And the ribbon goes to....

As many of you know I submit pieces to the Needlework show at Woodlawn Plantation in Alexandria, Virginia every year. This week I took a day off from school to go down and see the 48th Annual exhibit. It was amazing! I love having the opportunity to see what kinds of pieces everyone has been working on.

For those unfamiliar the nation’s premiere exhibition of contemporary needlework is held annually at Woodlawn, a National Historic Landmark located in Alexandria, Virginia. Woodlawn was the home of Eleanor Custis Lewis, one of America’s foremost needle workers (and George Washington's step-daughter). The exhibition honors her legacy by maintaining the tradition of the needle arts and by raising funds to preserve her estate. Woodlawn is a completely self-supporting, nonprofit historic site.

This year I sent the turkey which I had posted on this site at Thanksgiving. It is a Raymond Crawford canvas and I just loved working on it and thought the finishing was out of this world. I was thrilled to find out that he was awarded an Honorable Mention ribbon.

I also submitted one of my own Barefoot

Designs pieces, Dolce Bunny. He was fun to stitch and was one of the fastest pieces I've worked in a very long time. You all know how rare it is that a piece seems to just fly by and be done. I'm especially proud to say that Dolce won a First Place ribbon! Hopefully Dolce, and his ribbon will be home from the plantation in time to celebrate Easter.

I invite all my fellow stitchers to submit something to the show next year. Don't worry that you live too far away, pieces can be mailed in and the volunteers who set-up and staff the exhibit will mail them back home to you. If you are close enough to visit I encourage you to go in and see the show. I challenge any stitcher to walk through and see all that beautiful work and not feel their creative juices start to flow.