Stitching Weekend

Jen1, Barb, and I headed off on Friday morning to the fall stitching retreat at the Elim Retreat Centre on Pigeon Lake. It is sponsored by our Trillium Embroidery Guild.

We did some shopping at Fowler's Corners, picked up lunch food on the way in Bridgenorth and arrived at about 2pm where most of the others were already checked in and set up.

After stitching for the rest of the afternoon, we drove to Ennismore to have dinner at Jesse's Tap and Grill.  My thin crust, "What's Old is New" pizza was delicious. Everyone else really liked their dinner selection as well. The restaurant was so good, I'd even consider making a special trip up there to dine there again. The rest of our weekend meals were served at the camp.

I by no means got pictures of all the projects people were working on but here's a smattering of what went on:

Kathy finished up this little Christmas ornament.

Jeanette got her drawer pulls all done. She only needed to select and stitch 9 of the 12 squares for the jewelled box.

Here's a closeup of one of the bejewelled pulls. Each drawer front was about 1.75" square.

The quilters, Louise, Lynn and Amy occupied Amy's bedroom and set up a small table to accommodate their three sewing machines. A night stand was the ironing board and a TV tray was the cutting table.

One of Amy's projects was to finish this quilt block that she will use for a pillow top.

The rest of us managed to spread ourselves around the bank of tables that filled the main room.

Jeanette had a schedule laid out for herself but she never did work on the pomegranate on this stunning Alison Cole piece.

Carol worked on this intricate, embroidery piece.

It rained much of the weekend but on our way to meals we got this lovely view.

Back at it after lunch we laboured on - some on one project and others on a rotation of projects.

Jennifer did her first thread painting project, embroidering a pansy onto muslin for a nametag.

She was pretty proud of herself, completing the project in one night.

Now she needs to decide how she will finish it into a nametag.

I started the goldfinch kit. I'm going to do all the stitching first then add the beads.

I also started the Jacobean crewelwork pillow that I had ordered last winter.

There are about 30 colours of yarn and 40 embroidery stitches.

I first learned the fishbone stitch on the leaves. The stems were done in the (not surprisingly) stem stitch.

These leaves used the Cretan stitch and the stem was the whipped stem stitch.

Barb gave me the good idea to practice the stitches first.

I did a bit of work on my Bryggen piece and tackled much of the water when I got home last night.

The quilters emerged so we could all admire their work.

It was a very nice, relaxing weekend of chatter, laughter, good food, and good company.