Home on the Range

Thank you so very much to all the lovely ladies at the Portland, OR event with Acorns and Threads. What a treat. I thank Wynter for a beautiful bracelet, another stitcher for her lovely handmade ort boxes for all of us, and to Nancy for handmade lovely keychains for all of us, and Liz for some lovely threads by her company Dragonflylotus Designs http://www.handspunthread.com/ and all of you for coming to this great little event on the west coast. Thank you Jeannine and Roz for your hospitality and fun company. With everyone having done their prestitching it was great to see some finishes of the little pincushions and even the needleholder for their Bird Box project. Portland is a lovely city and I enjoyed a couple of days seeing the quilt show and a beautiful walk in the Rose Garden - rather some healing time for me as I did not realize how affected I would be with the loss of our family pet. The house is rather empty and no greeter when I came home but the neighbours  saw us return and kindly  sent out Walter for a great doggie greeting. I flew from Portland to Kalispell and Dale met me at the Glacier airport at a very late time of 1245am - the flight was late leaving Seattle.... and we spent the week in the Whitefish area of Montana enjoying some lovely autumn days with our family. Upon driving the way home  we saw the buffalo on the range and I had to share that rather western picture.

Now we are on to the next event at Shepherd's Bush in Ogden Utah and then Park City for the retreat. How exciting this little adventure is. I think sometimes my excitement is because I get to stay in mountain time and have a direct flight -whereas most trips are not that! I am really looking forward to seeing you all and hope that you have a wonderful time. I have checked and all my boxes have arrived at SB - Hallelujah! - no worries there - and I have my little pile ready to pack on Monday for going. Do you do that too.... make a little pile of things that you want to take as you think of it.... and just keep adding to it?  When we are done on Sunday I fly out to Spokane, WA and enjoy a few days with the ladies there teaching the Bird Box. Then I am home for 10 days and get out to Saskatoon and the Bridge City Guild and teach The Common Thread 2 - a mate to the first one! A very fun stitch with lots of new stitches - or rather different stitches than the first one!

I did purchase a "Stella" light for stitching and it is amazing! Wow, what a treat that is. I hadn't bought a new light in 10+ years so this is a delight.

Next years events are shaping up and look for the events to start being released. I can tell you that I am teaching at the annual Embroiderers’ Association of Canada Seminar, May 12 to 17, 2015 - in Calgary!!! http://www.eac.ca/seminar/main.html  What a thrill to teach in my own city. Thank you to the Stampeding Stitches team.

I am sure I will think of something else I wanted to say the minute I hit post! but nevertheless this where I am at and look forward to seeing you all soon!

In stitches, jeannette

The Four Seasons full circle

How are you doing with your fall projects? I can say that, it is the first day of fall! As many of you probably saw in the news - we went from summer to winter in one day Sept 8th or something like that, we have recovered nicely and it has been in the 20's Celsius and 70's Fahrenheit, since then, a nice little break before more cooler fall temperatures. The trees are turning and it is lovely. I had lunch outside, I love doing that. The title this month reflects a few things, one that I finished my picture of the four seasons out of my office window and the other that we are saying good bye to our beloved dog Cleo. I can't really write this without tears,  so forgive me. Her life has come full circle and we loved the companionship, the love, the excited greetings- even if we were away only an hour,  and the many many walks we took over the years. It will be lonely without her but we have 'Walter' the dog next door, who has wormed his way into our hearts and I am sure will give his 0700 howl to get us to open the door to let him in for the day.

Doing the Fall needlecraft market was terrific but it has made me a little slower in getting my class materials done for teaching. The push to do the show and then get all classes done before I start on a busy teaching schedule has made everything quite tight. I like a little breathing room and I seem to have a million notes on my desk of to do's and not to forget to's! Every night for the last week I have gotten up and wrote a little note to not forget this or that. Needless to say sleep has not been my friend. But we are totally looking forward to this weekend to go to Portland, OR and see and the stitchers there. This is my 5th time back to this group of ladies - well maybe 6th- and I so look forward to seeing everyone! Acorns and Threads owner Jeannine is an avid reader of the same books as myself, so we also have 'book' talk that we need to get in too besides stitching!! Ladies, hope your pre-stitching went well and I think we will have fun with the project. See you soon!

