Perhaps they are not really stars in the sky

On Saturday there was an arts and crafts show at the Marriott next door.  The shows occur twice a year, in the spring and in the fall.  It's interesting how the wares change from year to year.  One year a lot of vendors will be selling soap, the next year no one will be selling soap and lots of vendors will be selling small throw rugs. This year, lots of vendors were selling knitted dish cloths.

Of course, the vendor that most interested me was selling cookies, mini fruit pies and nut brittle.  I couldn't pass that booth by.  And I found a vendor who was selling various sizes of wooden signs with various sayings.  The one that caught my eye was this one.  It's apparently an old Eskimo saying, though I'd not heard it before.

Perchance you think I haven't done much stitching lately, I have two finishes to report.

First are the Patriot Sparklers, which are now stitched.  At some point I need to actually finish and assemble them onto sticks so they actually look like sparklers.   We students had so much fun with this on-line class that we asked EGA to schedule a class next year for Set #2 of the sparklers, another set of six.

And I have finished the Shady Colors class, albeit a few weeks late.  

So I've now finished two of the five classes I signed up for at the beginning of the year.  I'm working away on the ANG Stitch of the Month water lily, and the Starstruck mystery sampler. The Explorations class is just beginning, I hope to start that this week.  Then, I signed up for another class, Ariadne, that will start in May.  Plus over the summer will be on-line classes called Holi-Dazzle, and Choices.

And, as if cross-stitch and needlepoint weren't enough, I found out that the International Organization of Lace, Inc. is holding their annual convention at the Marriott in July.  I couldn't pass that up.  A couple of the classes were really hardanger stitching, not strictly lace, so I signed up to attend. Unfortunately, those classes were cancelled due to low interest so I had to choose another class.  I picked Lace Knitting.  I know how to knit so how hard can that be?  Well, I'm finding out.  Lace is knit using size 0 or 1 needles and size 30 crochet/tatting cotton.  The teacher recommended we practice ahead of time, stitching 20 rows of 20 stitches.  I'm glad she did.  The first evening I spent several hours just trying to get 20 stitches cast on and the first row knit.  I kept losing stitches and having to start over...and over...and over....  But it's getting better, so hopefully I'll be ready by class time.