I headed down to La Jolla over the weekend with my non-blogging stitchy friend, Lindsay. We had a great time! She’s a fellow IT weenie, so we had lots of fun stories to share with each other during the drive down and back.
When we arrived on Friday night, we immediately drove over to Needle Nook of La Jolla for a bit of shopping before going to the hotel. We got there about a half hour before they were closing, so we didn’t have a whole lot of time to look around that night. The shop is divided into two different storefronts on the same block, and we only made it through the first one. We did go back later in the weekend and did a bit more damage in the second half of the store though. 
During the course of the two trips, I ended up with a good selection of neutral over-dyes in my quest to still find the last few I need for my Mary Wigham sampler. I also picked up a Namaste Buddy Case. These things are so cool! Each side is magnetic, so things like scissors and needles are held in place. Now, I wouldn’t recommend turning it upside down or anything as the magnets are that strong, but it is enough to keep things from just randomly falling out. I don’t think anyone would ever realize this case wasn’t actually leather if you didn’t tell them. It’s really nice faux leather!
The main purpose of the trip was to attend the 2009 Stitch In hosted by the San Diego chapter of the American Needlepoint Guild. The project for this year was a frame weight design called Multiplicity taught by my friend & local teacher, Margaret Bendig. Here is my progress as of last night:
As you can see, I opted for a neutral color palette for my frame weight. She did offer it in a variety of different color options. I snapped a photo of several of the finished models with my iPhone, so it’s not the greatest in the world. Here is it though to show how differently this piece looks done in different colorways:
The orange/brown combination wasn’t a option for us at the class. After seeing that version though, it really makes me want to stitch this again in orange & black for Halloween. 
In addition to our class kits, Lindsay and I both walked away some goodies, too. Lindsay won a bit basket full of Southwest-inspired canvases & fibers in one of the opportunity ticket drawings. She entered about three different drawings, and actually won the one that she wanted the most, so that was very cool. Sadly, I completely spaced and forgot to take a picture of what she won. 
While I didn’t win any of the three opportunity ticket drawings I entered, I did win a door prize. 
I got a set of three Lizzie Kate Seasonal Boxers. The bundle included Spring, Summer, and Winter. I clearly need to buy the Autumn kit now.
One of the ladies who was taking the class is walking in the San Diego 3-day Cancer Walk in November. Her granddaughter made a bunch of scissor fobs for her to sell to help raise money for her and her teammates for the walk. She was only charging $5 each for them, so Lindsay and I each bought a couple of the fobs. Since it was going to a really good cause and they weren’t that expensive to begin with, I chipped in some extra donation to help out her team.
On Saturday night after class, Lindsay and I headed up to Carlsbad to hit the outlet mall for some shopping. We only went to Crate & Barrel (very disappointing) and the Fossil store. Neither of us bought anything at C&B since it wasn’t very thrilling, but we had no trouble spending money at Fossil. 
Lindsay picked up a couple of cool watches, and I picked up a watch & a purse. We talked about hitting the Coach and Dooney & Bourke stores, but ended up deciding against it. We figured we’d spent enough money already during the weekend. 
Here are a couple of pics of what I bought:
After we left Fossil, we decided we would drive over to King’s Fish House for dinner. I started rifling through my purse to get my keys, but I couldn’t find them. I looked into the car and my heart just about sank when I saw them sitting in the seat. No worries I thought, I just use my AAA keycard that I keep in my wallet. It was then that I remembered I pulled it out recently when I went on vacation to help reduce the bulk in my wallet. I meant to put it back in my wallet when I got home from vacation, but completely forgot. So, no keycard. Instead, I had to call AAA and have them send someone out to rescue us. Thankfully, from the time I placed the call until we were driving to the restaurant was only 25 minutes! AAA FTW!!!
Well, this is turning into a novella at this point. I will end by saying we made it safely home and had a great time this weekend!
Until next time …
I think it would be very cool to do it on black canvas using orange & black fibers for a Halloween look. What do you guys think?
