A Trip Down Memory Lane

I had a wonderful weekend at Hilton Head - my first trip there in almost 8 years! Andrew was there to cover the Concourse d'Elegance for BMWblog.com for which he writes. BMW (the key sponsor for the Concourse) provided he and Anna with a room at the elegant Inn at Harbor Town, a 2012 BMW 5 series to drive Saturday afternoon, and a sporty, bright yellow 2012 BMW Z4 convertible to test drive on Sunday morning.

I didn't have a chance to ride in the Z4 but I enjoyed our drive through Sea Pines Plantation in the beautiful white 5 series we were given to test drive. One of our stops in Sea Pines was at the beachfront house my family owned for many years.

We had many good times at that house. Not much as changed about the house except for the houses around it which are all new or completely renovated. In fact, it was refreshing to see that Sea Pines had not changed a lot over the years. Much of Hilton Head has changed tremendously but standing there on the walkway to the beach in front of our former home, you could almost imagine that 13 years had not passed by since the last time I had stood in that exact place looking out at the ocean. Everything looked just as I remembered it.

Anna and I started our Saturday morning off with a brisk walk around Harbor Town. We didn't linger very long as it was a chilly, windy morning. Their good friends, Brian and Spring and daughter, Harley, snapped this picture of the two of us.

We left Harbor Town and headed out to the two Tanger outlet malls where we did a little shopping at the Bare Escentuals outlet store, Talbots, J. Crew, and Banana Republic. We picked up some great bargains and did a little Christmas shopping as well.

On Sunday Anna and I joined Andrew at the Concourse and enjoyed seeing all of the fabulous antique cars. These were the creme de la creme of antique automobiles. Since BMW was the key sponsor, they had many (if not all) of their latest models on display. Here I am my with favorite of the day - the 2012 Rolls Royce Phantom coupe.

Too bad I couldn't drive it home!

On the needlepoint front this week, the Melissa Shirley Christmas banner arrived from Amy's. This is Amy's current Home Study project. I couldn't wait to get it on the stretcher bars and try it out on my new floor stand. Mounting it on the stretcher bars proved to be a challenge. The third attempt was the charm. The problem for me was to get an even tautness across the 40 inches of canvas. I could get either end of the canvas taut enough but not the middle. Amy came to my rescue with a few suggestions and also pointed me towards her August 2011 newsletter in which she described mounting the Thanksgiving banner on stretcher bars. A little steam in all the right places was the trick to getting my banner mounted to my satisfaction.

I have set up the canvas and floor stand in my office. It will be a little easier to work something this size in a more open space than I have in my den where I usually stitch.

The only problem with having this canvas in the office is that it is a terrible temptation to take a few minutes out of the work day to stitch. I had thought all day yesterday and today that I could give in to that temptation for just a little bit but Work prevented that. I've stitched a little bit of the border.

I'm looking forward to a block of time at some point this week (but certainly over the weekend) to just sit and do some serious stitching. I may move the floor stand into the den for the weekend stitching - can't miss the football games.  Amy has written another fabulous stitch guide - you aren't surprised, are you? The diagrams for the border are excellent and cover all four corners. You can't see it in my pictures but Amy gave us a beautiful pear magnet that was designed just for this project. Thanks, Amy!

I hope you all have a wonderful week and find some time to stitch!