Retreats are for Stitching

What an awesome weekend! For the seventh (?!!!?) year in a row I went to a retreat in Pigeon Forge, TN. It is a pretty long drive for my chauffeur and myself, but we made it in record time! I-40 had a huge rock slide, that completely closed I-40. The detour to get around it takes an extra hour. Fine by us...the detour took us right past a great cross-stitch shop!

Once we arrived at the hotel Thursday evening, we didn't see the light of day until Sunday morning. Well, okay, we saw it through the windows of our room...but we didn't set foot outside. We stayed in the stitching room, every day, all day! :) Besides there was stash to buy in the stitching room... can anybody say: Heaven?!

Because I have a lovely chauffeur, who drove the entire way on Thursday. I was able to start and finish this pattern on the way to the retreat. It's a freebie by With My Needle. These aren't the colors it calls for, but I saw it stitched this way and loved it. The person finished it into a pinkeep, with all cream pins, except one red pin. I'm going to be a big copy cat and do the same thing!

My main goal for the weekend was to finish my stitching on this project! (at the end of the post) Despite TONS of queen stitches, I managed to get all the stitching done. Now, who's going to do all the finishing?

Close up of the queen stitches and pretty flowers:

And these will make the cover to the needlebook and the scissor holder. Those darn stitches for the scissor holder took FOREVER!

You'd think they'd be easy, but oh no! They are a pain!

Then my chauffeur stitched and finished this pattern and thought it was quite necessary that I stitch it also. I always obey my chauffeur. Besides, it was white silk by Dinky Dies..yummy!

Saturday afternoon I stitched this pattern by Shepherds Bush. It's supposed to be a scissors fob: the kit even came with some pretty red scissors. But the darn thing is HUGE. I might have to just keep the scissors and make a little ornament with this guy. There is a stitched back that says Merry Christmas, but it went missing in cyberspace!

I stitched this little guy on the way home. It is stitched over one on 36 ct. and boy is it tiny! I usually can't stitch that small of count in a car, but since my chauffeur is such a good driver..I was able to finish it. I need to do some backstitching on the leaves. I couldn't manage that in the car! He's about 1 inch wide by 1 1/2 inches tall. He's a freebie from somewhere online...Yeah! we found him!

Since we still had a few hours left in our drive, I started this little guy. Just you wait until he is all finished up, ah man...he's gonna be cute!

It was a great retreat. We had ladies from NC, TN, WV, GA....am I missing anybody. We did a gift exchange, all stitching gifts...when it's your turn, you can pick a new present or steal somebody else's. We laughed so hard, we had our hostess laying on the floor! Great Times!

I stitched this little fellow last week. Just a little needlebook, it came as a kit and was such a quick finish.

back:

Last but not least: Remember those two cuties that came to visit me last week? Is there any wonder we didn't get much stitching done?

This is my Luke wrestling with Wil, 4: (next time, will somebody remind one of the three boys to put the toilet seat down, or at least shut the bathroom door?!)

And little Genna,2, loves to wear her food, Andrew is cleaning her up in this picture:


It's been raining buckets here today and yesterday. Leftovers from Hurricane Ida. It would be a perfect stitching day, if there wasn't so much work to do!