Author Archives: suesci

Feb25

Two days at the Winter Stitching Retreat

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This past week I went up to Sturbridge, Massachusetts to the Winter Stitching Retreat run by Sue Donnelly.  You could sign up for five days of stitching with great meals or less.  As this was my first time, I decided to try two days.  There were two other NJNA members stitching there this week, Ada D. and the mysterious Ellen S.  They both spent all five days stitching.  The retreat is held at the Publick House complex, a very old hotel.

The stitching room with two NJNA members and friends

There were about ten tables of stitchers working on a variety of embroidery related items, some huge, some small, some cross stitch, some needlepoint and other techniques as well.  As you know we are always looking for new tools for our hobby.  One woman was using a bead mat about the size of a 3 X 5 card held onto her canvas by a strong rare earth magnet.  Nancy gave us all the information we need to buy one for ourselves!


Meals were an important part of this retreat!  We had a choice of about three main courses and three desserts for each lunch and dinner which we selected about a week before the event.  I enjoyed everything and heard nothing from others except how good it was.   The fruit offering for dessert at each meal was always fresh and loaded with flavor and there was always a delicious choice from the inn bakery.  The waitstaff was always on top of things and ready to respond to a request for another cup of tea or coffee.  Conversation and laughter flowed at every meal.

Do we look happy?!!!

The accommodations were very good and available in several places at the Publick House, in the main building, next door in a newer building and about a block away in a motel like building.  I stayed in the motel, walked down for breakfast and then drove down for class as we did not want to walk up the hill after evening stitching in the dark.  The weather was beautiful so the walk and distance was not an issue.

Other inducements to come included a lovely reusable gift bag which included several design charts, a spool of Kreinik, a card of Weeks Dyeworks, a sample of lotion, Kreinik thread color chart, a button pin for the event for stitching.  There was even a Victoria Sampler Christmas Cardinal stocking design with the thread/bead pack included.  The hotel kept ice and ice water available at all times.  Cookies were set out daily which I do not even try as I filled up at the meals.  A nearby shop was the vendor with numerous cross stitch designs, a few accessories and a few Nancy’s Needle counted work designs.  The owner would take orders for threads she carried and bring the threads in the following day for those requesting.  Each evening after dinner about ten names were drawn for door prizes that had been donated primarily by companies such as Kreinik and 123stitch.

If you think you might be interested, check the website for Stitchers Hideaway which should have the information posted for next year by mid March.

Sue

Nov6

EGA Seminar next year in Asheville, NC

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On Friday I drove down to Alexandria, VA, with friend Barbara K. to see the classes that would be offered in Asheville next year as well as to go to the boutique and Merchandise Night.  I was hoping that there would be classes for the 2017 EGA Seminar that I would like because I really wanted an excuse to return to Asheville.  There are and I will register this month during early registration!  To tempt you to log on to the EGA website–egausa.org–to see the classes, let me tell you a bit about some of them.  Ann Strite-Kurz will be teaching the hedgehog Rosie has been talking about, Happy Hedgie, as well as Loon Tunes, that we have seen stitched by Rosie in a pilot class.  Ann also has a one day class, Leaf Luster.   Another teacher we are familiar with is Gail Stafford.  She is teaching Fog in the Mountains which Jill took at the ANG seminar in Myrtle Beach last year.  Gail’s second class is A Dusting of Snow showing a gazebo in the snow. Kurdy Biggs has a one day class of a three dimensional ornament and a four day class reminiscent of A Different View in that the canvas is covered with many different stitches that all fit together–how does she do that?  Gail Sirna has two offerings, Rosalie’s Roof Garden and Lily of the Lake, both beautiful designs.  Joan Thomasson has a one day class with another of her Santas, this one called Medieval Santa Ornament and a four day class, Bavarian Wedding.  Janet Zickler Casey has a two day class stitching a “minaudiére” which by the class description is a small purse.  Janet is also teaching another two day class with two of her Santas, Christmas Light Santa and Candy Swirls Santa.  Jeanette Rees has a four day class, Feeding Frenzy.  This is described as a mixed media class and is not as canvas.  All of these classes as well as the rest of the offerings should be online this evening or tomorrow morning.  Early registration runs through the end of November.

