Hi to All —

Lest you all think that we have forgotten that our time in Mexico is a “stitching retreat” — here is our progress through this morning.  First, Carol’s St. Margaret’s Star:

St. Margaret’s Star

And then, Rosie’s Or Nue Sample:

Or Nue Sample — about halfway done!

After stitching for all of yesterday morning, we decided to take a taxi into Puerto Vallarta.  The seaside is beautiful.

Seaside in Puerto Vallarta

We walked down the Malecon and shopped for goodies!  We came across this beautiful church near the end of the street.

Church in Puerto Vallarta

We chose a seaside restaurant for lunch and had guacamole made table side — clearly by a trainee with attitude!  I don’t know whether to show you the guacamole, or the food, or the double margaritas, or Carol!  Lucky you — I managed to get it all in!

Seaside Luncheon!

The hotel here was hosting a big Mexican fiesta and so the casual restaurant we had chosen for dinner was closed.  Because we had had a huge, late lunch — we decided to go to the Santuario, a central bar with small appetizers only.

Santuario

We sat out over the water on a wooden deck and ended up having front row seats to some fabulous entertainment.  There was a piano player from Jamaica, an artists painting Elvis, a unicyclist, a nightclub singer (and flirt) and Mexican dancers.  We couldn’t have planned for a more wonderful evening!

Mexican Dancers at Santuario

Wish you were here!

Rosie and Carol

Hi, Everyone —

On the off chance that someone has their IPAD open to our blog, Carol and I thought we would drop-in in real time!

These big guys are in the entrance to our hotel — it’s almost pitch black in there, so we hope you can appreciate the scale of these guys — at least three stories high!

Ancient Mayans

We are having a blast!  Yesterday we had facials at the spa (my first ever!) and learned that unlike our foot plunge pool, the plunge pool at the spa will restart your heart!

Plunge Pool in Room!

We had a delicious Italian dinner last night — wish we had taken a picture of the salad that looked like a bouquet!  Of course, we made a special toast to NJNA.

Toasting NJNA with Mexican Wine!

We have been enjoying almost all of our meals al fresco (except breakfast).  Our favorite lunch spot has a gorgeous view of the ocean and after I ordered the fish tacos on Monday, I haven’t tried anything else.  Carol has enjoyed chicken quesadillas, chicken fajitas and a gorgeous Cobb salad.  Our waiter knows to bring two margaritas each during their lunchtime happy hour!  It helps to become a regular!

Our Lunchtime View!

Last but not least, Harold informs me that Puerto Vallarta is known as the Mexican LGBT resort!  We might have guessed this from our flight and the new entrants to the mile high club!

And we thought we would share our biggest laugh — in competition with the naked bike parade from Philadelphia:

The photo that Sports Illustrated missed!

Wish you were here, but we miss seeing you at the meeting.

Cheers!

Rosie and Carol

Hi. Everyone —

Carol and I had an uneventful flight to Mexico and are enjoying stitching, swimming, and eating in the warm sunshine.  Our rooms are really beautiful and comfortable and have a total of eleven(!) beds!  (Plus two lounge chairs on the deck — overlooking the plunge pool where only our feet can plunge!)

Today we prepared for our week by hard boiling eggs, buying poptarts, making spa reservations, planning dinners, and, of course, stitching!  Carol is starting her stitching on St. Margaret’s Star in pink.

Hope we get to see your progress in Wednesday’s meeting summary.

Rosie is stitching the sample for our OrNue program in the fall.  Currently there are five meters of gold thread strung around our dining area!

Tonight we had a great Asian dinner (including sake for Rosie!) and our server took a picture of us toasting all of you.  The restaurant was called “Gong” and a guy we met while floating in the lazy river pool said that it was great but that our money would be Gong!

Wish you were here!

Rosie and Carol

Many of our group was away this month for the first meeting of the SOTM, but Gwen, Linda and Sue C. did meet and stitch for about 4+ hours and a short break for lunch.  We got quite a bit done leaving us with the feeling that the assignment each month will not take too many of our stitching hours!  We found that Linda’s primary color family was exactly the same as Sue’s secondary color family.  It will be interesting to see the different role the same colors will take in each design.  Gwen and Sue have very similar main colors.    Sue found with the publishing of Lesson three that the Kreinik ribbon that she chose will not work well so it will be back to the needlepoint shop for her!  (No complaints were heard about that, however!)  I am afraid that our resident photographer is away this month so that you will need to wait until the meeting to see our progress.  We hope that more of you can join us at the April gathering on April 6th.

