Stitching and Fundraising

Hi, I thought I would check in with a quick update. My life has been busy so I have not accomplished much stitching. My Bee Scissor Fob has some more of the background done and the pink flowers are complete. This would not take all that much to finish.

My Long Dog Sampler has made a little progress. I have been working on the flower on the right hand side of the picture. A close up is below. It may appear that I am working this in a non-logical way but when I am in the mood to count, I work on a section that needs counting. When I am tired I will go back in and fill in an area. Some nights brainless tasks are all I can handle.

This weekend is a Derby party and a fund raiser for Chicago House. The Derby party is at my house. We are planning on about 10 to 15 people. We will have Mint Juleps (gross), snacks and betting on the race. DH goes and buys a $2 dollar ticket to win on each horse. Everyone will get to draw a ticket and they will get the money from OTB for the winning horse. It is a fun way to get everyone involved in the race. I heard some of the guests are already making hats for the event. After the Derby, the Hawks play hockey. We live a mile or so from the United Center so our hood will be hopping.

Sunday is the Chicago House fundraiser. It is a brunch at the Chicago Public library. This is a big event for us each year. A friend is on the board. This event includes a silent auction, an auction, a flower show, and a fashion show. Oh, I forgot to mention Chicago House supports homeless families with AIDS so it is mainly a room full of gay men sipping Champagne for breakfast. I bought the dress below. I thought it was great for the event with the flowers. It took me over an hour with a very patient sales girl at Nordstrom's to buy this dress. I am sure she thought I should have bought 10 dresses with all I tried on. I really was stuck on buying a bright, floral dress. The one I really liked the fabric had funny pleats on the back and made my rear look big.

Last weekends fundraiser raised $127k which was $57k more than was expected from this event. It was a beautiful event. The private club was quite the place. A little oasis just off Lake Shore Drive. The money raised goes to a great cause and will secure our budget for the slower summer fundraising months.

I did read the Pulitzer Prize winning book Tinkers last week. Again, an award winning book that did not blow up my skirt. I have to learn to stay away. I am reading the new Harlan Corbin book, Caught. This is a good mystery. It will not win any literary awards but it is fun to read.

Have a great weekend. I hope everyone has lots of crafting time. Kelly

Uninspiring stitching

Hi, I don't have any pictures for this post but I have been stitching some this week. I am not real excited about my projects but I want to get these things done and out of my stitching bag. I am almost done with my fourth Kissing Pillow. I want to send off six because that is the number of pieces I cut from the Aida cloth I bought. I really do not like working with Aida any more. It is good that I don't have to wear readers to see the holes but I am not real excited about the look. I understand the Kissing Pillows are for the soldiers and their families, I also get that red, white and blue is patriotic but red, white and blue is not my favorite color pallet. I suppose the male soldiers would not be thrilled with my pastel heart:)


I am also working on my ort box. My picture from a few weeks ago looked like it was almost done or so I thought. The assembly of this box is a royal pain in my stitching a.. I still have one side to line, 8 sides to stitch together and the stitching around the top. I know why there are not many pictures of completed ort boxes on the EGA web page. One lady posted that she completed her box and one for her husband because he liked the box so he wanted one also. That was very kind of her but my husband is going to have to take up needlepoint and finishing if he wants one.


The weekend should be fun. We have a fund raiser for Lincoln Park Community Shelter. This will be my last formal function as a board member. I will still support the Shelter when I retire from the board and go to the fund raisers but I won't have to have the responsibility of getting people to the events and the financial obligations. We have a house warming party on Saturday. They want us to wear bad bridesmaids or prom dresses. I live in a condo so I don't keep clothes I don't wear plus I was a size 0 and 25 years younger when I wore this stuff so it would never fit. I might run by Goodwill and see if I can find something tacky to wear.


I should have some stitching time during the day so hopefully on Monday I will have something to show. Maybe a completed ort box!? Hope you have a fun weekend with lots of stitching time. Thanks for stopping by. Kelly

Miniature Fun!!

