This is the view from DS’ room. There’s a swimming pool there somewhere…

I had a fantastic time in Louisville this weekend!

Holly and I drove down to Celebration of Needlework on Friday – we met near my new apartment (that’s another post for sometime later in the week), and headed south to Louisville. We stopped for lunch in Indianapolis at Shapiro’s – my favorite place to eat in Indiana, before arriving in Louisville around 3pm.

We immediately met up with some online friends in the stitcher’s lounge, before heading down to the Merchandise Mall for a quick visit.

Then, we met up again for an early dinner at a Mexican restaurant/bar. We thought we might have made a bad decision as to our dinner venue when we noticed the stripper poles on the platform (bar?). We were worried even further when despite it being a bar in a popular part of town, we were the only ones in the place. Our worries were unfounded – dinner was good, and the company was great! There were 7 of us; Holly and I had met Melissa before, but although we had “known” the others for several years online, this was our first chance to meet in person. Based on how much fun we had over the weekend, I’m sure it’s not going to be the last!

Annette, Melissa (Missy), Cheryl, Melissa, Holly, Pat (Annette’s mom)

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel, and then met up again for the Friday night charity event – it was a dessert buffet (yummy!), a charity auction, bingo, and a lot of fun wrapped up in 2 hours. Susan Greening-Davis was our hostess, and she gave a nice talk on her visits to Italy, where she learned about the different types of embroidery dating back to the time of the Medici family.

After the reception, we headed to the stitchers’ lounge. I almost passed on attending – before heading to Louisville that morning, I’d actually gone to work for a couple of hours, and I was exhausted, but I decided that I could sleep another night, so I grabbed my stitching and headed to the stitcher’s lounge. I think Holly and I were the first to leave the lounge (at close to 12:30am).

Here’s the gang looking bright eyed and bushy tailed on Saturday morning (some of us didn’t get to bed until after 3am!) - we met in the lobby of the hotel and had breakfast together. Cheryl had to drive home right after breakfast, and Melissa was leaving shortly thereafter.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll talk more about the merchandise mall, and the class I took, so stay tuned!

I watched a little of the Olympics over the weekend – I saw some of the Closing Ceremony, and I saw the final of the 10m diving, with that surprising result by the Australian. Way to go!

Now, on to my own Stitching Olympics. Despite a valiant effort, I didn’t come home with the Gold or the Silver, but I was happy with the Bronze. Apparently, I was way more ambitious than I should have been – either that, or I might have had more hope of finishing higher in the middle standings if I’d actually done more stitching during the first week of the Olympics – I managed to stitch every night last week, but very little the previous week.

Rather than bore you all with a full recap of my goals, feel free to read my recap from last week. I’ll just update you with any progress made since then:last week’s recap

1. Finish the SBEBB Biscornu Exchange piece - as I posted last week, I did finish this, but only posted a “teaser”. As Cathy has let me know that she received the biscornu, you can see a picture of the biscornu here.

3. Start & finish stitching the middle section of “Little House Neighborhood”. Well, I started, and managed to stitch both the houses, but I didn’t finish it. I’m hoping to have this section done by the end of the week:

8. Spend at least an evening (minimum 3 hours) working on “Roses”.
It’s been about 6 months since I last worked on this piece. I was so determined to finish up the middle section of Little House Neighborhood that I almost didn’t work on this piece. But, to have any hope of medalling, I knew that I would have more luck working on this for 3 hours than finishing the goal of the LHN piece:

I hope everyone else had as much fun with their Olympics goals. I think I need to get in some more training if I’m going to make the Gold in 2012!

Here are the results from my movie meme:  (The movie title is in bold, and the person who guessed it correctly is in italics.)  Thanks everyone for playing!

1. Would you wait around to find out if it’s just a necklace, or if it’s sex and a necklace, or if worst of all it’s a necklace and love? Would you stay, knowing life would always be a little bit worse? – Love, Actually ~ Christine S.

2. Except for those people down there, we might be the only living creatures in the whole world. – Picnic at Hanging Rock. My mum sent me an e-mail when I first posted this meme, pointing out my favorite movies (and there were quotes from all but 2 on her list in the meme.) She identified Picnic at Hanging Rock as being one of my favorite films, but didn’t get this quote as being from the film.