Hi Everyone —

I’m sitting in California at my Mom’s and was so upset to miss the first meeting of the SOTM subgroup.  So I took out my canvas and joined you in spirit.  I am eager to hear how today’s stitching went and to learn how much progress everyone made.  I didn’t quite get through February’s assignment — let alone get started on the new March stitch!

So, the photo shows my progress at the end of the SOTM stitching day — I do hope others will share their progress and colors with us via the blog!  I miss all of my stitching buddies!

Cheers!  Rosie

After news that the Edwardian Needle was closing on March 28th to relocate, I figured I had better get down there to select my threads for St. Margaret’s Star since I wanted a different color way. I wanted the look of the pink–the outline around the squares and arrows–but in blue/greens. It wasn’t as hard as I had anticipated. First I pulled the thread in the pink and matched it in an aqua. I started with the Watercolours and selected South Pacific. (Can’t you just picture it?) And then worked off that. Since there was no appropriate color canvas, I got a white with the opalescent. I am looking forward to starting this project! She had all the threads that I needed, no substitutions were needed.

I learned that Pam will be having a sale the week before closing and will be opening at her new location on April 12th. I signed up for an e-mail announcement for the opening and will be glad to share!
Sue Chadwick

Diane, Rosie and Sue C. spent an afternoon stitching together and Rosie said how much she would like to do this year’s SOTM designed by Debbie Stiehler, who taught Asian Collage at the Philadelphia ANG Seminar.  We all looked at the SOTM on the ANG website and decided that it would be fun to do.

2013 SOTM February

Since the programs for this year have already been established for NJNA’s regular meetings, we decided to do this SOTM as a sub-group outside of the regular meetings.  This is what we came up with:

• Meet monthly — either the first Saturday of the month or the first Wednesday of the month starting at 11:00 AM
• Bring your own lunch and take turns making dessert
• Stitch from 11 to 12:30, eat lunch, then stitch until 4:30-5:00.

We’ll meet on Saturday if some who work during the week want to join our group – otherwise, we’ll do Wednesday.

The stitching on that day would be the SOTM, but no one needs to be up to date and ready to start the new lesson when they arrive!  You won’t be able to work ahead since we will have to wait until the new month for the next stitches to be revealed!  Sue and Rosie offered their homes (both in Mendham) for the stitching meeting.

If you look here http://www.needlepoint.org/StitchOfTheMonth/2013/feb.php, you can see what the first lesson looks like.  The previous lesson http://www.needlepoint.org/StitchOfTheMonth/2013/jan.php shows the supplies needed.  Read down and Debbie explains how you can go about selecting your own colorway.  If you are a member of the ANG Yahoo list, you can go to the photo section to the SOTM photo album for 2013 to see the start of this design in blue.

Interested?  Contact Rosie or Sue C. or Diane!  Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Yesterday afternoon I was making a dessert for a meeting today. When I took it out of the oven, I knew it was a complete flop. Carol had made a delicious fruit compote for the board meeting last Sunday. I sent her a desperate email for the recipe and she sent back in less than 30 minutes! I made it this morning, served it at lunch and it was a hit! Thanks, Carol!

(I found this post from Susan H when I set-up my new ipad mini — Enjoy!  Rosie)

Friday I spent the day at the Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center in Pennsburg, PA.

They have a great collection of PA German articles, including, but not limited to:

Fraktur’s, Berlin Work, primitive paintings and artifacts.

If you are ever in the need of a place to go for a day trip, the Schwenkfelder is a great place to go!

The chart below is a superb example of a Berlin Work piece. It is for a beaded purse.

The purse to the right of the chart is it completed. If you look closely along the purse bottom you can see where the beads were once attached!

Last night the NJNA chapter met to consider programs for 2013. I was so happy that so many members came with great ideas . I am fascinated with exploring the or nue technique – I have never heard of this but as members share their research, it is gorgeous!