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!

I started my two day class this morning. You can see from the picture that it involves shading. What we had this morning and for an hour this afternoon is the extent of the shading part. I am going to need some help when I get back! Then we colored two of the blocks. It took me longer than most as I have always had trouble staying within the lines! The vinyl is a new technique to me where the canvas is covered with a light weight sheet of vinyl to protect the sections that you are not working on and to protect the thread from catching on the canvas. Clever, huh? As you come to a square to stitch, you cut a door in the plastic.

Vinyl Coated Canvas with Painted Portions!

Stitching on a shaded, autumn leaf!

I went to a CyberPointers Connection this evening (talked Rosie and Marge Kelly into joining me for a while). It was nice to put a face to the names I have “seen” at meetings on the Internet!

More tomorrow! Sue

I made it to seminar around 3 pm on Sunday.  Checked in to the hotel,

checked in at the faculty registration and also the class registration.

Made myself official and them it was up to the room to go through

all the paperwork.  Read what needed to be read and tossed the

Extraneous stuff.  The welcome banquet was good.  I did not find the NJNA

ladies So sat with Sue Reed and JONI Stevenson.  Rosie

did manage to find me after the banquet so I was able to make

a connection with them.

Today will be spent going through the exhibit, store and book store

with some local rug hooking friends coming in specifically for the day.

Promises to be a great day!

Diane mentioned her flying visit yesterday with her husband. When we went through the exhibit, admiring all the pieces and especially the winners, we also commented on some of the pieces. Amazingly, some of the prices that we commented on were among the winners of last night’s special awards. One of them was a patriotic sampler that I think was in several issues of Needlepoint Now a few years ago. Another was an adaptation of a painting of a field of poppies. I am looking forward to seeing them again in a future issue of NeedlePointers.

We had interesting table mates from the west coast–Olympic Peninsula–south, mid Atlantic and us. The favors were useful–nice red stork scissors, a chocolate bar with an informative wrapper–Hershey’s of course–and a pen. The food was good and the right amount AND we left at a reasonable hour!

I am now ready to begin my first class!

Sue C.

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

Today was my first day of joni Stevenson’s Andalucia. What a fabulous day of stitching. The canvas and colors are far more beautiful than the catalogue picture appears. I am so happy with my choice. I sent a picture of my canvas after the first day to Rosie, with hopes she may be able to post it here. Time disappears while stitching. Three hours passed without a thought of time when Sue and Rosie appeared to go out to lunch. I was conflicted because I was so involved with my canvas I just wanted to tie up lose ends. But the break was good. We went across the street to the market place where whatever you like to eat, you can find. We each had different lunches from different vendors. After three more hours of class I ran off to my room to get a handle on my disorganization. And tuck my tails. I have now finished three of the six areas we covered today and I got my threads organized.
At the welcome dinner, the highlight was a guest speaker who spoke about her experience and pursuit of unfinished canvases. She even buys them on the Internet. Then she finishes them with white thread. It creates very interesting effects. She was quite amusing as well as thought provoking. I’m now exhausted, and should call my husband, but probably won’t.

As many of you know, I was in Philly on Saturday and Sunday for a wedding, which was fabulous!!  Sunday morning after the brunch, my husband was willing to walk over to Seminar with me to check out the shopping and exhibits.  The shop is outstanding – I’ve been wanting to get to Rittenhouse for a while but always seem to end up in Philly on days when they are closed.  The number of different fibers was amazing – my husband had no idea how many different types of fibers there were; he gave up asking after the first few!  I had a specific thread I wanted  (a light brown Sea Grass) for a small section of my piano piece – they didn’t have a lot of the Sea Grass; however I still found what I wanted.  When I go on Wednesday, I’m going to take a painted canvas I have that I’m going to make for my future daughter-in-law so I can at least start to kit it given all the amazing fiber options.  Supposedly, they have even more at their shop.  And the staff were wonderful, asking if I needed help but not bothering me.

I did get to meet up with Sue C and Rosie.  Rosie had to go off to class while Sue, my husband, and I checked out the exhibit area.  The exhibit area is small but packed full of finished projects.  I have to go back on Wednesday to check out the Independent entries because they all have write-ups on what the creator thought or was trying to do.  The 2013 seminar projects have several I’m eager to do if I can only get to Anaheim!  A friend from college is going to be teaching a fabulous evening bag so that was fun to see.

I’m looking forward to Wednesday, taking my class and just experiencing the whole atmosphere.  In just the few hours I was there today, I spoke to so many people who all share our love of needlepoint.  The energy and enthusiasm is really encouraging.

This was a day of firsts: Rosie’s first class, my first venture to the surrounding blocks to try to get oriented and visits to the bookstore, shop, and Reading Terminal Market. The bookshop has everything from needlework books of ALL kinds to children’s books to mysteries based on some form of needlework. (I thought I’d copy down some authors for the newsletter editor.). I made a list of my favorite needlework books. I did not buy yet; I figure if some are soldout, my wallet is safer! I did find some charts that I liked at the shop and drooled over the enormous selection of threads. In my search of the neighborhood I found a 7Eleven that carried hard boiled eggs for Rosie’s breakfast–none in the Reading Terminal Market, I asked all over. I found the recommended restaurant from our conversation last night at the open stitching where we went tonight–Caribou Cafe. I found friendly stitchers at the open stitching area again. Stitchers are so friendly!

This afternoon Heidi arrived, checked in, went to her room and came out of the shop an hour later with her hands full! She is one fast shopper! I am sure you have read about the excitement Rosie and I saw while at the First Timers’ Reception. What a hoot! Only in a big city! The three of us went out for a good dinner tonight and are getting ready for a good day tomorrow.