Rejoice With Needle in Thy Hand

Greetings, everyone! Tonight I'm posting photos of Ellen's annual Christmas party for the In Stitches staff. It's always a blast, and how many parties do you attend where the hostess encourages you to bring your stitching (and everyone does)?

It's always beautifully decorated--I'm not sure how she gets it all done. Love the idea of stitching these ornaments and hanging them from garland.

I always wander around shooting the wonderful projects that Ellen displays in her home. Fair warning: you're going to want to acquire some of these, but many are out of print. It's fun to try to guess who the designers are (in preparation for a search on ebay).

This is such a clever way to display a sampler: under the glass of a little table.

One of my favorites: Sarah Salter. I have it in my stash. All I need to do is stitch it!

Here are some pictures of the staff of In Stitches, along with some of their specialties:


Rosalie, knitting a baby blanket for a charity, I believe. Unbelievably talented needlepointer.

Also sporter of nifty Holiday pins:

Ellen and Patricia, who together could run Microsoft, or launch a rocketship to the moon.

Mary, knitting:

Deborah, knitting a sock:

Lois, knitting a shop model scarf from bulky yarn.

Candie, knitting a scarf.

Gina, stitching a Long Dog sampler:

Radonda, needlepointing:

Radonda brought along this Heaven and Earth Designs Santa project she's working on as well:

Sherry, knitting and rocking a holiday sweater:

Wanda, knitting an afghan:

Karen and Diane, opening gifts during the exchange:

Note the action behind Karen and Diane:

All of the gifts were wonderful and much-stolen (a dirty santa exchange). I won this originally. It was stolen three times:

Three more needlepoint projects:

There were many more gifts. We also ate, but I didn't get photos of the food (busy filling my plate):
There were special guests:

Ellen's son with Buddy, the dog (awwwwww):

I'll leave you with a last photo, on which the title of this post is based:

We are located at 8800F Pear Tree Court, Alexandria, VA. Please call us at 703-360-4600 with questions or to order (no, you can't order Buddy). Our hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and 12:30 to 4:30 on the first Sunday of the month. Stitch Nights are 6 to 9 p.m. on the first and third Wednesdays of the month.

Happy Holidays and very happy stitching!