Asheville has other draws as well.  The famous Biltmore Estate is located there as well as the well known Southern Highland Craft Guild located on the Blue Ridge Parkway on the outskirts of Asheville.  If you are going to Asheville, the Grove Park Inn is well worth a visit just to see the lobby and walk around the public areas reading a bit of the history of the building.  One of the women working the area showing next year’s classes told me that the day following the last day of classes there will be a total eclipse of the sun visible in this area of North Carolina making it worthwhile to stay an extra day before coming home.  You can see I am excited about visiting Asheville next summer!  If you are not currently a member of EGA check to see if there is a chapter near you!

Sue

Sep20

A Stitching Weekend

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This past weekend several of us from NJNA were invited to join the Monmouth Chapter EGA at their annual stitching retreat at a hotel in Voorhees, NJ.  We went down on Friday afternoon stopping first at the Nimble Needle in Haddonfield where we browsed, found threads for projects, found new things we could not do without and generally had fun.  Karen, the owner, is a delight to work with helping with finding things or suggesting stitches to use, or picking out the ideal thread.  From there we went to the hotel about twenty minutes away.  Monmouth Chapter had a large meeting room set aside for us from three on Friday to four on Sunday.   You could find someone in there stitching from 7:30 in the morning until 11 at night!

From NJNA Tina finished four pieces that had been languishing at home waiting for the final few hours of work!  Then she began working on another needlepoint piece that needed several days of work but did come out of the dark for work to begin again.  Ada was thwarted in working on her Japanese work but had brought some other pieces and almost completed the background on a winter piece after receiving suggestions for a good stitch from others gathered around.  She also completed the stitching of another small piece.  And I completed the stitching I needed to do for a piece being offered at Friends of Counted  Thread, began Bali Hai unsuccessfully and then worked on Sisters from seminar with very good results.

It was so much fun to see what others had brought to stitch with them.  One woman had been in Linda’s class from the previous weekend and was working on that.  Another brought a Ton Mineri piece that she had set aside for several years and can now see the end in sight.  An interesting bit was that a section had been stitched with a plated silver thread which had tarnished in the intervening years.  It would have been impossible to remove or clean but outlining the section in a dark thread did make that section show up, rather than recede into the piece.  One woman made a beaded bracelet before moving on to needlepoint.  A cute York Peppermint Patty ornament was completed and the next, a Hershey bar was begun. Others made great advances on a single piece of cross stitch or needlepoint or knitting or moved from one piece to another. But stitching with others gave us companionship, many laughs, suggestions or encouragement when needed. of course, there was food involved with many trees available for snacking or dessert all day.   All in all a wonderful weekend!

working diligently

Sep7

Traveling with needlework in your suitcase

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On the way home from the ANG seminar in New Orleans, the Department of Transportaion inspected my luggage that I had checked.  Where did I find the information sheet telling me that they had checked my suitcase?  It was in the ziplock bag that held my frame weight!  (It originally was a long heavy weight that I had made for my mom to hold her book open while she was reading at lunch.  It contains sand as the weight which is why I keep in a plastic bag).  I mentioned that today while I was stitching with friends.  One of these women told me that several years ago Debbie Stiehler told her class that at the top of her suitcase she includes a printed sheet saying that she is traveling to a needlework event and she has her tools packed in her luggage and then includes a list of what she has packed.  She began doing this because her luggage was often inspected.  When you think about it, here we are with several pairs of scissors, pointy things we call laying tools, numerous needles strong magnets and, of course, a frame weight.  I think I will be doing this in the future as well!

