Towel Toppers and Door Knockers

Who has heard of towel toppers, raise your hand!  Me either.  I don't know who invents this stuff, but I'm told Grandmas everywhere NEED these things.  I'm not into the chatchkey stuff so much.  I'd rather spend my time and money on a quilt.

So here's a room full of ladies hard at work.  I'm pretty sure I was one of the youngest there.  No one was hurt in the completion of these projects except the one who fell down the stairs and the slight burn from hot coffee in one lap.

The main problem we encountered was the lack of thread colored to match the material they handed out.  That led to stealing from each other in order to get colors that looked decent.  I kid you not, we came back from lunch to find most of our thread had walked off to other tables.  These ladies are serious!!  We had to go around and steal it back.

Here's the towel topper.  There's elastic on the back that holds the towel, which you then hang on a nail I suppose.  

Here's the fancy machine.  The only difference between this one and mine is it's ability to scan a picture, digitize it in the machine and stitch out that picture in whatever colors you choose.  Pretty cool, but not worth $15,000.

This is what I have and what we stitched on the entire two days.  I took to keeping that basket of thread in my lap and hidden under the table to keep our supply in tact.

Here's the rest of the projects we made.  There's the yellow bottle skirt, a landscape coin purse too small to get your fingers in to retrieve the coins and a beautiful Happy Thanksgiving circle that hangs from the bottom of a door knocker that we did NOT make.  Actually, that would make a cute Christmas tree ornament.  Finally, the tea towel with a cute little rabbit.  

Lunch was again fabulous with a huge hunk of well cooked beef smothered in a delicious gravy.  The broccoli rabe was literally uncuttable with a knife, making only the very tips edible.  No one cared because the beef and gravy was SO good!!

I declined to take home any of the projects up to this point.  I've never done kitchen towels however and thought this was cute as could be.  It's called watercolor embroidery because you cut up several pieces of organza, pile them up and place a larger piece over the top to hold it in.  Cute idea, but not the least bit practical.  

You see when you wash this, it will probably all come apart because the edges are not covered and held in place with thread.  This is an "oh look, how cute" project that is meant to just hang on the wall. The stitching says something, but to be honest, I can't figure out what!

That's it ... I was out of there in a flash.   I loved talking to the lady next to me, but I missed most all of the directions because she just would not be quiet.  I did get some hints from her and a great website to visit, but oh my goodness .... SUCH a distraction from the reason for being there!!  

I raced home to my puppies and QUIET!!  I didn't even turn on the TV.  In the end, here's what I received for my $99 entry fee to the class.  Over $100 worth of patterns (most of which I probably won't use), a tea towel I CAN'T use, a $100 package of chatchkey patterns which I also most likely won't use and a $15 Hipster CD, which yes, I won't use.  Maybe I'll sell them on E-Bay.

What I DID come home with is greater knowledge about MY machine, how it can actually scan and realign patterns.  Who knew?  I also have a new respect for QUIET.