Although the stitching room’s open for a couple more hours, I had a difficult night with my hives last night… so after only four hours of sleep last night, I wanted to make sure to unwind a bit early tonight, get a good night’s sleep, and then I can be super-productive tomorrow.
Still, so far things have been a lot of fun. The winter retreat for Stitcher’s Hideaway is an alumni-focused retreat. No classes or retreat project. It’s a come as you are, bring what you want to stitch sort of affair. Lots of laugher and quite a few people who clearly have known each other for years at the retreat, which is great. There were at least two happy dances in the room today and a bunch of lovely projects being worked on around the room. Some of the ladies here are focusing on one piece. Some of us brought a few to sift through.
As I mentioned in my blog entry yesterday, I grabbed what essentially makes up my entire current rotation. Last night before bed I took status shots of all of them and made a new Flickr set of them. I’ll be updating my before and afters for everything I work on this weekend.
I’d originally planned on doing a two-hour speed rotation, but I found it easier to just split my day in half today due to my fatigue. I worked on Cats on a Staircase during the first half of the day (when I was much more tired) and Witches Wheel for the rest of the day. I may take a good look at Apache Wedding Blessing before bed tonight – I’m planning on sending it out on rotation next week, but I’m a little concerned about some of the stitch tensions that may need correction (for my own sense of embarrassment).
So here’s Cats on a Staircase before and after:
Not a ton of progress, but not bad for four sleepy hours of work. 
Witches Wheel was a bit better this afternoon and early evening. The before shot shows the entire dye of the fabric, because I realized I hadn’t done a full shot of it.
The witchy hat currently looks like something piratey to me.
So tonight I’ll take a look at Apache and see whether I’m totally screwed for the UFO round robin on it. Tomorrow I WILL work on one of my Wentzlers… probably Floral Bellpull. I haven’t decided what else I’ll do, but ideally I’d like to get work on at least one other piece.
More updates later this weekend – I’m saving the stash to the end, since there’s some purchases currently on hold. :)
