the vibrant colors.

Day 1 Progress on “Illusions”

Close-up of a section of “Illusions”

(Well, maybe you just have to wait to see it in person!)  It may appear that we do not have much done, but Ro said she wanted to start with the two hardest stitches — a Sprat’s Head and a Walnetto.  It appears that we will start to move at warp speed tomorrow.

After class, I did my 45 minute swim.  Luckily, today there were not many children in the pool and I got most of my swim in without “company”!  I have to say that the daily swim helps to work out the kinks in my back and neck after stitching all day.

By far, the highlight of the day was my daughter Meg’s driving down from Plainsboro, NJ to have dinner with me.

Meg arriving at the hotel — photo credit to Sue C.

Meg had researched restaurants within walking distance of the hotel and made a reservation using the “Open Table” app at a restaurant called “RAW.”  Many of you know that sake is my beverage of choice, so she picked this because it had an extensive sake menu.  We were seated in an outdoor area, that was private and beautifully decorated.  We had a fun meal together despite mediocre (or possibly worse) service.  We did talk the waiter into taking a picture:

Doesn’t that sushi look yummy?

Now I’m off to beddy so that I can be ready for stitching in the morning!

Cheers!  Rosie

Hi, Everyone —

Well, today I lived up to my slacker reputation and went on a wonderful tour of the Winterthur museum and grounds.  Heidi has already posted some of the details of the tour.  For me, the remarkable thing about Winterthur is that it was a home that was designed around the concept of being a museum.  When I visited Biltmore in Asheville last year, I found I could just stand in the rooms and imagine what it would have been like to be a visitor in the heyday of Biltmore.  The views to the outside, the coziness of the guest rooms, the dining rooms, and all allowed you to dream of the good life.  Unlike Biltmore, Winterthur tried to be both a home and a museum and wasn’t really successful at either.  That said — the needlework collection that we viewed was amazing.

A Fishing Lady Canvas

The reason that I chose to show you this picture is that a canvas called “The Fishing Lady on Boston Commons” won a prize at the ANG Exhibits this year.  Apparently this used to be a very romantic notion and so all the young girls wanted to stitch a canvas like this.  There were two others in the Winterthur room where this one was displayed!  (Another intricate sampler was signed by the stitcher, aged 14.)

For me, the charm of Winterthur was the grounds.  Several vistas reminded me so much of the area around Eighty Four, PA where I grew up.

Pastoral Splendor!

I was also very impressed with this multistory “flying” staircase.  A staircase is considered to be flying if it is not attached to the wall.  I’m including this picture because I thought I might impress my daughter Marisa with my artistic abilities!

The “Flying” Staircase at Winterthur

It was about at this point that my camera was prohibited.  (I had to download sixty pictures — so obviously there are many more vistas and artifacts to share.)

When I got back to the hotel, I decided to go for my daily swim.  I was able to do my full 45 minutes in the one lane lap pool.  The challenge was sharing it with 14 kids between the ages of 18 months and 14 years!

Sue and I had dinner with Diane and Robin at Opa, a Greek restaurant about four blocks from the hotel.  It was a noisy, happening place, but we had a  delicious ethnic dinner, including baklava for dessert.

Dinner at Opa!

Now it’s time to shift gears and get ready for my new class “Illusions” tomorrow morning.

Cheers!  Rosie

Hi Everyone —

What a great day we had in Debbie’s Asian Collage class!  We finished our last three sections before lunch — including the infamous double alternating nobuko (dark aqua on the left side) which I have been eagerly awaiting.  Very nice textured stitch!  So, after lunch, we stayed in our classroom and continued stitching whatever we needed/wanted to.  Debbie walked around and helped us and entertained us thoroughly!  I feel pretty good about the progress I made stitching today.

Progress at the End of Day 4!

Our class presented Debbie with a bouquet of flowers to thank her for an absolutely fun class and beautiful design.  We all want to do the companion piece next year — I even heard a few folks considering making a bid on a guaranteed first choice for Anaheim prize at the auction tonight!  They say that it typically goes for as much as $1000.

Debbie Stiehler with her flowers and Asian Collage

Our Awesome Class for Asian Collage

After class I managed about a thirty minute swim before meeting with the NJNA chapter attendees for a fun dinner at Copabanana and great margaritas and burgers!  Sue and Susan cabbed back early because Susan had a teacher’s meeting.  I forgot to get a picture with everyone, but here are Carol, Heidi, Robin, and me.  (You might have guessed that we were the four who ordered double margaritas!)

Robin, Rosie, Heidi, and Carol at Copabanana!

Now I’m off to beddy because I have an early morning wake-up for a tour of Winterthur.

