Somebody yelled "Let's go shopping!!"

This was the mess we left behind in Lesley's kitchen when Lesley suggested a trip to Jo-Ann's. Paul (her husband) was very long suffering of all of us and was a good sport while we spread ourselves out throughout their home. The dogs too, made us very welcome! Lesley and Debbie unloading some of the Breckinridge food supplies. Lesley's big van was full to capacity with food for the retreat, and Gerrie's was full with luggage - Lesley's, Deb's, Gerrie's, Kerry's and mine.

The retreat was wonderful, I enjoyed myself so much. I took lots of projects to work on, but I was so busy learning new stuff, it wasn't hard to forget about the projects and concentrate on button painting, lacy dying, velvet pansies, clay moulding, ribbon flowers and leaves....the list goes on and on. Thank you to all the instructors.

I'm not home yet, but in Florida until the 22nd. There's a heatwave here, it's in the 90s but feels much more. But it doesn't stop me from sewing! Gosh Debbie, I tell you, Edmar threads are the best!!!! Wish I'd bought more!! No wonder you use them so much. Just look how pretty this little piece of Brazilian embroidery looks all done with Edmar threads. I signed up for a RR at CQI called Brazilian embroidery, so I figured that I'd better learn a bit about it. I was surprised at how much fun it was to do. One little section of this quickly hand-pieced block (no sewing machine here!) is just pansies.This spray of hollyhocks and delphiniums is taken from Di Van Niekerk's "Ribbon Embroidery and Stumpwork". I'm pretty good at the cast on stitch now! This is also from the same book. The oranges should be beads covered with silk ribbon but I didn't have beads in my travelling stash with large enough holes for the ribbon to go through several times.