Such a sad day as I lost a great friend and the needlepoint world lost a brilliant mind. I will look at every piece that she worked on with me and remember the good times, the laughs and the stitches learned. Speaking of laughs, this was a very fun day at the Needle Nook of La Jolla a few years ago with Mary Alice Sinton. And in case you didn’t know, Brenda Hart passed last night.

Go with God and bring your stitching along Brenda!

I usually retire my Padres purse after baseball season ends. It was such a great season for our San Diego Padres, that I wasn’t ready to do it that soon! Plus…

I had tickets to an Elton John concert…and why did I wait till he was almost ready to retire to go and see him? Well it was at Petco Park, home of the Padres and couldn’t bring any bags in.

And then I went to see Hamilton, so that delayed the changeover. But today I will ceremoniously change them. I have bought a new wallet to go with the colors and I have a darling little change purse with cats on it. Go figure?!? It was a gift from a dear friend that she bought for me in England.

This is a picture of AlleyCat that was take years ago with her table surfing around all the while not taking her eyes off the turkey. I laugh a little every time I see it. Speaking of Thanksgiving, I hope you all had a great one. I did as I stayed home (by my choice) and spent the day with the cats, stitching and eating turkey stuff! I finished 2 small pieces, another travel tag and an ornament. I will save pictures of them for another day.

Speaking of cats, here they are keeping me company. I do love their company and their warmth, but I have done a fair amount of reverse stitching because of too much black cat hair in my stitching!

I promise not to wait so long between posts, especially since I am headed to M’s Canvashouse this week for a class with the Embellishment Squad and Suzanne, Tony and Meredith. So I’m sure I will have plenty to talk about!

Just back from its recent appearance in the exhibit at the American Needlepoint Guild Seminar in Tucson, where my bag garnered two ribbons! A first place and my most prized ribbon ever, The Princess Grace, which is given to a piece stitched all in basketweave, nothing else! I’ve been after this ribbon for a very long time and finally! I will save my basketweave journey for another time.

The canvas is by the Meredith Collection and the finishing is by M’s Canvashouse. Yes they’re one in the same and they do it all! I thank them for their beautiful finishing.

I thank the ladies who stitched these beautiful ribbons! And for now this purse will reside at the shop, proudly showing off its ribbons!

Some day I will learn to resize these pictures once I’ve added them to the blog!

The kids and I are watching a little baseball!

Did you ever take a class with the Embellishment Squad? it started 13 years ago with Meredith Willett, Suzanne Howren, Beth Robertson and Tony Minieri teaching this amazing class at ANG seminars and shops across the US. It was a great success and I prowl their teaching schedule to this day to see where they teach next!

Sadly Beth passed away in 2014, Linda Corrirossi stepped in for one class and then Debbie Stiehler taught with them many times.

If you ever took a class with them, they would talk quite frequently about creating a book of the stitches from classes. And you would always here about it and then they finally decided it was time! Many of the stitches were created on the spot for that canvas or that student. Not sure how those brilliant minds work that fast!

Well this book is over 150 pages crammed full of amazing stitches and unless you ever been in one of these classes, you have never seen or heard of these stitches! Most of them have been named by Tony such as Binda Leane named after a Tony groupie Linda Beane and another is Monkey Business named after Jeanene.

The charts are large and done in shades of gray to make it easy to follow. Stitches are numbered! And then there are some reverse images of that stitch! Have you ever seen that before in a stitch book? Nope!

The cover is great and I love the color of the coil binding. What more can I say about this awesome book?

These are just some of the 2500 books that Susan at the Meredith Collection has been shipping out! She has been getting them out quickly so that we can ship to you!

This is my shipping room where I sent about 2 dozen on their way today and I have another batch ready to go on Monday!

So you want me to show you a stitch or two? Well no I’m not, you just need to go ahead and buy the book. And trust me you won’t be disappointed! But I will show you the dedication page where I was mentioned. I had no idea! It was added after I helped with some proofing. I feel quite humbled and at the same time rather famous! I love these 3 and they’re very special to me.

This is a book that you need to sit down and pour over it while enjoying a cuppa something and make notes of what stitch you want to try next!

My kids keeping me company while I’m stitching!

There are 2 kinds of finishes, would you agree? One type of finish is when you’ve stitched the last stitch, check for missing stitching and then take it off the bars.

Then the other finish is when it comes back from the finishers. The Meredith Collection finishers worked their magic on this! Through the finishing procedure, they sent me pictures of the leather swatches to select what I wanted. Two previous stitchers that had stitched this bag, one selected black and the other this color. So I went with this color. Every time I saw the black bag, I second guessed my choices. But I am thrilled with this color!

Last but not least, select your lining color and your monogram. And then wait!

There are 2 more stitchers at the shop working on this bag. Maybe seeing my finished bag will motivate their stitching! I do want to stitch another bag as the zen of pure basketweave is so relaxing!

Miss Meow loves their bed! It was a gift when they were little kitties from a dear friend. And yes they still both manage to squeeze themselves in here!

And Mooch is just chillin…

I was showing you the custom canvas that Patti Mann painted for me, but I wasn’t able to get the picture to load. This is my Mooch and he is quite the character with really big eyes!

I have always loved Patti Mann canvases, but had no idea that she was this amazing as an artists! Wow, I was definitely blown away. It’s really fabulous, especially when you look at the details in the pot that she captured.

I haven’t been stitching much these last few weeks on this and I had a birthday present to finish stitching and a few other things to take care of.