As I mentioned in my last post, the past weekend was full of crafting fun. The two kits above are from the miniature show. I got to meet Teresa Layman and see her personal project which is just beautiful!! The miniature show was fascinating. First, I could not believe how crowded it was. Second, many of the exhibitors were from England. I did not realize miniatures were that big in England. Third, there were no doll houses at the miniature show. Finally, I asked my friend, who is in her 70's, if they brought in a bus from the Senior Center. She just replied that she was quite comfortable with the crowd.

So many of the exhibitors were true artist. Many of the things were hand made. The chandlers, the oil paintings and the stained glass windows and doors were very impressive. I mainly went to see the needlework and tatting. People were tatting with one strand of silk thread. One lady made miniature needlepoint pictures. I believe she said it was 48 count. She was only charging $25 dollars for the pictures and not nearly enough for the work involved in the tatting.

I did not make it to the quilt show but I did go to the Do It Your Own Damn Self show. I did not find anything at that show. If you are a knitter, you might have found some yarn or there were a few random things that could have been fun but I did not buy anything.

I have been working on my scissor fob. It is going very quickly. All I have left is the flowers, a few leaves and the background. I left the flowers and leaves so I can have some fun colors to work on.

This weekend was cool but beautiful in Chicago. I tried to be on the terrace as much as possible so I read. I read Storm Front. It is the first book in the Dresden Files series. I don't remember who, but one of the blogs I follow said she enjoyed this series so I believed her and bought this book. I enjoyed the book and I think I will continue to read this series. I also read the Shunning by Beverly Lewis this week. I like books by Beverly Lewis but this book was very similar to her other books and I knew what would happen next without reading more. This was a free book on Kindle so I really should not complain. I bought Tinkers this morning. It won the Pulitzer prize. It looked good and got pretty good reviews. Without even starting this book, I am wondering if it will be another book that wins a prize but does not strike my fancy. That happens all the time. I just don't agree with the experts.

I really need to get busy. I have financial numbers out today. Blogging and the internet are so much more fun than numbers. Happy stitching. Kelly

Crafty Weekend in Chicago

Hi, I don't have much exciting to say about my stitching life so I thought I could talk about my future excitement. This weekend is a big one in Chicago for the crafty type. First it is the International Quilt Show and in the same building is the Fashion and Jewelry Show. As many of you may have figured out, I don't quilt. Never fear, the quilt show, besides having a beautiful exhibit, has an exhibitor that has hand dyed thread called Artfabric. Their lines can be used where you would use floss or pearl cotton. I would also like to look at the fabric with Mrs. Waddelow in mind. The quilt show is full of notions and I love notions. You may need a tax id number to get into the Fashion and Jewelry show. I have one of those from my beading days and free admission sent by one of the vendors.


In the same area of town, there is the Miniatures Show. I do have my childhood doll house but it is pretty trashed by my nieces years of use so I am not shopping for doll house accessories. I am going to this show because Teresa Layman will be here. This show also has amazing exhibitors that do scale tatting and lacework. I may not buy anything but I enjoy looking at their handiwork.


Finally, it is the DYI Trunk Show: Do It Your Own D#mn Self show. This one day show is where local artist in the Craft Mafia sell their unwanted supplies. It is like a garage sale for the artists. I have never been to this sale and it sounds like fun. My chain maille teacher will have a booth.


Just think of all the crap I could buy and the projects I could accumulate in just one weekend. I am not sure if I am going to the Quilt and Jewelry shows but I will be at the other two. What I really need to do is sit on my a.. and stitch. I tried to stitch last night but I worked on my Bee scissor fob and the cat decided he had been neglected. This is done with a sharp needle so it had to be put away. Instead, I did nothing but hold a cat a watch the Biggest Loser.


