Ocean City Stitcher's Jamboree

Hi all! Well, I've been back from my stitching weekend for a few days. I left Friday afternoon and arrived at the hotel around 3pm. After settling in my room, I went down to the Salty Yarns shop and ran into my friend, Denise. We did some browsing and shopping then settled down in the lobby to do some stitching before dinner. After dinner, a friend of Denise's joined us for more stitchy time. After a long day, and with the belly, I was definitely ready to call it an early night.

Our first full day included two classes. My first class was with Belinda from Blue Ribbon Designs. I really love taking classes with Belinda! She is super organized and provides a wonderful binder with all the charts and instructions for the projects she designed. For our class she designed a framed sampler with matching scissor fob and ort box. The classes were only three hours so there wasn't much time to get a lot of stitching done in class, most was learning finishing techniques and I also got the cord made for the finishing on my scissor fob.

After lunch and a nap, I had class with Theresa from Shakespeare's Peddler. I really enjoyed the creativity that she encouraged in class. Theresa designed a pincushion for class and gave us all the materials to get started in class. It is definitely a project that anyone can do anywhere! With just a few basic materials and some of your favorite cross stitched motifs, this can easily be done at home. After getting some basic starting instructions from Theresa we were able to spend the rest of class making the project our own.

This is the model that Theresa brought to class. Then my pincushion in class followed by a picture of some things I added when I got home. Some of the ladies in my class had some trouble with the project as there was not much direction for the piece. It was more about "thinking outside the box" and really making it your own. I really loved it though, it was alot of fun and a really good use of the short time that we had to work on it in class. After the class, I even went down into the shop and pick additional charms to add to my own pincushion; a seahorse and a scissors charm.

I didn't get a picture of Belinda's projects in class so I borrowed this pic from BRD's Facebook page. So far I have one side of the scissor fob stitched and am almost done the side with the house. Belinda designed this piece exclusively for the retreat so it will not be available for sale until about another year or so.

After classes were finished for the day, we walked the boardwalk and enjoyed pizza for dinner. The we went back to the hotel for more stitching. After awhile, I went back to my room for some quiet time, SNL on tv and more stitching.

More to come about the rest of my weekend!