Hi Everyone —

I thoroughly enjoyed my second day of “Spirit” by Sue Reed.  Sue is so wonderful at giving us all of her accumulated knowledge of needlepoint.  I was watching her make a knot by wrapping the thread around the needle, so I asked her to teach me how to do this knot, which I now know is called a quilters knot.  Worth the price of admission!

It was quite interesting to see how each of us chose to stitch “Spirit”.  I chose to stitch the areas that I wouldn’t remember the special little hints for:

“Spirit” — End of Seminar!

So last night I took out the color matching threads since one of them had split.  They are now ready to go back into the piece.  So….imagine my surprise to find that IF I had put them in, I would not have been able to put in the Kreinik “X” segments without a lot of bother.  So, it’s all good!

So after all week of trying to go to the Purple Pig, we decided that lunch today was our last option.  So four of us checked it out and had a delicious lunch of fried olives stuffed with chorizo, fried deviled egg with capers and cornichons, roasted cauliflower (my favorite), braesola, English cheddar cheese, shaved squash summer salad with pickled blueberries and roasted hazelnuts, and a ham and cheese panini!  YUMMY!

Cheese, Swine, and Wine!

Tonight was the closing banquet which was a bit of a let down.  We had the same meat (chicken) as our Sunday banquet but with a different sauce.  The dessert rated an A+ with mini cheesecake, chocolate torte, and a few other chocolate treats!  We were excited to learn that the seminar after Myrtle Beach would be New Orleans, but deflated to hear that the year after that we would be returning to Anaheim.

Right now I have to get back to the first Arizona football game of the season.  I’m keeping an eye out for Marisa and the piccolos!

Cheers!

Rosie

Hi, Everyone —

Today I started a new class, “Spirit” with the lovely Sue Reed.  Three of my fellow chapter members are also in this class.  Most of today’s stitching was straightforward and I was able to make a fair amount of progress.  Toward the end of the day, however, Sue taught us how to find matching lengths in our over-dyed threads so that we could do color matching on each of the four corners of our canvas.

“Spirit” — End of Day One!

Sue used my canvas to demonstrate this technique and I was rolling right along UNTIL one of my threads split and I ended up with 2.5 plies instead of 3 plies.  So tonight my spirit is sad as I begin some remedial repairs…

Cheers!

Rosie

Hi, Everyone!

Wednesday at seminar is tour day and we woke to this glorious sunrise and the first clear, sunny day of the week!

Good Morning! Good Morning!

Since my ANG tour was cancelled, Sue and I decided to have some fun in Chicago.  First up….

The Lakefront Segway Tour!

We rode for about two hours and made our way from the Navy Pier area to the Shedd Aquarium and Soldier Stadium!

Chicago Skyline from Shedd Aquarium!

And lest you think I was getting too cocky with my “no hands” pose, let me just say that this “balancing” helped keep my Segway from moving.  Otherwise, I apparently am much too fidgety!

For Marisa!  Sculpture in the Park!

Our Segway tour guide, Joe, is an aspiring actor waiting for his break and we had a BLAST!  Now we are wondering which muscles will hurt the most tomorrow!

After lunch, we boarded a Wendella boat for a Architecture River and Lake Cruise.  While you are on the river, the very tall buildings feel like canyon walls with one unique building after another.  We owe Meg a debt of gratitude for recommending that we take the boat tour that went through the locks and onto Lake Michigan.  The Chicago Skyline views from the lake were dramatic.  From the lake we also got great views of:

The Chicago Lighthouse!

The Navy Pier!

and — wait for it —

Building 1, and

Buildings 2, 3, 4, and 5 from “Chicago Blues!”

I think you can see that we had beautiful weather and although I took 120 pictures, I tried to curb my enthusiasm in this post!

Expo tonight!

Cheers, Rosie

Hi, Everyone —

My second wonderful class, Geometric Butterfly, ended today.  Sadly, I have to say goodbye to Toni Gerdes, the wonderful artist and teacher who conceived this beautiful design.

Geometric Butterfly — End of Day Two!

