Two finishes and a challenge

I get to do a happy dance for all my work this weekend. I finished Safari in time for my Guild meeting. Actually, at the meeting I was working on the seam allowance but all the other stitching was done and I finished the seam allowance Saturday afternoon. Since this was my 2010 Challenge piece the Guild gave me a pair of scissors that I should have taken a picture of. They have purple handles and I like purple. Only four guild members finished their challenge pieces this year. I am not sure what I am going to do with Safari now that it is done. If you have any great finishing ideas, I would love to hear them.

A second cheer needs to go out for Santacile. After I took this picture, I continued stitching and the seam allowance on this piece is done all but four rows. I would have slept better last night if I would have just completed the four rows but it was getting late and I needed to re-thread my needle. Plus, my fingers were getting tired. The purle cotton I used in the seam allowance was a little thick for 18 count canvas.

Saturday was our regular Guild meeting. We had a fun meeting because we had a stash sale and we voted on next years challenge piece. The members voted that I should finish Beautie Spot. I took a picture of Beautie Spot as of the start of the challenge. I have a row of motifs across the top and the boarder to finish. I should be able to get this piece done in a year. The other two they could have voted for were Funky Rose by Terry Dryden or Witches Brew by Debbie Stiehler. I was kind of hoping for one of those projects because they will be more of a challenge to finish but Beautie Spot is older.

I am planning our Guild retreat in March. I have the retreat pretty well organized and I am looking forward to shopping and the stitching time. I am looking for a stitching related game that we could play on Saturday night. I am looking for something to break up the evening. Around 9:00 pm everyone gets a little punchy. If you have done anything fun at any of the retreats you have attended, I would love to hear your ideas!!

Other fun things that happened this weekend were we visited two new restaurants. On Friday night we meet friends at a new brewery in my hood called Haymarket Brewery. The hostess was a hot mess so we went down restaurant row to my favorite Indian restaurant, Jaipur. On Saturday we had a friends 30th birthday party at Moe's Cantina. Since we had to go to River West for her party we decided to eat at Prosecco. Prosecco has been around for a while but it was the first time we had been there. It was a beautiful restaurant with tons of class. Opentable said the dress was business casual which really did not work for us since we were going to Moe's after dinner so we wore nice jeans. It was really interesting to see how the dress was so generational. The older people were in suits or sports coats. The ladies had on furs. The younger people in the crowd had on jeans and sweaters. At first I was horrified that I had picked such a nice restaurant and worn jeans and even worse is DH wore his Carhartt jacket because it was below zero with the wind chill. Once we checked the coats, I had a glass of Prosecco and a half bottle of wine, who cares what you wear. The food was delicious and we are looking forward to going back.

Well back to the work week. I am not sure where my projects will take me now that I am done with Safari. I will work on a WIP but not sure which one. I am enjoying everyone working on the Crazy January Challenge. Some people are taking on some pretty big projects and I am enjoying seeing all the patterns. Some are new to me and hopefully I will be able to resist temptation.

Happy Stitching.