Along with our collection of canvases, of course is a collection of bags! A dear friend made this for me after she saw the sample and fabric in a shop in Seattle I believe. I absolutely love, love, love the bag and it is a very special gift that means a lot to me. Well Miss Meow jumped in the bag and it looks like that Mooch is whispering to her “move over, it’s my turn!” and I believe she obliged!

So I’ve been told that it’s been a really long time since I last blogged?! I’m thrilled that you’ve missed me and hopefully I still remember how to do this…or should I say hopefully they haven’t changed too much.

So far, so good! Let me start off with the loves of my life! Mooch and Miss Meow. I really did win the lottery when I rescued these 2 from the Humane Society. A few of their few favorite things are supurrvising my stitching as they are here or:

Bird watching or as I say viewing kitty tv! If you look in the upper right you will see a birdie. It sat there quite a while as did the cats. I don’t let these guys out on the balcony as I did their predecessors as Mooch runs around the house like a crazy one and I don’t want him running so hard that he will go over the balcony!

So what have I been doing lately besides working? I went to A Stitch in Time in San Marino for a class with the Embellishment Squad, which is Meredith Willett, Tony Minieri and Suzanne Howren. Meredith loves these lemon tarts that they make at the bakery across the street from the shop, so I had to bring some to her. She did share!

So this was my canvas that I worked on. A custom canvas of Mooch that was painted by Patti Mann. It was a picture that I’ve used on Facebook more than once and for some reason it won’t let me upload it! and everyone would say you need to put that on canvas. Patti volunteered and I said, well why not?! She did a fabulous job with it! Another time for that picture…I promise!

I was tweaking my beads and threads here. First I will tackle the border as I need that to have somewhere to anchor my background. Then I will work on Mooch and beading the pot. Beading you say am I crazy? Well yes I am!

Last but not least, I was lucky enough to get in on stitching a jockey silk for the Neighdlepoint project. Lexington, KY is being overrun with 400+ fiberglass horses and this one is special. It will be covered with these stitched jockey silks of the previous Kentucky Derby winners. Mine was Twenty Grand, the 1931 winner. To find out more, look the up on Facebook or Google it! I’m tempted to visit over the summer to see it in person!

I will try not to disappear this time…plus I need to figure out why it is rejecting some of my pictures! So for now I will say see you sooner than later.

Merry Christmas! And let’s try this again…worked on this a few hours ago and while trying to resize a picture, poof! It was all gone!

Mooch has been having his way with more than one package! They are, well especially Mooch is, so very entertaining as he is exceptionally mischievous. I finally opened this package as it was marked to Mooch and Miss Meow, but when finally opened, they could’ve cared less!

Another year has gone by and really much hasn’t changed has it? I opted not to fly to NY for Christmas this year, not necessarily because I was worried about catching anything, but more worried about flights being canceled and I would be stranded somewhere.

This was the picture that did me in last time, so I just left it as is! A wonderful cat piece in metal that I admired in one of our local shops and a few very dear people bought it for me!

and I lost part of the post again! It’s never acted up like this!

so I plan on wining and dining and stitching Christmas away with the cats about me. Here they are settled in as I finished up my Mistletoe Travel tag by Hedgehog. This is my 5th one and they’re addictive!

Merry Christmas to you! And I hope Santa is very good to you as he has been to me!

I’ve been putting in some marathon days lately finishing up my purse, an Adelaide style bag…well that’s what they call it! from the Meredith Collection. I think Mooch was telling me here that I was ignoring him too long and he wanted some pets!

I got home from the shop last Saturday and just stitched round the clock and finished early Sunday morning! Yes! Spent time looking for missed stitches, which luckily or unluckily there were none and getting the cat hair out.

Here are both sides with Planet Earth Fibers Pepper Pot and Rainbow Gallery Silk Lame Braid that I used to stitch it. A very enjoyable stitch and I fell in love all over again with basketweave! It is already off to the M’s Canvashouse for their fab finishing.

Now you can see why I need to worry about the cat hair. But I love them there and with the cooler weather, they’re great lap warmers!

It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Where does the time go? Well I’ve been working lots again, especially this month and I give thanks that the shop is busy as we try to get orders out as quickly as we can. Want to keep stitching in your hands!

The supply chain is still an issue, with some things better than others. But when I look at the walls and see what we really have to work with, we have lots to give thanks for.

While you’ve been busy stitching your 21 in 21, my finishes pale in comparison. Have you discovered these Hedgehog Travel Tags yet? They’re very addictive once you’ve started, trust me you just can’t stitch 1! I’ve finished 4, with the other one not pictured is the other version of San Diego. Finishing by Island House Needlepoint. I’ve got at least 4 or 5 waiting for me in my queue until I finish my purse. Purse you say?

This was me the other night when I was trying to finish the middle design with the yellow that I had and was sweating it because of dyelot issues. I did have enough, thank goodness! The canvas is by the Meredith Collection and is called an Adelaide bag and is 2 sided… so does that count as 2 finishes?

This is a Q Code by Victoria Whitson. You read it with your phone and it translates to test negative, think positive and is being finished into a frame weight by Island House Needlepoint. See there’s something else to give thanks for…testing negative.

So I’m counting my finishes, 1 cat ornament, perfume bottles, 4 travel tags, frame weight and 2 sides of my purse and I’m sure I’ll finish another travel tag or two before year end. So maybe 10 or 11? Not bad and I do give thanks that I am able to stitch just about every night.

and these two cats of mine make my life just about purrfect, with their antics, kisses, purring motor, demands for attention and so much more. See I really do have lots to be thankful for.