A Work in Progress

I've  been inspired  by Syd's  posts to give the promised re-cap of the October retreat in Ocean City, Maryland.  My friend and I started out early Thursday morning and stopped in Berlin, Maryland for lunch.  We had heard great things about the town and it didn't disappoint.  There are a  number of  antique malls and we explored a few of them as well as an upscale gift store.  Then it was on to Ocean City to check into the Lankford Hotel.   We normally head right to Salty Yarns for a shopping trip, but this time, we saved that for the next day.  I settled on three projects for retreat and put some stitches in all of them.  Most of my time was spent on adding another part to Blackbird Designs Anniversaries of the Heart.  During the weekend, I completed the third section despite having to do some frogging because I was off by one thread in the border.  Fudging it would have been too noticeable so I gritted my teeth and re-stitched.   Once that was done, I started on B

At 9:00 tomorrow morning, I'll be on my way to my sampler guild's semi-annual retreat at Salty Yarns and the Lankford Hotel in Ocean City, Maryland.  These trips require more than a little bit of preparation.  About six weeks ago, I started pulling potential projects.  I knew that I wanted to start Blue Ribbon Designs Quilted Garden at the retreat since that piece is hanging on the walls in the hotel.  I spent some time pulling the DMC threads from the nearly complete collection I have of my own threads and those I inherited from my mother.  And yet, I will need to buy some colors at Salty Yarns, so they went on my shopping list along with the NPIs I will need to start the Susan Rambo sampler in January. From the possible "small" projects, I chose Turkey Love from Plum Street Sampler.  After all, it is beginning to be that season.   It's only 5" x 5" finished, so I should  be able to get it stitched this weekend, right?  I had the called for