Here I am, coming to you from my new IBook Photo Booth. I picked up the new computer yesterday and have been having getting familiar with the new things, like the photo booth – a camera in the laptop.

Yesterday afternoon, Mr C and I drove out to the country to cut our Noble Fir Christmas tree. We met the most delightful owner, who took us way out to the back forty where trees had not been cut and found us the perfect one. We also learned a lot about Christmas tree farming. We will go back there from now on. The tree is up with the new color lights, waiting for M & M to come and help me with the decorating.

This morning, I went to the quarterly Columbia Stitchery Guild meeting. We had a wonderful speaker who is an expert in Kumihimo, Japanese silk braiding. She gave a slide lecture on the history of the braids. We also had our annual silent auction. I scored this gorgeous scarf, made by Carol Heist. The photo was taken from the computer and does not do it justice.

I have been still getting the run around about the fabric. After two promises of a return phone call on the status of my order, today, I e-mailed them and said to cancel the order. Tonight, I got an e-mail saying it had been shipped and they would send me the tracking number tomorrow. Ha! I will believe that when I see it. In the meantime, I came up with another way to print large pieces of fabric that is working very well. I spray basting glue to a large sheet of poster board and then brayer fabric to it, trim and print.

I have been stuck on a piece that should have been very easy to do. Perhaps, I have been over-thinking it. I wanted a collage for the beginning of the show which would highlight “Pilgrimage.” I have played with lots of different images and different backgrounds. I wanted it to represent a page from my journal, so I decided I had to do some handwriting. I am not ecstatic about my final result, but I decided that I had to finish this tonight and move on. I did a few lines of machine stitching and am now hand stitching with some lovely hand-dyed perle cotton.

Here is a close-up.