Fun Weekend with Susie Gay!

At the end of June, our chapter held a wonderful weekend of stitching with Susie Gay. On Friday, June 27, the Pacific Waves chapter hosted her for Simple Stitches, a lovely linen dress with ladder hemstitching, lace and some simple embroidery, with Susie's favorite stitch, granitos.  We held our class at the Orange Coast Memorial Hospital in Fountain Valley, where we hold the Sandcastle monthly meetings.

Isn't the embroidery lovely? The dress is made with Spechler-Vogel linen and embroidered with DMC floss. For the hemstitching, we withdrew four threads to form each channel, and hem stitched bundles of six threads together. This dress was featured in Sew Beautiful magazine, Issue 146, Jan-Feb 2013. Sadly, Sew Beautiful is no longer being published. Sniff.

Here we are having fun withdrawing threads. On Friday night, many of us gathered for dinner at Solita, a new Mexican restaurant in Huntington Beach. Thanks to my brothers who recommended it! It's good to have foodies in the family.

On Saturday and Sunday of the same weekend, the Sandcastle Chapter hosted Susie for The Purse Reticule. This is much more ambitious project! Before the class, we got to select the color of the silk dupioni, which came with coordinating ribbons and our choice of monogram.

 

Some closeups of the embroidery. Exquisite, isn't it? Most of us finished the pincushion, and several ladies even finished the emery (top photo to the left of the pincushion).

It was a great two days of handling lovely fabrics and ribbons, and I can't wait to get mine finished. On Saturday evening, we all went to my house for a pot luck barbecue. What a great time we had, especially as the little boy who lives in back of us was having his 5th birthday party, and we could hear all the little voices squealing with delight in the jumping thing that kids like.

Here Susie is pointing out some of the finer points of construction to two of our members. I'm off to the side. One of the advantages of being an author is that I can crop myself out.

Stay tuned for updates! I plan on posting photos as members work on and finish the projects. Wait until you see all the lovely fabrics used as lining in the different Purse Reticule kit.

Posted by Cynthia

SAGA Trunk Show and Tea

The week before last, on May 3, we held a Tea to allow our members to see the traveling Trunk Show that SAGA sends out every year. Since we weren't able to have the Trunk Show for one of our regular meetings, we decided to hold a separate event, the Tea. Terri Castillo graciously offered her house for the event. This is one of three tables. Please excuse the really terrible cell phone photos as I forgot my camera (a regular occurrence). We had lemon curd (shown) and clotted cream (hiding behind the centerpiece) to put on our scones.

One of the centerpieces.

The favors. In addition to the tea bags, each contained a vintage hanky and a honey stick. Later on this summer we will use the hankie in a project.

We'll probably make something like this lavender sachet. It has a tea bag inside filled with lavender. In case you are wondering, you can buy the empty tea bags online and cut them to fit. They can be heat sealed, just touch them with a hot iron.

The food was marvelous! Here is the scone tower. We also had tea sandwiches, chocolate dipped strawberries, Greek butter cookies, and even...

a sandcastle cake! Which we forgot to eat.

Some of the members looking at all the lovely clothes. No close up photos, they are all encased in plastic and we are not allowed to touch the actual items.

Thank you to the Tea Committee who made it all possible: Dayna Arbiso, Lisa Cheverier, Terri Castillo, and Cynthia Gilbreth. This was so much fun we may have to do it again next year!

Contest Winner!

Our very own Lisa won first prize for her smocked bishop at the Shoreline Stitchers Showcase held this past weekend in Palos Verdes, California.

Congratulations, Lisa! It'a a beautiful dress!

Outreach Program at the Irvine Antique Market

At the 2013 National Convention, SAGA asked all of the chapters to hold some kind of outreach program to spread the word about what we do and to (maybe) sign up new members. Sandcastle decided to hold our Outreach program at the Irvine Antique Market, which is held on the first Sunday of each month at the Great Park in Irvine, CA. Actually, this is on the site of the former Marine El Toro Air Base.  This photo is of one of the hubbies helping out by erecting our banner.

The organizers of the event. From left to right: Lisa, Karla, Cynthia, Dayna, Kathy.

Some of our precious items that we brought to display.

It was a lovely day, chilly in the early hours but lovely and sunny for the rest of the day. We gave out over 200 SAGA flyers and hope that we will see a few new members soon!