Stitching on the St. Johns River

On Saturday, October 29, I had the great pleasure of teaching my Long May She Wave class for members of the duClay EGA chapter in Jacksonville, Florida.  It was so nice to see many old friends.  Most in the class had been in my previous classes offered by the Azalea Sampler Guild, the Sarasota EGA, or Stitchers' Gathering.

I went to dinner with some of the participants on  Friday night.  Melody, who organized the class, certainly knows all the best places to go.  We went to the Blue Fish.  Everyone agreed the food was exceptional.  I want to take Tom and my father-in-law there the next time we are in Jacksonville.

Our class was in the Bensel House where Melody works.  It is a wonderful house, built in 1912 by Wilbur Talley.  The house is in the beautiful Riverside area and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.  From the front porch, there is a beautiful view of the St. Johns River, the only major river in the US that flows north.

Here are some photos from the class. I only took a few photos myself--I don't know where my head was.    I had planned to take lots of photos and especially wanted photos of the ladies who had brought in WMN projects for show-and-tell.  My apologies to those whom I forgot to photograph. Thanks, Melody and Kris, for sending me your photos.

Here is Melody welcoming the ladies.  Melody made goodie bags for everyone.  Perhaps you can get a glimpse of some of the pumpkin goodie bags on the table.

Carol R. was excited to win the door prize: a pincushion basket from Old Colonial Designs--perfect for the Les Cygnes A La Fleur chart that was in everyone's goodie bag.  I thought you'd enjoy seeing Carol's reaction when she learned she was the prize winner.

Here we are, ready to start the class.  (The projection certainly doesn't show up very well in flash photos.)

And here the ladies are busy stitching on their flag sewing cases.  I wish we had gotten some close-up photos of their stitching.

Next are some of the ladies with their show-and-tell.  First is Carol P. from the Orlando area.  Here she is showing her Petit Carnet d'Ouvrages, Livre I.

Here is a close-up view of her Petit Carnet d'Ouvrages, Livre I (all stitched over one linen thread) and her Ackworth Friendship Book.

Next is Linda F. who is also from the Orlando area. Here she is showing the progress she's made on her Fruit of the Vine needleroll.  I'm sorry the photo isn't good enough to show you Linda's wonderful grapes.  I stitched the grapes on my model with tent stitches.  Linda decided to stitch hers with Rhodes stitches instead. Linda was one of four ladies in the Jacksonville class who had also been in the February Fruit of the Vine class in Sarasota.

In addition to her Fruit of the Vine needleroll, Linda brought one of her Pair of Pinkeeps and two versions of Eliza's Pyn Pillow.  She stitched one over one linen thread and the other over two linen threads.  Wow--what a difference between the two!  You can find this complimentary design here.  Over the years, stitchers have found lots of fun ways to finish this little piece.  To see some ideas, type Eliza's Pyn Pillow in the Google search engine on the left sidebar of this page.  Linda also brought her completed Ackworth Friendship Book.  I'm sorry I neglected to get photos of Linda's lovely work. Perhaps she'll send me some photos to show you.

Next is Joyce Anne S. with her Alphabet Samplings Book.  Look at the book cover.  Some of you may remember that my model had a plain cover, just dupioni silk.  Joyce Anne decided to add beautiful embroidery to her cover.  Wow!!  It was stunning.  I wish you could have seen it in person.  Sitting next to Joyce Anne is Ruth C.  Ruth is working on Adorn Thy Heart as a 25th wedding anniversary gift for her son and daughter-in-law.  Ruth promises to send me a photo when she has the sampler finished.

Loretta T. brought her framed An Emblem of Love which was beautifully stitched and framed.  Somehow I neglected to get a photo.  Sorry, Loretta.  I hope you'll email me a photo.

And look what I got!  Henrietta made me this wonderful hornbook thank-you card.  Each of the ladies wrote a note on the inside. I think you can see how thrilled I was! 

And then, I also got this sweet little hornbook.  Isn't it darling?  I have it sitting on a table in my family room.



Thanks, ladies, for a great day.  I hope you all enjoyed working on your flag sewing cases and learning some flag history as you stitched.  I'm only sorry that I didn't take photos of all of you and your beautiful work.

And to my blog readers, sorry some of the photos are fuzzy.