I am flying from Portland to Kalispell, MT where I have a week of a bit of holiday for me, with my family, having the Fall show in St. Charles in the summer, made it so that I did not get away in the summer so we are taking a week now. Hence my big push to get everything done for Shepherd's Bush retreat too. I get back for our Thanksgiving and then off to SLC for that retreat. So as the retreat in Park City gets closer I have several piles on my floor and I totally had the wrong chart packed to take for Acorns - but I caught it and we are all good.

And so the fall begins with many changes to adjust to....

Hope to see you at an event this fall,  I am looking forward to seeing new and 'old' friends!

As ever, jeannette

Home from the Fall Market

Home from the Fall Needlecraft Market. It was a terrific show - thank you to all the attending shops for making it so. But oh my it was warm, so happy for air conditioning. Hope you  have been able to see some of the new things released at market, there are some great treats to stitch this fall.

I will sum up my new releases here for you, enjoy.                                                                        Happy Acorn Harvest is an acorn sampler that can be made into an e reader cover if you like, both are pictured on the front of the leaflet. Out of having so much fun with acorns I continued the theme and created a set of accessories - Happy Fall Accessories, including a long pincushion using 2 kinds of fabric and banding over the join. A needleroll scissors fob and a small needlebook that also holds your scissors. These were a fun set and I had my woodworker create a tiny little wood acorn charm to add to these smalls in any way you might like - I attached one to the needleroll with the pin, and one to the pinroll with beading and rather pleased with both! He has some acorn thimble holders and acorn needlecases and acorn tape measures which I brought to market, a wonderful little addition to your acorn set!

I added to the gift tags - in spring I had done some thank you tags etc. and here ready for Christmas use are some holiday themed gift tags for your gifting pleasure - the words on the tags are as follows: Joy to thee dear friend, Merry Christmas, Peace on Earth, Peace to thee and to thee Peace. This gives you options to choose from to get just the right one for your friend. The little kits come with the threads and pattern, the brown wooden tag is sold separately.

Two new additions to the 'A most suitable Name Series' in Devoted Dorothy and Modest Mildred. My husband's mom's name was Mildred so I was thrilled to use it and Dorothy came to mind as I worked with a most lovely co worker nurse named Dorothy and it made a great fit to continue the alliteration to use Devoted. I love these older names that were popular in the early 1900's , they exude a charm all of their own.

The Christmas season will be here before we know it and so I have released Be Merry and Bright Sampler. It is done in the longer thinner version of the band sampler, so a rather quick stitch once you begin and you get to use Lorikeet Wool from Gloriana Threads and Simply Wool from The Gentle Art. A fun stitch, to use something else. It also gives great dimension. Two little seasonal accessory items match this sampler - 1) Stocking bag - comes with the threads and the bag to put the completed stitching on and Be Jolly Needleroll - a fun little Christmas cracker or ornament.

Joy Banner is great specialty stitch piece done in Classic Colorworks handdyed  perle cotton and Gloriana Threads Duchess Silk which is so soft but like perle cotton in thickness. It is stitched on 18ct Tula and hangs just perfectly on a mantle for Christmas - this is the 30 day market attendee special. Mid Sept it will be at the distributor.

And as you all know because I go on about it, I have 3 new pin pillows in the Patterned Pretties series.... which I am beginning to think I have a problem..... as I have more ideas on these than time to stitch them. So we now have #8,9 and 10 - check them out, they might be your colour! It's been a fun play with colour and pattern for sure, and learning as I go.

Lastly a little piece of Hallowe'en - Hallowee'n Acorn House - a tiny little acorn shaped house- I can just imagine little acorn people living in it!

Happy Stitching, till next time... as ever, jeannette