Nashville Market (and a giveaway winner)

Hello everyone! Sorry it took me so long to make this post.  Life was busy when we returned from Nashville, and now I've caught some nasty cold thing.  I have almost no energy, which is no fun at all!

We ended up leaving a day early for Nashville, thanks to the snowstorm barreling into North Carolina just before our original departure date.  So instead of being snowed/iced in in Greensboro, we had a stressful hour or two of snowy driving just west of Asheville, and then all was good.  Flash forward past some room mixups at the Embassy Suites, and you would have found us all set up for my first official Nashville Market as a designer!  Here's a peek at a bit of our room:

We tried to add a lot of flowers and light colors to make the room bright and cheery, and I really think we succeeded.  The show went well, I think, and I made several new friends on the trip.  Since we were in town so early, we found enough spare time to hit one of several antiques shows going on that weekend.  This one was at the state fairgrounds, and was called the Tailgate Music Valley Antiques Show.  Boy did we do a lot of walking around!  Our purchases included a new antique sampler for me, and two new antique samplers for Mom.  I don't have a picture to share with you right now, mostly because I just don't have the energy to get a proper photo at the moment.  I will try to share before too long.  We also ran into a few other designers who were taking advantage of some free time to do a little shopping.  I don't think it's really my place to say who I saw buying what, but there are some fabulous reproductions bound to show up out there in the next year or so!  I also picked up another treasure for myself from an antiques dealer at the Nashville market itself.  Again, I haven't the energy to take a picture of my new baby just yet, but I promise I will share in the future.  Suffice it to say that I was showing my new treasures off all weekend long.  I can't wait to put needle to linen and breathe some new life into these precious pieces!

I have some photos of Mom's new releases that I want to share with all of you, but my energy is already fading.  Bleg.  So I will get down to what you are probably really interested in (a winner) and save the rest for another post.  Numbering each post and then using a random number generator to choose the winner, and....





The winner is Cath of "The Stitching Chicken."  Congratulations!!!!!  Please email me at robin@threadsofmemory.com with your address and your choices of patterns.

That's it for today.  I'm headed to the couch for a nap.  More updates soon (I hope).

Pocahontas jacket and Ebay treasures

Hello strangers!  I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season.  I know my family certainly is.  There are parties and gatherings every time you turn around, it seems.  But I wanted to take a few minutes to share with you about an exciting new project going on at Jamestown Settlement next year.

About a week ago, a friend shared a link to a blog post about plans to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the wedding of Pocahontas and John Rolfe.  As part of the celebration, Preservation Virginia's Historic Jamestowne will create an embroidered waistcoat inspired by an article in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  The waistcoat will be worn as part of Pocahontas's wedding attire during the commemoration on April 5, 2014.

The project is reminiscent of the Plimoth Jacket project from a few years ago, only it is much closer to home (for me), so there's a much greater chance that I will be able to more actively participate.  Yippee!  In case anyone else reading this hasn't already heard about the project and is interested in participating, you shoul contact

Julie Zellers-Frederick
Volunteer Coordinator
julie@preservationvirginia.org
757-856-1259

She will send you a small sample to complete, demonstrating the stitch types present in the original garment.  All skill levels are welcome.  The project is done in collaboration with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and their Costume Design Center.

I received my package in the middle of last week and sat down with it yesterday morning. It didn't take more than a few hours to stitch, and here's what my sample looks like:

The stitches required, chain and seed, are not stitches that I use very often, but hopefully they will find my efforts acceptable and I will make my way to Williamsburg for some intensive stitching time early next year.  Even if I don't make, I'm excited about the very idea of this hand-embroidered jacket and I hope they are able to pull it off.

In other news, I somehow found myself browsing through the samplers offered up on ebay the other day.  One thing led to another, and two tattered little treasures have made their way home to me.  If all goes well with my design release in February, you will be seeing reproductions of these two before too long.  One of them is an Adam and Eve sampler with lots of crazy colors in it:

The second one is very faded, and I the picture I took of it is a fairly sorry one.  But I think this sampler is going to be gorgeous once it's restitched:

Finally, I leave you a taste of one of the two reproductions I'll be releasing in February.  As you can see, it's an Adam and Eve sampler, and I am in love with the big blue and gold flower you can see here:

Til next time, stay safe, stay warm, and stay crafty!