Last Friday found me winging my way to New York City…yes New York City! for my weekend classes at The Enriched Stitch. Even though the shop is located in Wilton, CT., this was my touchdown landing destination where Suzie was going to pick me up. It was very special to me as we came in for a landing as I could view the all too familiar to me landmarks.

You know they say timing is everything…right? I left San Diego at a cool 57 on the thermostat and as we landed the pilot said “welcome to NYC where it is 97!” I knew it was hot since it was all over the news and my sister was keeping me well informed of the weather reports on the East Coast. No problem as I am sure I would be inside most of the time.

Suzie and Aggie were right there to pick me up as we texted along exactly where to meet. What did we do before we had these cell phones? I knew Suzie from market, but hadn’t met Aggie except through her amazing stitching seen on Facebook and on The Enriched Stitch blog. I felt like we had known each other for ever as we gabbed non stop on our way to dinner. I am easy to please and I always like to try the local spots which I was pleased when they obliged. We went to a darling little place where we enjoyed Passion Fruit Margaritas, plantain chips with this great salsa and I had an amazing dish of paella!

Off to the hotel where I settled in for the night, to do homework of reading and rereading my notes for class in the morning. A little practice of a few of the stitches on my doodle canvas. The first day was the little red bicycle, an Alice Peterson canvas.

Thank you to my sistah Meredith who taught me this embroidery stitch to make the wheels look like wheels! It was so thrilling to see and hear the excitement from the students when they said I got it, I got it! Look at my wheel!

I also used a variation of the background stitch by Susan Portra that we are using on the background of the 4th of July March that is in the July/August issue of Needlepoint Now. Someone likened this variation to rays of sunshine coming down through the bicycle.

Thank you to the ladies in class for making the day so wonderful! Class went all too quickly and soon it was time to expore this darling little shop and enjoy some retail therapy.

BTW, be sure to notice the bicycle ribbon that Suzie found to tie the thread bags for the bicycle class together!