Drum Roll.....and the winner is....

Me!   Every time we have our retreat at Salty Yarns in OCMD my girlfriends and I have a 'contest' for who has the larger tab at the time of checkout.....this time I was the winner!

but let me start at the beginning.    This weekend was our semi-annual stitching retreat and it was another great one.   We stopped in Berlin, Maryland on Thursday for lunch and shopping on the way. We also decided to add an extra  day to the long weekend and throughly enjoyed a relaxed Sunday and a scrumptious dinner at the Sunset Grill rather than driving home on Sunday afternoon.

Berlin is such a cute town with tons of specialty shops, antiques shops and jewelry shops.  Berlin was made famous when the movie Runaway Bride was filmed there. (Sorry, crappy phone pix)

The day was overcasted but lunch at the Atlantic Hotel in Berlin, MD, was over the top! Pumpkin-Shrimp soup, yummo!

Been wanting a new Vera Bradley wallet/wristlet.

I always treat myself to a new start while on retreat.   This time it is the Elizabeth Pusey Sampler from the Chester Historical Society.    I pulled the DMC colors and did my best to match up with some Weeks and Crescent colors instead.  Then there was the discover that I never noted the DMC numbers on the colors I pulled, sooooooo...back into the store I went.   Not a big deal, just had to get up from the porch rocker and walk about 15 feet!

Don't you just love how quickly band samplers work up?


Four of us are at it again doing another Pat Thode/Heartstrings Santa.  We are going to do the "Celestial Santa" which is in the middle back...... I just have to finish this year's Santa first.  (I'll have to share my progress in my next post.  He's getting there.)

Next to Christmas, I love stitching patriotic stitches.   From Pine Mountain,  this kit comes with everything but the pillow form.  This will be a great take along project to work on.

Another patriotic stitch.   Grande Olde Flag Sampler from Chessie & Me.   I really fell in love with the weeping willow tree.

Fell in love with these Quaker Pears.  Picked up a couple of remnants of "Gardener's Green" to have at the ready when I want to start the stitching.













From La-D-Da, a name tag pattern for me.   I have taken a bit of ribbing since my nametag is a color xerox copy of our guild logo that I shoved in a lanyard.   Kind of cheating on my part.  Hopefully I can stitch this up quickly.

Miscellaneous charms, floss and fabric I needed for projects.

And the piece that put me over the top.....cost wise.   Not because of the $$.   This was in my bag, out of my bag, back on the shelf, in my bag and back to the shelf all weekend.   Well I succumbed to peer pressure and rushed from the Lankford's lobby and back into Salty Yarns to make that another  purchase it put me at the top.  I am glad I did since Sara told me is it a limited edition and one of only two she had left.    See, if I had hesitated until the spring I might never have been able to get it!  Like that reasoning?   Sounds like good rationale to me.

 Sunrise this morning.

 The weather was beautiful and both the boardwalk and beaches had considerable amount of people all weekend.   Not so much this hour of the morning!

Bacon, chocolate donuts!    I have no words!  

Already counting the days until our April retreat.   I will make sure I mark up the out of office calendar when I go into work tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your week!