Cheers to all!  Rosie

Brought to you by Rosie, due to technical difficulties!

Heidi’s Post:

Today started early.  I left my Room at 7:50 to go to my car four blocks away and pay cash for the next two days.  I knew I would not be able to get lost in stitching until I had settled that.  It started to rain as I ran back, but I figured it didn’t matter because the rest of the day was about being inside or in Andalucia.  We covered seven new areas.  I stitched on six of them and finished three.  I have such respect for Joni Stevenson as I stitch this canvas.  It is so well thought out.  I love the subtlety of colors and stitches contrasted with hot colors and muted with layers of cool colors.  This canvas I will work on once I return to NJ.  I have learned so much from her.  I might even check out her blog, which is a huge venture for me.

Progress on Andalucia — End of Day 2!

At lunch I finally touched base with my husband in Aspen.  Then back for an afternoon of stitching.  After class I went to the officers’ meeting.  I was the only one there from NJNA.  Thank heaven I took my canvas to work on while I waited twenty minutes for the meeting to start.  Then twenty minutes of info and questions for the security of ANG.  Get real ladies, you are in a city.  I then tried to go to the exhibits but they closed at six and I was ten minutes late.  That is my project for lunch time tomorrow.  So I cleaned up my canvas while I listened to the news and then met Rosie and Anne Carol from St. Louis, who is in Rosie’s class.  We went to an Italian place across the street while Sue was at the Cyberpointers meeting.  It was wonderful to get a new perspective from Anne Carol about chapters and stitching.  Now it is time for bed.  What a good day!

Heidi

Hi, Everyone —

Today was another fun-filled day at seminar.

My class continued to be  a great experience — being with Debbie is almost like being at a party!  But with stitching progress:

Asian Collage at End of Day 3!

I am absolutely loving both this piece and the class.  Only one more day to go — but I’m finally going to learn about double alternating Nobuko!

Speaking of class, at about 10:30 this morning, we had another fire alarm.  Apparently morning fire alarms are announced at 1 dB and midnight fire alarms at 150 dBs.  We didn’t have to evacuate and after about 5 minutes they announced that it was a drill.  (I can only surmise that something went wrong with the Marriott process on Saturday night!)  Even more twilight zone, we were talking about Saturday’s fire alarm in our class when today’s sounded.  It was almost like we conjured it up!

About an hour later, a friend of one of my classmates stopped in to say that her elderly room neighbor on the 23rd floor (a stranger to her) knocked on her door and said she was scared and she wanted someone to evacuate with her.  So, this lovely needlepointer walked this elderly woman down 23 flights of stairs!  Apparently they aren’t strangers anymore!

We continued the tradition of having lunch at the Reading Terminal Market.  My favorite is a booth called “Tea Leaf” which has about fifty kinds of loose tea.  I’ve been having Darjeeling which is my all time favorite!

My back was sore after stitching this afternoon, so I put on my swim suit and did my 45 minutes at the hotel pool.  It felt marvelous!

Sue was attending the Cyberpointer’s Meeting tonight since she is an active member of this virtual chapter.  They were trying to hit 400 members after tonight’s meeting!  This meeting went on until 9:00 PM, so I met Heidi and Anne Carol (a woman from St. Louis who is in my class) and we went across the street to Maggiones Little Italy for dinner.  We sat outside on their patio and had a lovely dinner.  This is Anne Carol’s tenth seminar.  She is a physician and she “calendars” seminar week a year in advance!

Anne Carol, Heidi, and Rosie at dinner on the patio!

We had hoped that Sue would join us for dinner, so we sat for a while and then had dessert!  What is vacation for, after all?

I came back to the room and found Sue diligently writing her post for tonight!  A number of additional folks from NJNA should be joining us tomorrow afternoon!

My Roomie — Helping with the Blog!

Good night all!  Cheers, Rosie

PS — You can click on these pictures for a larger version!

Hi, Everyone —

What a great day!  I started the day with a swim — not quite the normal 45 minutes, but close!

Sue and I ate hard boiled eggs and pastries from the local markets — so instead of a $20 breakfast we ran less than $3.  That’s always a good day!

Here is my canvas at the start of the day.

Beginning of Day 2

I hadn’t made much progress — mostly because I ended up ripping out and redoing the golden wave — it still isn’t finished, but the placement is correct now.

We did a lot of new stitching today and I’m feeling a bit better by the end of the day.

End of Day 2

Progress!

Heidi told you about the Opening Banquet Dinner.  A few prizes from the Exhibit were announced — some of this work is just amazing — too bad that they won’t allow pictures.

Here’s hoping that we don’t have a repeat of last night’s fire alarms!

Cheers!  Rosie