The road trip.

Hello all! I'm back from my trip and loads to tell! Well, I actually got home Wednesday, but I have a life and was trying to get back to it the last two days. Please note that this post and probably the next are going to be very picture heavy, but you definitely don't want to miss them.

Saturday I left home around 6 in the morn and began making my way up north to see my friend, Lisa, who lives in Rhode Island. I arrived after about 7 hours of driving. Honestly, the driving wasn't that bad, traffice was pretty light. The worst was the last stretch when I got on I-95 and drove through Connecticut....very boring. After arriving at Lisa's, I sat on her couch and never got up, and we watched True Blood. Good night.

Sunday morning we got up and headed to the northern end of the state to meet up with Lisa's stitching group at Panera Bread. It was loads of fun to spend a couple hours stitching with a group of people, which is something I've never gotten to do before since I don't know anyone around home that has the same interest. After hanging out for a bit, we headed out to pick up Lisa's mom and then make our way to Connecticut.

Our first stop: The Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme. The museum currently has an exhibit of antique needlework.

All of the needlework in the exhibit was done by girls that attended schools that taught embroidery in the late 17 and 1800's. It was very cool to see all of these intricate pieces stitched by 8, 9, 11 year old girls. The piece pictured above is all stitching except for the faces which were painted, as is the sky background.

The girl that stitched this piece was 11! amazing! Oh, and the exhibit said no photos, but Lisa and I were total rebels and bucked the system. Hey, I turned off my flash!

See the date in the lower right corner....1774!....age 12!

Closeup!

This was one of my favorite pieces. Although the piece is clearly unfinished, it shows how the girls worked on their needlework. The picture being stitched was sketched on the silk fabric. Button holes were punched in the sides and then the fabric was tied to the frame using a ribbon. In person you can see on the lower right hand where the sketch marks were to guide the stitching.

The museum was also having some outdoor exhibits. There was an exhibit called "the rambles" tha was made of twigs and branches. It's left outside for about a year before it starts to disintegrate and then they tear the rest of it down. It was very neat, it had windows and there were kids running through it!

So our first day in Connecticut was alot of fun! After spending some time at the museum we headed to the hotel and then had dinner at Mystic Pizza!