Branson Quilt & Needlework Shops

As you know I recently took a trip to Branson for a stitching retreat. While in town I made many trips to Cecilia’s Samplers, which is the shop that sponsored the retreat. This shop is on Shepherd of the Hills, which is nice because you don’t have to fight the insane traffic on 76 in Branson.

The ladies in the shop are all very helpful. The shop carries a selection of Blackbird, Victoria Sampler, Just Nan, and many other designers. They have a small section in the back of the store for Hardanger as well as knitting, crocheting and punchneedle. If there is anything you want that they don’t have, they will gladly order it for you.

The only thing I can see that needs improvement is the fabric section. It is a small section that can get cramped very quickly. I would say that no more than three people can be in that area without being in one another’s way. On the plus side, they do serge the edges of the fabric you buy so you don’t need to worry about doing that yourself to prevent unraveling as you stitch.

While in town I also stopped at some quilt shops. The first stop was Quilts and Quilts. It is on 76, just a little west of 65. It is a large store with lots of patterns and bolts of fabric. I spent about an hour there while I was waiting to pick up my husband at the airport. I had a particular project in mind and wasn’t able to find exactly what I was looking for in fabric, but I did buy  a couple of quilting stencils and the Marsha McCloskey feathered star ruler that I have been trying to find for quite awhile.

This shop does have a good selection of quilting stencils and of Happy Hollow patterns and finishing accessories. They also carry some gift items and patterns for aprons, clothing and other non-quilting things.

Another shop, Fabric and Decor, is in a shopping plaza that also has a very large “antique” mall (not much in the way of antiques- more novelty items) and shares a parking lot with an Applebee’s. This shop isn’t large but does have a variety of fabrics both for quilting and for home decorating. They had a number of project samples with kits available for sale. Like Quilts and Quilts, they had a selection of patterns for aprons, clothing for little girls, etc.

Historic Branson, which is on the far east side of town, has a shop called Ozark Quilts and Branson Landing has one called Branson Quilts. Both of these shops offer ready made quilts which I wasn’t interested in.

One of the days we were in Branson we had some free time so decided to drive into Arkansas. On the way back we saw two billboards advertising the largest quilt shop in Arkansas. It wasn’t far off the highway so we made a little detour to see it. Country Corner is a small shop. They have one large room that holds several longarm quilting machines. The other areas of the shop held bolts of fabric, but most of it wasn’t from current lines. They did have some of the Moda precuts in the newer lines, but I could not find any of it on bolts. The ladies in the shop were very pleasant and asked if they could help me with anything. I really tried to find something to buy, but wasn’t successful. I didn’t think this was an especially large shop so have to wonder what the other quilt shops in Arkansas look like. Their website hasn’t been updated since 2004 so perhaps they really aren’t the largest any longer.

Cecilia's Samplers Retreat

This week I have been on a fun stitching retreat sponsored by Cecilia’s Samplers of Branson, Missouri. This is the first of their two November retreats. I managed to extend my retreat by a couple of days by driving down to Janet’s home in the Kansas City area on Tuesday and spending the night. On Wednesday we drove to Sharyn’s home and then caravanned to Branson. Sharyn and Janet are two friends I met on a stitching cruise.

The retreat planner, Holly, had the room all decked out in a carnival theme. At our places we had several fun little gifts including the Fall issue of Spool magazine and a neat little personalized zipper pouch made from foam sheets. We stopped long enough to pick up our $100 gift certificate for the shop, along with our gift cards for three area restaurants, and headed out again. We had lunch first and then made our first (of several) trips to the shop!

Our table

Some of our gifts

Another highlight of the weekend was the onsite shopping. They brought over a number of things from the shop that they marked down by 50%. Many of us took advantage of those great deals. I was thrilled to get a Nantucket basket set and pattern for stitching accessories. Okay, maybe I picked up more than one pattern for stitching accessories. I think I may have a fetish for those things!

