"Mermaid" themed Holiday

We spent two wonderful days stitching our hearts out at the Victoria Sampler Retreat this past weekend. The design that Thea made for us was a Mermaid Pocket, a needle case a scissor case, and scissor fob. Here are the finished projects...

This pattern is going to be released probably next year sometime, so all of us who attended the retreat will have a great year enjoying our "exclusive" design. Thea gave us some tips on the stitching itself, and Lisa from Victoria Sampler gave us a class on the finishing techniques she used for the different pieces.

As you can see in the picture, we all were very intent on our stitching! Von is on the far left in the blue shirt. On Friday afternoon a large luxury coach picked us up at the hotel and took us out to the Victoria Sampler studio for shopping and a wonderful buffet lunch hosted by Thea! It was such a wonderful afternoon. Von had brought three of Thea's trunk shows "home" with us when we traveled up to Victoria, so Cathy (of Designs by Cathy Jean) pulled out many of the pieces and displayed them for us to enjoy and marvel over. It was the first time I had seen some of Thea's newer designs done up in person. It never ceases to amaze me how much more beautiful a piece is when seen in person rather than on a picture. I picked up three designs I didn't have yet, and some accessory packs to go with them. Wish I could buy the time to stitch them in as easily!!! Here is a picture of Von admiring some of the finished designs.

After our wonderful luncheon and about an hour of visiting with Thea, Lisa, Cathy, Yvonne and Richard, we boarded our bus to go back to Victoria.
Yvonne (on the left) and Cathy Jean (on the right) chatted as we boarded the bus and waved us off.

Our bus driver took us to the needlework shop, Button and Needlework Boutique and dropped us off for another hour of more stash shopping! More about this wonderful shop tomorrow!!!