3. Baseball player. Boatswain’s mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up.- Jaws ~ Shelley. The greatest movie line of all time IMO comes from Jaws – “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” – I figured if I included that quote, it would be too easy!

4. You want to talk to God? Let’s go see him together, I’ve got nothing better to do. – Raiders of the Lost Ark ~ Charisse

5. One man I can never meet. Him, I would like to give my whole heart to. – The Lake House. ~ Stef. If you haven’t seen this one, you’ve got to see it – it’s so cute, and it’s filmed in Chicago, too!

6. One thing I don’t need is heckling. You called me and asked for help. Now you’re behaving like a taxpayer. – Rear Window. I love Hitchcock films – especially the ones starring either Cary Grant, James Stewart, or Grace Kelly.

7. You’re seeing a whole team of psychiatrists, aren’t you? – Field of Dreams. ~ Ann

8. I’m surprised that you had the courage to take the responsibility yourself. – Star Wars ~ Charisse

9. It’s all right. It’s all right, mate. We’re just having a friendly little argument. – The Great Escape ~ Annette (James Coburn played an Australian in this film – why they couldn’t get a real Australian for the role, I don’t know – James Coburn’s accent is dreadful!)

10. You’ve kept me honest. You’ve made me a whole person. I owe you everything…- The X-Files.

11. Like your father, you lack the courage to do all that is necessary – Batman Begins

12. Well that’s what we do, we fight… You tell me when I am being an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you are a pain in the ass. – The Notebook. I love “chick flicks”.

3. Take a chance. Hire the smart, fat girl. – The Devil Wears Prada ~ Ann

14. You girls are kinda young to be smokin’, dontcha think? Ruins your sex drive. - Thelma & Louise.

15. Oh, we’ve still gotta kill him. That’s a given.  – True Lies ~ Suz. 

Here’s a map of the USA, showing the places in the USA where I’ve visited:

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

I think that’s not too shabby, considering I’ve only lived here for less than 1/2 my life.

World Map:

It’s hard to tell as they are tiny countries (I guess one isn’t even a country anymore), but in Asia, I’ve been to Hong Kong and Singapore). Do you check the countries where your plane landed, even if you never visited the place? I didn’t, but if I were going to include those, I would add India, Bahrain and New Zealand to the list.

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

I’ve just added a couple of pictures of the embellished purse that I’ll be giving away.  I’ll be drawing a name from those who leave a comment on the
original post by Wednesday at 7pm Chicago time.

Thanks for visiting!
 

“Bless Our Home” © Country Cottage Needleworks
Stitched on 28ct. Antique White Jobelan with Crescent Colours and DMC floss.

I finished this up over the weekend. I might have to stitch it again – I don’t think I gave enough thought to the color of the fabric I used – I was out of my Lambswool Jobelan, so I used some Antique White that I had in my stash. Unfortunately, it’s too white, so the fence and the window frames are barely noticeable.

I hope you all had a great weekend. I had a fun weekend, which started off with a trip to House of Stitches, where I spent more money than I’ve done in a *long* time buying stash. DS was with me, and I bribed him with some money to buy a Lego if he promised not to ask if it was time to leave the store. LOL

We saw the new Indiana Jones film. I liked it, although I thought it was a little more far-fetched than the films. I’d seen each of the first three Indiana Jones films when they first came out in the cinema, but DS has only seen them on DVD, so this was his first chance to see one of them on the big screen. He enjoyed it, and spent the rest of the weekend quoting lines (and gestures) from the film.

Thanks again for your feedback on whether to send DS to Australia this summer. Even though I’d made up my mind not to send him, I asked him hypothetically whether he would want to go to Australia, if it meant travelling without me. His answer was a resounding “no”. It wasn’t just the flight – he didn’t want to go there if I didn’t go with him. He’s been on vacation without me before (he goes to Florida for 2 weeks most years with my in-laws), so I was surprised that he would be so insistent that I join him on the trip. I spoke to my parents on the phone this morning, and as I told them, I’m going to see if it’s possible for me to take him next summer.

As promised, I drew a name out of the hat – (okay, it was out of a tin – speaking of which, how do I do one of those automatic name drawing thingies?), and the winner is Anne. Anne, I’ll get something stitched up with week (I bought the supplies on the weekend, but now that I know you are the winner, I might have to change the colors I was planning to stitch – I know what your favorite color is!), and get it in the mail next week.