New stash

One night we had Buck a Bag. You paid one dollar for a sandwich size bag that you used to stuff as many pieces of fabric in as you could while still being able to close the bag. I purchased two  bags and chose 29 pieces of varying counts and colors of fabric. Many of them will be just perfect for ornaments, bookmarks and other small projects. Maybe I could some of them for those small accessory patterns I keep buying.

My Buck a Bag fabric

During the weekend we played games to win tickets to use for door prizes. The top prize was a $100 gift certificate for the retreat of your choice. Sharyn won one of those! And yes, our little group has already made our deposit for next year’s first November retreat.

This retreat has to be one of the best stitching bargains around. We added a night to our stay so for $325 we had four nights in a three room condo (nothing fancy, just very basic), a $100 gift certificate to the shop,  three $15 food cards for area restaurants, two catered in meals, fun little surprises throughout the weekend, as well as games and a door prize drawing.  Plus, we had another 10% in store credit for everything we bought through Friday, including the $100 they gave us to begin with! We cannot figure out how they do it but are very glad they do!!

Heartland Region Fall Meeting

As you have probably guessed by my lack of posts lately, life has been pretty busy! I am in week three of Grandma Day Care for my two and a half year old granddaughter and her three month old baby brother, my grandson. The days are long but I do enjoy being able to spend this time with them. I give them all of my attention so my stitching has fallen a little behind.

This last weekend our chapter hosted the EGA Heartland Region Meeting in the Minneapolis area. It was the culmination of almost two years of work and preparation.  Our day began on Friday morning as the committee arrived to get things set up and ready for the over 80 guests we were expecting. They arrived throughout the afternoon, some stopping on the way at the Mall of America which was right across the street from the hotel.

Our weekend officially began with a Meet ‘n Greet featuring Minnesota Hot Dish. The hotel chef graciously agreed to prepare tator tot casserole, red jello and bars for us and he even made wild rice soup to finish the meal out. We decorated with the embroidered towels our chapter members made just for the occasion. To encourage everyone to meet other people, Becky created a small stitch sample for each attendee which was worn on their name tag. You had to find each person and try to guess the name of the stitch. The person who had the most correct won a neat stitching project from a local shop.

The Stitching Room

We scheduled classes on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. I took a class on Or Nue and one on specialty stitches for Hardanger. Other classes included crewel, bobbin lace, Aztec stitch and beading done on crazy quilt patches. I’ll update you in another post on my personal progress on the classes I took. I was in and out of them as I had other things to check on during the workshop time.

Bobbin Lace

Crazy Beading

Crewel

On Saturday evening we had a nice banquet. Four of us had done a skit to promote this weekend when we were at the last region meeting in Kansas City earlier this year. We were well received so we created another skit to do at the beginning of the banquet. We set the scene as a meeting of the Loon Lodge Stitchers. You can see me with my magnifying clip-ons and my light hanging on my shirt.

Members of the Loon Lodge Stitchers

The evening ended with the drawings for Opportunity Baskets. Each basket had a theme and was filled with stitching goodies. I won the basket donated by Cindy Valentine. It included two of her patterns along with the stitching fabric needed to finish them. The fabric was cut into fat half yards so there is more than enough.  There were also three bags that included a large cut of linen or evenweave, backing fabric and coordinating silks, fibers and beads. Our chapter had placed several pieces of linen/evenweave into each basket, so I have plenty of fabric to get me started on a number of projects!

A few of the 36 Opportunity Baskets

At the end of the drawings each registrant was given a project keeper of their choice. Our chapter members had spent many hours sewing these together and the ladies all seemed very delighted with them. We received many compliments about the weekend which makes all of our work well worth the effort. The next region meeting is in April in Cedar Rapids.

A few updates!

I have a few updates for this week. First, I picked up my batik quilt from the machine quilter. I think she did a very nice job of highlighting all of the pieces and curves of the quilt. This is the first time I've had someone machine quilt for me. I tried to take a couple of photos so you could see the details of her machine stitching. My next step is to find just the right binding fabric and get it completely finished.