Frame weight

Sep1

Day 1 of Sisters by Nancy Cucci

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Did you think I made a mistake?  Yes, this is my second class with Nancy at this seminar as these were my two favorite pieces of the offerings that I saw last year.  Nancy told us a story of visiting her best childhood friend, who had remained a lifelong friend, a few years ago in Iowa, half a continent away from where Nancy lived.  While seeing her friend, they visited the friend’s sister where Nancy saw a metal wall sculpture of interlocking squares that she liked.  A photo of this led her to the eventual design of this piece.  The name comes from the association of her friend, the photo at the friend’s sister’s home and Nancy’s feeling that her best friend was like a sister to her.  I like the story behind this beautiful design.

This piece of peach, aqua, and grey blocks is interesting as you will eventually see because all the small units are the same in each block but rotated.  We learned all but one component of the block that is foremost in the design today so we can transfer that knowledge to the remaining blocks when we return home.


Each section has beads that will be added and the missing block on the right will be just beads and stitched when we are fresh tomorrow morning.  I opted to wait until I am home to stitch the beads in the other sections.  Doesn’t this look like a pieced quilt block?  Nancy explained that this was her concept of the overall blocks, so there are no borders within the block but there is a Kreinik double border around it.  This block has two shades of peach as well as a Kreinik and a variety of beads coming.  I am looking forward to more stitching on it tomorrow.

Sue

Sep1

Bits and Pieces

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On Tuesday I was one of the lucky door prize winners.  I bypassed all the painted canvases and headed straight to the charted designs.  I found several that were appealing but settled on this one:

The design is cute, but I focused on the finishing.  It is stitched in one long rectangle and folded to get the effect desired.  I think I will try that this fall, and maybe it will be something we can try in the future!

Last night was Expo!  For anyone not familiar with the ANG Seminar, that is the merchandise night where you can find things sold by teachers, other needlework designers as well as those who cater to the desires for those of us in needlework trying to find the best in accessories including laying tools, bags, totes, jewelry.  It is also, later in the two hour shop time, a chance to connect with your favorite teachers/designers and tell them about the piece you finished and how much you loved it.

These were my purchases of note:


On the lower left are notecards that I purchased from Lois Kerschner with photos of some of her stitched scenes.  On the lower right are some cute small needle minder magnets purchased from Nancy Cucci.  There are four large disks with holes for stitching that I got from Toni Gerdes.  A couple of my other stitching groups would like to stitch designs on these as a meeting program.  There are other colors, but these are red, white, navy blue and black to complement the ones I currently have at home, beige, olive green, and burgundy.  Then in the center is a design with excellent directions being sold by the Potomoc Chapter as a fund raiser.  A chapter member designed the square for the fund raiser.  Several members stitched it in a variety of colors as well as altering the square motif in the top which were on display.  The directions are well done and the diagrams clear.  Hopefully, this too will be stitched shortly!

Part of the fun of Expo! is bumping in to others you have stitched with at seminars in the past and catching up with them.  They can also be enablers telling you what you really need to buy before the vendor runs out!  I skipped those booths where I knew temptation would be strong as I don’t need any more new kits before I have tackled a few purchased at previous seminars!  Maybe next year I will have completed a few of those, yeah right.

Aug29

Day 3 of For the Love of Chocolate

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Although you cannot see much progress on the canvas, there were several new techniques we covered today.img_0116
We started the day working on the cone for the ice cream cone beginning at the bottom of the cone to get a straight run up those diagonal cashmere stitches.  There will be three Hershey kisses in the band to the right in red, silver and the completed one, pink stitched in shiny Kreinik (HL).  Below that is a continuum of chocolate working in from the outside with dark chocolate, through milk chocolate to almost white chocolate in the middle.  The empty blocks include a chocolate  coated strawberry and a box of four See’s truffles–can you guess that Nancy is from California where See’s chocolate is king?  I began the heart chocolate to the right which will have dark chocolate and a decoration of white on it all in beads.  It is another box worked best from the bottom up.

