Followers

16 March 2009

The trip to Woodlawn and other fancies

Mom and I went to the Woodlawn show on Friday. It was a nice time. I don't have pictures to show because you can't take pictures in the house. It probably damages the antiques. Entries seemed to be way down this year. That hurts me a bit, because every year the show gets a little smaller. But, as Mom pointed out, I didn't enter anything, so I am part of the problem. It just wasn't financially do-able for me this year. I intend to remedy that next year.

But it was a nice day. I was really struck this year by the gorgeous canvaswork. I freely admit that I have no clue about needlepoint. Or canvaswork, or whatever it's called. I am not a huge fan of the regular needlepoint you make stockings and pillows out of, but I like the geometric canvaswork things. They had a really cool grouping where three people had interpreted the same pattern 3 different ways: one chose black, grey and silvers, another reds, another aquas. It's a good study in color choice--every piece looked so different just because of the colors they chose for each section, they "popped" differently. And someone had embroidered clips for wedding veils that were so pretty. Do they have books for that sort of thing? They looked so exquisite, a real treasure to wear on your wedding day.

Cross stitch seemed so under represented. My favorite piece was a large picture of a draft horse in full harness. Just lovely. It didn't win anything, but it was beautiful. Mom liked a bunny pillow, but then she wandered into the Christmas room, saw a gorgeous tree skirt of a hunt scene, and loved that too. And we both adored Sampler Girl's entry of the Mrs. Lincoln Sampler. I WANT THAT CHART. BADLY.


Afterwards, we headed over to In Stitches to do a little shopping. I had to get some things for my Secret Sister, and wanted to see if there was anything that caught my eye. I realized I haven't been in an LNS since January 2nd; all my purchasing has been online. And it was nice to touch floss and look at charts. I didn't buy much, just tried to get things I hadn't seen before. I have so much to stitch, and I was starting to panic because I hadn't finished the samplers for SO's family. So that helped.


Ohhh, it ended up I didn't have to stitch 3 of those samplers for Saturday. I was having a minor meltdown after getting home from my part-time job, because I still had to stuff one of them and then make the last one. I say minor because I wasn't visibly upset. I was just kinda droopy and despondent, holding my little needle in hand. SO called his sister and checked to see if their brother and his wife were coming to the parade. She said no, so I was off the hook for the third at least for now. Sometime this week, I will have to make that sampler, along with the ones for us. But I'm not pushing it.

We had fun at the parade. I seriously did not realize there were that many schools of Irish dance in the county I grew up in til the parade. SO's niece was in the best one, or at least it seemed to my highly biased eyes. She was adorable! Of course she shows me these dances, makes them look easy, and I look like an elephant doing them. I asked my mom why I was never put in dance classes like these; she said she didn't know there were schools for that sort of thing. Probably not. We didn't get out of the small town I grew up in much back in the late 80s.

I picked My Kitty up again. We went to a play last night and I worked on her up until showtime, and during intermission, and then this morning I worked on her while Today was on. I am on the last page! Woo hoo. And she has LEGS. I should be done with her by the end of the week. And I still love her. There were a couple Green Apples at the show on Friday, which I liked. They aren't something you see a lot of finishes of, which is a shame.

I will try to have pictures tonight of my finishes and My Kitty. It's just been hectic, and I had a major migraine all weekend. Not good for working on the computer.

3 comments:

CindyMae said...

Sounds like you have had a really nice time! I am looking forward to some pics!

Pumpkin said...

Glad you got to the show. I find there is a decline as the years go by and that really is sad. I hope my new nieces will take up the hobby when they are old enough.

Donna said...

Way slow on catching up on my reading. But have to comment as I am the stitcher of black, gray, silver colorway of "Amethyst Dreams" by Laura J Perin that you saw at Woodlawn. This was a class taught at the Scarlet Thread in Great Falls, VA. The original piece is light purples. The class teacher created 4 colorways, and I created my own black/silver version. They are hanging up at the ST now.

Entries at Woodlawn were only down slightly from last year. But 15 years ago there were literally 300-400 more than they have now. Hope you enter something next year! This was my second year putting something in. Next year I'm hoping to enter an original. I'd better get cracking!

I do my thing and you do yours. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, then it is beautiful. If not, it can’t be helped--Frederick Perls