You may not be able to tell, but we stitched some portion of every area on this design.  Toni was wonderful in that she taught us techniques that were so simple but would make so much difference in our every day stitching.  For example, do you know how to pull your DMC thread so that it doesn’t get into a birds nest knot?  We do — NOW!

As you know from prior posts, I was the angel for this class.  “It was fun and I was happy!”

Toni gave me this lovely “angel” thank you present:

I love my “angel” gift from Toni!

And when I turned in all the evaluation forms at the SFC (Seminar Faculty Committee) desk, I received this lovely thank you for volunteering to be an angel:

This angel pin now lives on my name tag!

Sad as I am to see this class end — the parting is bittersweet because I am enrolled in two more Toni classes at the EGA seminar in Phoenix!  So, I’ll see her again in a few weeks!  I’ll drink to that!

Cheers!  Rosie

Hi, Everyone —

I’ll start by issuing a retraction on my post from yesterday.  Betsy Devonshire’s sister is murdered, not her Mother.  Thanks to Dee for the correction — I guess my listening ears weren’t tuned in well.

So today I started my second seminar class, Geometric Butterfly.  This beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright inspired design by Toni Gerdes appears deceptively easy, but so far I have learned tricks for straight stitching, starting and ending threads, and color shading.  We had a lot of stitching time and so I was able to make amazing progress.

Geometric Butterfly — End of Day One!

My duties as the class angel are to take attendance, to fill out forms for missing people so that they can get their kits sent to them, to hand out evaluation forms on day two, and to turn in the evaluation forms to the SFC (Seminar Faculty Committee) at the end of class.

Exciting news today — I won a door prize!

A Little Zippered Case to Hold and Protect my Laying Tools (from my wood chewing granddog, Bella)

Carol, Diane, and I ate dinner at Benny’s, a steakhouse about two blocks from the hotel and recommended by the concierge.  In addition to a delicious Steak Tartare, I had a deconstructed, grilled Caesar Salad.

Love those Little Fishes!

After dinner, Diane and I decided to take a gander around EATALY, an Italian superstore.  EATALY covers two floors and contains multiple restaurants, a green grocer, a book store, a nutella boutique, books, , olive oil, pastas, a gelato stand, and wine!

Beautifully stocked shelves full of imported food stuffs!

Did I mention wine???

I had a yummy salted caramel gelato to sustain me on my one-block walk back to the hotel!

Finally, compliments of Meg, a look at our blog stats for the past few days!  Congratulations NJNA!

Two Days — Over 1000 views!

Cheers, Rosie

Hi, Everyone —

Today was the second day of classes and the last day of my first class, “Chicago Blues” with Joni Stevenson.  We made a lot of progress today and I feel confident that I will be able to finish this piece in short order.  Unfortunately, the newest techniques, like applying a line of music to the canvas, only get talked through because so much stitching has to be completed first.  Anyway, here’s my end of class progress:

I’m blue in Chicago because “Chicago Blues” has ended!

We ate at the Corner Bakery Cafe again for lunch today, but we didn’t even have to debate where to go for dinner since tonight was the opening banquet for seminar.  We had a speaker, Monica Ferris, who writes mystery books about a lady, Betsy Devonshire, who inherits a needlecraft shop, Crewel World, when her sister is murdered.  So now Betsy solves mysteries that happen to crop up around her shop!  While Monica learned various needlepoint techniques to support her writing, she was told — and this is for you, Linda M — “if you can count to five, you can do hardanger.”

At the opening banquet the special award winners from the needlework exhibit are announced.  The most prestigious award is the Princess Grace award and the woman who presented this award was the daughter of the Princess Grace award at a special needlepoint exposition in Monaco.  She said her Mother was a very modest woman who hadn’t ever told her of this achievement.  But the daughter said if anyone ever HAD asked her about it, her Mother would have said, “It was fun and I was happy.”  And doesn’t that sum it all up?

I’m on to my second class tomorrow for which I am the “angel”.  I think that means I take attendance and hand out evaluation forms, but I’ll have more to report on all of this tomorrow!  Sweet Dreams!

Cheers, Rosie