Directly below the heart is an empty box which will eventually have my name or initials–same number in both–and the year of completion.  This is accomplished by the dimple effect–starting and stopping diagonal stitches so that dimples form showing the letters.  As all the stitches go from top to bottom and there is no backstitching, some planning must be involved–I am still at the planning stage and may be there for awhile!

This class was fun and enjoyable, and this is a project I am excited to finish hopefully before the end of the year as I have diagrammed 2016 and not 2017!  Two days away from stitching and then on to another Nancy Cucci class.

Sue

Aug28

For the Love of Chocolate 

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I have just completed Day 2 of Nancy Cucci’s “For the Love of Chocolate” with one more day to go. Looking at the canvas and what I have done, it is hard to see what each section is designed to represent (with the possible exception of the M & M’s). I will identify them for you in the paragraph below.
img_0107

First row: Brownie Fudge Cake, Rocky Road ice cream, Cupcake, and coming soon Chocolate Molten Lava Cake

Second row: Chocolate Chip Cookie, coming soon Choclate Wipe Out Cake–5 layers, a See’s Chocolate Heart, M & M’s, Marble Fudge

Third Row: Ice Cream Cone with Chocolate, Mint with chocolate chips, and Chocolate Ribbon, and an almost completed Hershey bar.

I have picked up numerous tips from Nancy as to stitching order–made the Criss-Cross Hungarian in the cupcake frosting much easier for me to stitch–with her reasoning behind it. We have also heard several ideas of other projects we might like to do on our own or as chapter projects. I am glad that this class really appealed to me when I first saw it and that I was one of the lucky ones to get a spot in this class.

Sue

Jun17

Metropolitan Region, EGA, “Stitched Art” exhibit

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“Stitched Art” is the exhibit being held at the gallery in Annunciation Hall at the College of St. Elizabeth in Convent Station, NJ, from Saturday, June 18 through the following Sunday, June 26, from 10-4 daily. The exhibit is open on Thursday until 8:00 p.m. and will close the last Sunday at 3:00. The college has easy access off both I287 and highway 24. The college address is 2 Convent Road, Morristown, NJ. You can find directions to the college on their website under the heading “About”. When you arrive on the campus, you will see “Event” signs directing you to the building.

I was there this morning to see the display of almost 70 pieces of all sorts of needlework, all exquisitely done. You will see that some are originals, some adaptations and some give you the name and designer of the piece as well as the stitcher’s name. The gallery is well lit with outside light as well as spotlights highlighting the pieces. Here is an overview of two walls of the exhibit. The admission is free.

 

For those of you who knit or do any form of hand work, there are table set up in the large, well lit hall outside the gallery (with outlets for your lights if it s a dull day) if you would like to make a day of it. Come, see the exhibit, stitch for awhile and go out to lunch. We have both Discovery maps showing Morristown, Madison and Chatham, as well as a listing of some local restaurants.

Hope to see you there in the coming week. It is well worth a visit!

 

Mar13

SOTM, March, 2016

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We are in our third month of the ANG SOTM designed by Susan Hoekstra. So this is the second round about the center. The stitch this month is the Byzantine which you will see in a variety of threads in the photos. Since you may begin wherever you have a long diagonal run of complete stitches, you will see a variety of appearances. Some of us changed from under compensating to over compensating, and the compensating will be in different areas but everything works. Linda M. even managed to complete the section before the day ended! As it was Jill’s birthday (what better way to spend a birthday than stitching with friends?), we had sponge cake with strawberries for dessert. Let’s see if I can get the pieces labelled correctly!

Upper left, Joan, S. upper right , Sue C. Bottom,, Dee L. completed the second medallion from 2014!

Nancy W. on the left and Mally B. on the right. As a first timer, Mally is really going to town!

 

Robin M. upper left and Mary D. upper right with Linda M.’s completed round!

Jill W. on the left, the green on the dark green canvas does not show up well, but Tina F.’s red/pink shows up well in the turquoise canvas!

Next month we will be stitching at NeedleFest on our SOTM and Susan H. will be able to see our work and colors!