A Work in Progress

Last March, my husband accompanied me to the needlework show at Woodlawn and was very patient while I closely inspected the entries.  Afterward, we went to a nearby needlework store where he spied a stitched model of Ink Circles "99 Bottles" on the wall.  While I would have glanced at it and wandered away, he was quite taken with the design.  As you can see, the chart came home with us.  I put a few stitches in and went back to other projects.  Soon, there were questions about when the bottles were going to be finished, and soon after that, pointed questions about how many bottles were done.  So I am currently stitching one bottle a day with the goal of being finished by the end of March.  This is actually turning out to be quite colorful and it's fun to have a little finish every day. (And aren't you glad I didn't title this post, 99 Bottles, so you don't have that song stuck in your head?)

If I have to spend time in an airport, one of my favorite things to do is browse the bookstore.  On my latest trip, I spotted a book about choosing a word to guide your life for a year.  If I had to choose one word right now as it applys to my stitching life, it would certainly be "indulge" as that's what I've been doing during the last month. It all started with a trip to Jacksonville to take a class from Ellen Chester .  The Lady's Worke Box is a lovely piece and I have made some progress on the needlebook beyond what we did in class.  What a fun weekend it was!  The setting at the Riverdale Inn in the historic district of Jacksonville was beautiful.  The weather was fantastic and I enjoyed a morning walk with views of the St. John's River.  Pansies were blooming!  In February!  Best of all, I got to meet people who I have known on-line for many years.  Melody   did a fabulous job organizing everything and the day of the class went so smoothly.  She'

As some of you may know, the Woodlawn Plantation in Alexandria, Virginia is the site of an annual needlework show. A local group, Nellie's Needlers, organizes the show each March. Although I have submitted pieces in each of the last three years, I have only been able to attend once in that time. Now that my daughter conveniently goes to college in DC, I decided that taking her back to school after spring break would be a perfect time to see the show and enjoy a weekend break. So we set off much earlier on a Saturday morning than my daughter would have liked. We had only one small glitch on the trip when someone misread the directions, which was fixed by using the GPS on her iPhone and we arrived safely. (Note to self: Must stop being so cheap and get a smartphone.) My daughter is not a needleworker, so she wasn't impressed by the show. She did enjoy looking at the furniture in the house. I, on the other hand, was enthralled by all the lovely stitching and so happy to see tha