Some Modification

Jen1 was over for some stitching today. She works on Saturdays so we won’t be seeing her at our guild’s stitch day tomorrow. We had a very pleasant afternoon chatting about our respective retreats attended last weekend. 

At the Trillium Guild retreat, Jeanette organized a stash sale. Jen1 picked this up for me.

And the tin is part of the kit! Thanks, Jen!

While we chatted, I poked away at the Spring Floral Sampler. It’s going to be a gift for a non-stitcher so we discussed omitting the alphabet. I thought I’d chart ‘Welcome Spring’ and stitch that below instead.

I charted it with my really old Cross Stitch Design Studio program and stitched the words this evening.

Since the alphabet is gone, I’ll add a leaf onto the left  of the tulip and right of the daffodil. That will be my primary task tomorrow at our stitch day.

To finish it, I’ll mount it on some foamcore and mount that onto a slightly larger piece of cardboard covered in fabric. I’ll add cording as a hanger. I want to get it done and given to the recipient before spring is over. 

Another Pair of Scrappy Socks

 I like to knit when I’m watching TV. I don’t need need any more neck warmers now that it’s spring so I thought I’d knit another pair of two-at-a-time, striped, scrappy socks. I have tons of sock yarn remnants.

I cast on 70 sts with a long, 2.5mm circular needle. To do both on the one circular needle, I cast on 35 with one end of a yarn ball, then 35 more with the other end. Then 35 more on the second sock, dropping that yarn and taking up the first strand of yarn, cast on the last 35 sts of the first sock.

I then knit 3 x 2 ribbing for the legs of the socks - 8” - changing yarns every 6 rounds. When I got to the heels, I completed the heel flap by knitting back and forth on one sock, then picked up the sts on one side of the flap. Then knit the heel flap of the second sock and picked up the sts on the sides of its heel flap.

I could then knit around both socks again doing the gusset decreases.

I’m now working on the feet.

At stitching yesterday I continued work on Clovis. I mis-counted the stitches at the top of the apron and had an extra one. This threw off the symmetry of the head so I added an extra stitch between the eyes and will continue with an extra stitch all the way down that column. 

It shouldn’t be too hard to add that extra stitch to the apron - the floral design isn’t symmetrical.

I was relieved this morning to see the election results. The polls favoured a Liberal win but polls can be wrong so I waited until this morning for the final results. I heaved a sigh of relief as I believe Mark Carney has the cojones to deal with the president of the country to our south. 

All day I thought it was Wednesday so I got some yard work done so I could put out the yard waste for the Thursday pickup. Then I looked at my watch and discovered it was only Tuesday.  One more day to collect stuff around here to throw out. 

I cleaned out a cupboard in preparation for my upcoming kitchen renovation. When I have to clear them out for the demolition, I’ll just pile the stuff on my dining room table, set up the microwave oven on the dryer, and do my dishes in the laundry room wash tubs. One task this week will be to buy the new sink, faucet, and see if I can find the new refrigerator I need.

Jen1 is returning to work after what I’ve been calling her ‘sabbatical’ - time off from work for our travels and last weekend’s guild retreat. I’m having her and the other stitchers over on Friday afternoon for some stitcherly fun. Saturday is the guild’s stitch day so I’ll get to see most of the folks I missed seeing at the guild retreat while I was at the Hobby House retreat.

Hobby House Retreat

One of my favourite stitchery designers is Paulette Stewart of Plum Street Samplers. When I heard last year that Hobby House was offering a weekend retreat featuring her and Beth Twist from Heartstring Samplery, I signed up right away. Unfortunately it was the same weekend as our Trillium Guild retreat so it was a tough decision.

Considering the authoritarian regime currently in the US and animosity towards their neighbour to the north, there was a bit of concern about what I would experience crossing the border. However, I figured an ‘elderly woman’ on the way to an embroidery retreat wouldn’t trigger any alarms with the border official. At the duty free shop, the salespeople outnumbered the shoppers. The decrease in Canadians traveling to the US was evident. I was able to drive right to a border official - no lineup at passport control. Then I made my way to the I-90 eastward to the Rochester area. 

Once I arrived in the area, I went directly to Hobby House to do some shopping. I bought a couple of fabrics that would be possible candidates for the Stacy Nash Animal Cracker chart, Clovis, that I wanted to start at the retreat. 

Just inside the door was an array of charts just released at Market 2025. I grabbed the Spring Floral Sampler by Sweet Wing Studio. 

I did some more looking around and spotted a couple of things some of my stitcherly peeps might like. Jen1 liked this chart.

Hobby House has been at their new location for about a year. It is spacious and houses needleworks, quilting, embroidery, and wool felt supplies.

