More Finishes... and Galleria

My happy, chubby bird is finished!

Jolly Robin came as a kit from Bothy Threads.

I love the speckled aida that came with it;

it was fun to stitch.

My framer finished him in record time.

This Laura J. Perin piece, Nordic Valentine,

was finished recently, too.

I was attempting to attach the

called-for beads with invisible thread,

when I thought to myself

"Life's too short."

It looks fine without the beads.

This is the second piece from

Jeannette Douglas' Flower Tray set.

I'm going to find someone to make it

into a pincushion drum for me.

And, finally, just in time for October...

This is from Little Dove's Year.

I changed the lettering

from backstitch to cross stitch

and omitted the second spider.

I backed it with the fabric shown  in the 

background of the photo.

It reminds me of centipedes,

so it's appropriately creepy.

I almost didn't find this fabric

because it was at the bottom of a

large pile of various non-purple pieces.

I wound up re-organizing all my fabric by color.

I'll be able to find all of the purples now;

I discovered that I don't have a lot of them.

Almost two weeks ago

I went to the annual

Needlework Galleria

held in St. Charles, Missouri.

The event was bigger than ever this year;

the entire fourth floor of the

Embassy Suites was given over to it,

and about a half dozen shops were on 3.

This is just a smattering of photos

from some of the participating shops.

The bottom photo was from a

counted canvaswork shop,

participating for the first time this year.

See the tall skinny red/blue piece

in the top row.

Doesn't it have my name on it?

Of course it did!

My haul.

I went crazy at the fabric place (lower left).

If you look at the lower right part of the photo,

you can see the instruction booklet,

threads and blue canvas

shown in the model photo above.

These people (sellers) were from Canada,

and I had never seen their pieces before!

I saved on shipping!

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Another thing I really liked about the Galleria

were all the doo-dads at the various shops.

Here's a close-up of those that I bought:

A couple of "square" hoops; 

metal tea balls to cross stitch

for Christmas ornaments;

little rubber cylinders to use when

tightening a hoop or to grab a needle;

and the wooden octopus square

will measure a border of either

1", 2" or 3" if you place it at the

corner of your fabric!

See, not many!

There were many other cute doo-dads

that I didn't buy.

I do have some self-control!

I seem to have finished most of

my WIPs at the same time.

I'm currently working on just

one Halloween small

which should be finished very soon.

I need to start a bunch of new projects now!

Well, that's it from here.

Thanks for visiting!

Auspicious August

Hey Blog Buddies,

Hope everyone's August went well.  
I was beginning to think I wouldn't get a post in this month, 
because I wanted to wait until I had another letter finish.  
But finally...

K is done!

I think the cat looks a bit nervous.

Maybe she's afraid that the birds

are going to start pecking at her ears.

I worked a bit on Rip-Ro, too.

Here's where I was last month.

And here it is now.

I had a good bit done on Forest last month.

And here it is now, all stitched.

I like the way the trees change color

when they overlap.

I made a couple of new starts, too.

I don't know if this will be

finished in time to be seasonally displayed, 

but at least I should have it for next year!

This has been in my stash pile for several years.

It finally called loudly enough for me to notice.

The Lake County Fair was in the middle of the month...

...and I did quite well.

This past weekend, I attended

Needlework Galleria with my friend Joyce.

It was held at the Embassy Suites Hotel

in St. Charles, Missouri.

There were close to 30 vendors,

mostly designers and some needlework shops,

and it took up the entire fourth floor of the hotel.

Since all the rooms were two-room suites,

the vendors set up their shops 

in the living room part of the

suite where they were staying.

I took this photo from the 12th floor where

our suite was, far from the madding crowd.
You can see the banners of some of the vendors
down on the fourth floor railing.

A tiny sample of goods from various shops.

I went a little nuts in the shop with all the fabric...

I got lots of nice 18- and 20-count evenweave,

good for over-one work!
Wait, am I planning on doing a lot of over-one work?!

I signed up for one class, the Round Robin.

Six vendors took turns presenting their small projects.  

Just what I need, six more projects!

But they're small...

Clockwise from top left, The Silver Needle's acorn stand-ups;

JBW's candy cane holder; Romyscreations' Christmas ornie;

J Design's Spooky Tin, Noteworthy Needle's

thimble holder (it's really small); and finally

Needle Bling's sampler pillow.

The Silver Needle is a needlework shop in Tulsa, OK.

They had a fabulous 2-suite shop jam packed 
with the most tantalizing stuff.

If you're ever near Tulsa, pay them a visit!

I have to give a shout out to Cathy from

Inspired Needle (my local LNS)

who puts on this incredible event year after year.

Thanks for all the hard work, Cathy.

It was well worth it.

That's it from here.

Thanks so much for visiting!