Back from my cross stitch retreat

I had a wonderful 3 1/2 days in the Fingerlake area of NY for a cross stitch retreat at Hobby House Landings needlework shop. I stayed up the hill at the retreat site. I reconnected with some stitches I had met at other retreats and met many wonderful new friends! There were four designers and they are showing the projects they designed for us. They wre all lovely ladies, spent time talking to anyone and everyone for the full three days, and thanked me for the gift of a project bag, thread bed and scissor pouch I gave them. The one designer who is probably 80 brought her cousin, Maggie. She was older and was just learing to cross stich at the retreat! I had a leftover table gift set, so I gave that to her. She was thrilled! Tomorrow I will show each project up close. Read on for what happened when I got home.

Here are some of my fellow table stitchers hard at work.

There was plenty of tables set up and counting me there were 6 at our table so that left me with two extra table gift which one went to Maggie. I had plenty of space to set out my project bags and thread beds. I started with 100 PBs and came home with 68. There were only 83 stitchers; at the previous retreat there were 150+. I started with 183 thread beds and came home with 116. I received a lot of wonderful comments on the quality of the TBs and PBs. I guess I am already ahead for the next retreat! I was happy with the number I sold. It was funny that I would leave to go do something and when I came back I would find money! The ladies would shop and just leave the cash!

I ended up with lots of goodies,

but I didn't have time to take pictures last evening. When I got home, I emptied the car and threw the clothes in the wash. I was just getting ready to start putting things away when my neighbor stopped over. He needed a 9 volt batter and a screw driver. The keypad to open his garage would not work so he though the battery was dead. He had been outside power washing and had closed the garage door. Well, about 5 minutes later he came back and changing the battery didn't work. He was locked out of his house, didn't have his phone as it was in the house, and didn't have the car keys so he could get the remote control garage door opener out of his LOCKED!!! car. Geeze! So he came inside - he didn't want too because he was wet and dirty from power washing -and we called AAA. Yes, we told a little white lie and pretended it was my car, but other than breaking a window, he was stuck. So he sat on my steps watching for the AAA guy and I went down to the lower level to try and get unpacked. This all happened while I was talking to my sister who had called to wish me a happy b-day. When my neighbor came over I had to hang up with her to take care of him. All I wanted to do was to sit and relax after a 3 1/2 hour drive and look at my goodies. AAA finally showed up, got his car unlocked, and he got his garage door opened. It was 6 PM before I could call my sister back. By then I was starting to crash. I did take pictures of this cute case we got. It is not a Winterberry, but it is beautifully made. They had a bunch of colors to pick from. One of the ladies offered to add my initials for my b-day gift! She was making scissor fobs or bag fobs.  That was so sweet of her!

I did make a trip to the mall to get something. I think a person could spend all day in this mall. It is the biggest one I have ever been in! Here are two branches and you cannot see the end of either corridor!  This is only a fifth of the mall!