A Stitcher's Heirlooms

Hello My Very Dear Friends! 

It has been much too long since I last posted, but a lot has been happening in our family over the past 6 weeks.

My 84 year old Mother, who has Alzheimer's Disease, fell 5 weeks ago, and broke her pelvis in 4 places. She is now  bedridden, and being cared for at my parents' home, by my youngest brother, his wife, and a full time Visiting Angel caregiver. Dad just couldn't bear the idea of mother being in a nursing home, and wanted for her to be in their home for as long as possible.  It is a true blessing that my brother and his wife moved in with them last November.  My siblings and I are so grateful to them, and we have all been taking turns visiting Mother and Dad.  This is such a difficult time of our lives, but I know that many of you have gone through similar times with your own parents too.

My stitching progress has been slow these many weeks, especially since I also caught a nasty gastrointestinal virus from the little grandchildren, which lasted 10 days!  We love seeing them, but all three of them are in nursery school and daycare, so they pick up so many viruses and share them with us:)

Last weekend, we were able to attend a Stitcher's Hideaway Retreat in Mystic, CT, with Thea Dueck of Victoria Sampler, who taught us to stitch a beautiful Christmas sampler.   Since Mystic is a famous old historic seaport, the sampler was very appropriately called "Mystic Christmas Sampler", and had many tall sailing ships and lovely verses and specialty stitches.

We worked in class on the Hardanger section, at the bottom of the design, and some of the specialty stitches above it.  I also managed to stitch all of the over-one verses in the piece, and some of each one of the little scenes too.  I'm just not ready to show you those parts yet:)

If you have never attended a Stitcher's Hideaway retreat, you don't know what you are missing, because they are all  extra special, and always great fun!  

Since our retreat had a Christmas theme, look who decided to show up unexpectedly!

Me (left) Santa & Jan (my new friend)

One of the really fun parts of the retreat that everyone loves, when we have a Christmas theme, is a stitched ornament exchange.  This was the one that I stitched for the exchange.

                              Monthly Stocking Series  
                                 By Blackbird Designs         

I lined the inside with deep red satin.  The hanger is made with cranberry seed beads.

My friend, Jan just happened to pick my ornament to open!

Just look at all of the wonderful ornaments that were made!

Before we went home on Sunday, we stopped in at a great Scandanavian shoppe, in Mystic Village.  As my husband is Swedish, I just knew that he would love purusing this fabulous shoppe, which has more 'eye candy'  than you could ever imagine.  This big Swedish Horse greeted us as we walked in the door!  

We left there with several very special items, among them some delicious Swedish Cardamon Bread, which we just couldn't leave behind!  Yummy.....

Well, dear friends, it is time to end this very long post, before I bore you. Wherever you are, and whatever you might be doing, please know how much your friendships mean to me, and that you are always in my thoughts, even when I have not been in touch for a long while.

With love & blessings for you!