My friends move to Sao Paulo tomorrow. They will be missed. Tonight is the final going away party. There has been about a month of going away parties. It will be a fun vacation once they get settled. Plus, they will be back in town or we can meet them in Miami or New York when they come to the States to shop.


That is all for now. Thanks for the comments and welcome to my new followers. Happy Stitching. Kelly

New Stash

I am finally posting pictures of what I bought at the Guild Retreat. This first pattern scares me but I thought it was so pretty. It is a whitework sampler. What scares me is I don't pull tight enough on pulled work and I have done very little cut work or Hardanger. Oh well, someday I may get brave and I will be ready!!

I have a soft spot in my heart for notions and I was having a run on magnets. The long purple bar is a magnet made especially for the Lowery stand. It will hold scissors or laying tools. It is supposed to be a strong magnet on both ends. The yellow bee hive magnet went so well with my Teresa Layman project, I had to buy that one. The dragon fly and the travel scissors were bought so I could be well accessorized when I travel. Not that I have a trip planned. I usually travel bi-monthly and I have not been anywhere since Christmas. I am thinking about going to Florida next month. Hopefully, I can meet up with Deb this time for some shopping.

This is my final project from the weekend. I saw this on Tracy from Ink Circles blog and thought it was beautiful. I shamelessly copied from one of her customers. I think I went soft in the head when I purchased 25ct black fabric to stitch over one. I swore off black fabric 20 some years ago. At this age, I will need my 2.5 magnifiers and an up light to see this.

My final pictures are from Easter. Sorry the picture is small. I was tagged on FB and if I enlarge this picture it gets all out of focus. I am on the left, the 4 year old that was at Easter, The EB, and my husband. The final picture is the Challah bread DH made for Easter dinner. I must be honest, I did not eat any but it is really pretty. Everyone said it was delicious.

Happy Stitching. Kelly

Martha Stewart's New Book

I am not a huge fan of Martha (mainly because I don't have the time, space, money, or staff to have an orchard, raise chickens, garden, or set the perfect table) but maybe she will help revive needlework with her new book. I know most of my readers are beyond starter cross stitch projects but the interest has to start somewhere. The article in the Chicago Tribune was pretty positive. The article said many other crafts such as quilting, embroidery, basic sewing are also covered.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/style/sc-home-0405-martha-sewing-20100405,0,825502.story

Easter

Yesterday we had Easter at a friends home. We were a group of 30 to 45 year-olds with no parental supervision. One friend did have her kids with her so another friend thought it would be fun to be the Easter Bunny(EB). The four year old made fast friend with EB but the 2.5 year old twins and the three dogs wanted no part of a 5 foot 3 EB. Actually, the dogs did warm up once they figured out that they knew the bunny. I wanted to post a video the bunny made but I could not download it off Facebook because of privacy settings.

I did not get much stitching done this weekend. I did some on the ort box but that was not holding my attention. This week will not be as busy so I should be able to get something done. On a stitchy note, I did register for the ANG seminar in Columbus. I want to take five days of classes, Monday-Friday. If any of you are going, let me know. I am going by myself and would love to meet some of you. I would also like to have someone to eat with some night. I have traveled alone quite a bit so I am not shy about eating alone but it is much more fun going out with people.

Not much else going on here. I still want to take some pictures and may have some pictures from Easter once they are posted on line. Happy Stitching. Kelly

Happy Easter!

This is not my dog but Thea is so cute and in the Easter spirit. Thea and her parents are moving to San Palo, Brazil in a couple of weeks. It will be great vacation spot for us.


I have absolutely nothing to show from my stitching world. I have not picked up a needle since last Sunday. I wanted to sit outside on my lunch hour and stitch but it is cold out. Not the 80 degrees that were promised for today. This weekend I will take pictures of what I bought last weekend.


We are not big into Easter so we are going to a friends house for Easter brunch. It will be fun. I think we are going to make Easter Baskets for the kids. I hope everyone has a very happy Easter and plenty of free time to stitch. Kelly