Bees and Mountains!

My EGA guild was selected to pilot Betsy Morgan's new teaching piece called Bee Contained.  It was such a privilege and obviously we were all thrilled.  Being a pilot class comes with responsibility.  As a result, I worked hard to clear some stitching from my schedule so I could devote plenty of time to stitching this project.  You know, instead of just putting the project in stash for a while to marinate.  Hopefully I'm not the only one who does that!  Being a pilot class entails giving Betsy feedback on such things as the pacing of the class, her presentation, the stitching charts and instructions as well as the quantity of threads, etc.  Betsy is an established and seasoned designer and teacher.  Everything went so well so the major item to give feedback on after class was the charting/instructions and threads.

Betsy demonstrating the blackwork path.

This is the primary piece to Bee Contained.  This is Betsy's model.  It's so cute and Betsy's kits are full of high quality materials.  This class will be offered beginning 2019. The linen color here is more true to color than the photo of my stitching.

 

Here is my finished stitching of the class pieces other than the piece we assembled in class.  As a pilot class member, we were not required to assemble the project as part of our feedback.  I'll probably end up doing that next year.  Once the main panel was stitched, it went really, really fast.  I left class confident that I could assemble the project on my own which was a real plus and not always the case!

This isn't a good photo but this is the piece we completed in class!  It's so cute.  So cute that my dog Murphy is super interested in it every time he happens to see it!  It's a good thing I'm always careful with my stitching around  him!

Longtime readers of the blog will recall that Greg and I typically vacation in the Smokies every fall. This year was no exception.  Living in Florida, we get zero fall color.  Our trees typically go straight to brown from green.   I think this is our 9th or 10th year visiting the Smokies in October or November.  The last several years we've gone with dear friends.

We love visiting the mountains (any mountainous area really).  I think with views like this it's understandable why this is our happy place!

Hoping all your stitches are happy ones!