What a WONDERFUL WAY to spend a day.... (lots of pics!)

What a great day with stitching friends! The ladies came over & we had a great time chatting & laughing, eating, exchanging gifts & ornaments, it was a great day, even though it is COLD here! ;-)

From the left (in blue) clockwise is Karen, Myra, Lynn, Miriam, Amy, Faye NC & Nicole. This is our "catch all" room that Ray says I have turned into a stitching room! lol Works for me....

Here are the gifts all ready to be "exchanged" - we had lists & had a name drawing, that way we got something we wanted (or at least I hope we did!).
Nicole had my name & look at this great basket filled with all kinds of goodies she gave me - fat quarters & ribbons in reds & browns, a bag of really great assorted buttons, a little box of Mrs. Fields chocolates, some cording for finishing, a lovely pin pillow that she stitched just for me, and a big ol' box of Whitman's in a collectors tin - a beautiful tin that I had never seen! It's all just wonderful!! Thank you again Nicole! :-)

Here is a better pic of the pin pillow - isn't it pretty?!?! I *think* she said the thread is Raspberry Parfait - whatever she used, it's great & I'm thrilled with it! :-)

It's a long story, but a couple of us ended up with two names & two gifts - and my other gift was from Miriam. Isn't this angel just lovely? On my list were "Angels & Nativities", among other things - and Miriam found a beautiful angel that fit both. This is an "Elements" angel titled "Christ Is Born" and it's beautiful - I love it! Thanks again Miriam! :-)

INSERTING IMPORTANT FOOD INFO HERE (lol) - OMG, you should have been here just for lunch & all the goodies that were brought! For 7 of us (and Ray had to eat too! lol) we had so many goodies it was unreal. MOST of it was homemade - by Nicole, Karen, Faye & Lynn. I'm sorry to say I just bought a cheesecake sampler & sodas - (and hey gals, I had a couple of bags of chips & forgot to get them out of the pantry!) LOL I guess it was all that other food taking up the island.... ;-)

We ordered subs (nice & healthy right?) so we could really eat the GOOD STUFF! Karen made yummy "veggie pizza sqaures" - it was SO good. I have been informed that my husband really likes this & wants it again. She also brought a chocolate chip cheese ball. A what you ask? Yep, a chocolate chip cheese ball. Trust me, it was DELICIOUS! Nicole brought iced & decorated sugar cookies that are super and Oreo Bark. Okay, everyone needs to try Oreo Bark, it was chocolate and chocolate and oh so good. Faye make Peppermint Bark and Lynn made chocolate covered pretzels and they were BOTH super yummy. How did we eat it all? We didn't (though we tried) and I think everyone went home with goodie bags - though Karen left all that chocolate chip cheese ball for us - YUM! I'm going to gain 10 lbs over the next few days - I can already feel it!

Back to the gifts/exchanges....

Next are two ornaments by Faye - the one of the left is from the exchange - the one on the right is a gift she brought for me. Aren't they as cute as can be?

Faye always does something clever with her ornaments - look at the tree charm on the back of this one - I love it!

And her packaging is also out of this world - I had the first one open before I thought to take a pic of it.... but she makes really cool tags (so does Karen btw) and uses neat bags & ribbon.

Next up is this pretty ornament from Karen! She does neat packaging of her ornaments as well. I need to take lessons from these two gals! ;-) I love the fact that Karen's initials & the date are on this one. I wish I had taken pics of all the ornaments - but of course, the camera batteries died before I got a chance. If you visit their blogs, you might see pics of the others....


And Karen brought each of us a gift she made - she made the Christmas crackers & inside were fobs - all were different - the pkg & the fobs. I got a Santa - isn't he cute? ;-) There was a reindeer, a penguin, and a few snowmen. ALL were really, really cute! Karen, I know you'll think I'm crazy, but I put the cracker & the fob on my tree! It looks really cute btw! Karen is very creative and comes up with some really great things. She does lots of beautiful cards & she *collects* lots of great things for her projects. I know I heard the word "hoard", but if you use it, it's not hoarding! ;-)

And Karen brought me a gift too - a beautiful spun glass Nativity ornament - isn't it pretty? I love it! As you can see, it's already on the tree... along with all the rest of them!

And last but certainly not least is a Willow Tree figure from dear Myra to add to my collection. This one is called "Friendship". Myra is a dear, thank you again my friend! :-)

I had a wonderful day with these super ladies - and I'm looking forward to doing it again soon! Thanks for stopping by - and Happy Stitching!