I have finally finished my Dresden Garden piece! It was my first real attempt at pulled thread so I'm pretty happy with the results. The next step is for our group "leader" to send our completed pieces to the course instructor. She'll look each piece over and then return our pieces along with her evaluation of our stitching. I put the piece on a very dark background for the photo so you could more easily see the open work from all of the pulled stitches.

I am working on another correspondence course that deals with finishing techniques. I want to have those four samples ready to be sent to the instructor within the next two weeks. So far I have started two of those pieces. Look for photos next week when I hope to have at least one, if not both, of them finished.

Still stitching!

I am continuing to make progress on my Dresden Garden piece. I have only one more specialty stitch to do before filling in the background and then doing the flower petal outlines. Right now it doesn't look much different than my last photo so I'll update it when I have more stitching completed.

I have also made progress on my other correspondence course. I need to do four different pieces for this course which focuses on finishing techniques. I have started two of them. One uses hemstitching and mitered corners. I am just about done with the first side of the hemstitching, right along the hemline, and will need to do the other side of the open space so the stitches on both sides are the same. This sample needs to be left half undone so it can be checked for proper stitching methodology. 

The first photo shows it from the front side and the second photo is of the back side. You actually do the stitching on the back side.

The other piece has a picot edging. You need to withdraw threads and in between one set of withdrawn threads you pick up four threads and make two buttonhole stitches. You then fold this over so the picots are on the very edge and then do some hemstitching. I am not quite to the hemstitching part of that one.

If you look closely you will see the stitches on either side of the corner have three threads and not four. That is on purpose! You have to do a little compensating so the picots don't look odd against the open space at the corners.

Now, this next part should be filed under, “You must be joking!” because I signed up for one of the EGA’s Master Craftsman programs. Crazy, I know. It isn’t like I don’t have enough to keep me busy, but I thought it would be a challenge and stretch my stitching skills a bit. I enrolled in the Counted Thread program. I can’t share all of the details because that is against the program rules, but I can share my progress and the program info that is publicly available.

The program I’m in has six steps. Each one must be passed before moving on to the next. In the first step I need to stitch a piece that can have family or historical significance. I have several ideas rolling through my head but think I will likely do something with a German theme as both my husband and I have family that came from Germany. I have ordered several books on old German samplers. They are actually in German so I will seek out the help of my German speaking daughter to assist me with a little translating.  I do have up to two years to complete the first step so I should make that deadline!

Stitching progress!

So, I am finally back to working on my projects! I’ve been finishing up a number of project keepers for the region meeting in October. Some I’ve done from start to finish and others come to me almost complete and I cover a tube with batting and attach them.

I made two embroidered towels for our Meet and Greet night at the region meeting. I gave up on the strawberry design I started. It was way too detailed for this purpose. These designs are very simple and stitch up quickly. I have a third design ready to stitch that will wait until after I finish up my two correspondence courses.

I’ve been getting some work done on the Dresden Garden piece. Some of the stitches are a bit challenging, especially when you need to work compensation stitches around those curved edges. I have to admit that I did the frog stitch (rip-it, rip-it) on more than one occasion. I am pleased with the way it looks so far, but still have no clue what I will do with it when it is complete. (Don't mind the shadows in these photos. I couldn't seem to get myself positioned correctly with the overhead lighting.)

I have been working on a project from Milady’s Needle. It is a ruler holder. There are other pieces you can make that compliment it, like a scissor fob and needle book. I pick it up and stitch on it when my eyes can no longer take looking at that high count Dresden Garden fabric.

Now, don't think I've made all of this progress in just the last week! I've been working a few minutes at a time on them and it all adds up. Several years ago I was in an online group that had the goal of finishing up all of those UFOs we all seem to have. The group suggested  a goal of stitching one length (12-18 inches) of floss/thread a day. You won't see much progress day by day, but over time those inches add up to a finished piece.