Through the doorways on the right is the quilting area and through the doorway on the left is the fabric room - shelved by designer.

There was quite a lineup at the checkout counter.

A shuttle bus ran continuously from the stitching venue - Woodcliff Hotel and Spa - and the shop. On my way out, Lynn from Washington was the sole person waiting for the bus so I gave her a lift to the hotel.

There were almost 300 stitchers in attendance so we were located in the event centre - a big tent to the left of the hotel.

When we entered, we could see most of the tables were filled but there was still room at the back so we found seats there. It turned out to be a good choice because there was lots of natural light. 

There were 30 tables with 10 seats each. 

Brenda from ‘Brenda and the Serial Starter’ came by our table and chatted with Lynn who had previously met her at another retreat. I snuck a photo.

I got started on my Clovis project. I believe he is a cross-dressing badger (kinda like Dame Edna). He looks very dashing in his dotty dress and floral apron.

A woman at the next table gave each of us our choice of project bag. I loved the one with flip flops all over it.

It even had a little flip flops charm on the zipper tab.

Such cute fabric!

Someone else gave us these smaller zipper bags

which contained a hand-dyed Classic Colorworks floss and some Treasure Braid.

Someone else dropped off a scissor fob for each of us.

One of the ladies at our table gave us each a little treat bag.

We stitched throughout the afternoon. Dinner was buffet-style, offered several items, and was delicious. I tried a little of everything: penne in a tomato sauce, breaded chicken, Caesar salad, bean and sausage salad, and a sausage. Dessert was a strawberry shortcake.

I didn’t stay much into the evening to stitch. I hadn’t had much sleep the night before - I was just too excited - and tired from the drive and all the excitement. My room at the nearby Holiday Inn Express was very comfortable.

The next morning was the big reveal of the collaboration between Beth Twist of Heartstring Samplery and Paulette Stewart of Plum Street Samplers.

The patterns were based on love letters between Revolutionary War hero and founding father of the United States, Henry Knox, and his wife Lucy. They are three pillows oriented vertically,

which, when stitch vertically in sequence form a long bell pull.

We received the two charts, a 9” x 36” piece of custom, hand-dyed fabric, and Hobby House zipper bag which contained the required flosses.

Buffet lunch was also provided - hot dog, burger patty (I only took half of one), baked beans, roasted potatoes, macaroni and lettuce salads. Dessert was a selection of gourmet cookies. Another delicious catered meal.

After lunch I went back to Hobby House to do more shopping.

This velvet strawberry caught my eye. The ‘seeds’ were HotFix jewels. Poppy asked me to get her the Lady Dot Creates velvets for the project.

For myself, I picked this up.

And a kit 

To make this little wall hanging. It involves making lots of half-square triangles, quilting, wool felt appliqué, and buttons.

At the checkout, I admired the sampler on the wall. After watching Brenda and Laura’s video today I learned it is a Hobby House Press design, ‘Dasher and Dancer Quaker Sampler’. 

I’m not sure I want to stitch something that big, especially something seasonal but when I checked their website, I noted a smaller one, called ‘Merry Christmas’. It requires 3 skeins of floss with stitched on 40ct with one strand. AND it’s available by .pdf.

When I got back to the event centre, we each had received an Anabella design of the Hobby House Landing building.

At dinner time, Lynn and I went to a nearby Mexican restaurant, Adelita’s, and I dropped her off at her hotel. I then headed to my hotel for a relaxing evening. 

This morning there was nothing formal planned at the retreat other than open stitching. The brilliant sunshine encouraged me to skip stitching and just start for home. I had a couple of interesting podcasts going and made good time. There were only 2 booths open at the border so it took about 15 minutes to cross. I noted most of the licence plates were from the US. 

All in all it was a fun weekend incorporating many of my favourite things: a road trip, stitching retreat, good food, stitcherly shopping, comfy lodgings, and a mental break from life.

Part Five - Over the Top of Norway

We continued on our way, heading over the top of Norway, disembarking at Honningsvag.

We piled onto a bus so we could drive up to Nordkapp, the North Cape, the northernmost point of Europe.

We entered the North Cape Hall. It had panoramic views, a cafeteria, post office, small theatre, WCs, and a large gift shop. (This is someone's photo taken in the summer). 

With the thawing of the snow in the sun and the freezing in the wind, it was quite icy. We donned our crampons for the short walk to the monuments. The Milestone Monument points out to Barents Sea. The sun was delicious but it was very windy.

Jennifer and Norbert climbed up to the sculpture platform.

The actual northernmost point is that white point but it's only reachable on foot.

 

At this point we were about 2100km from the North Pole.

On our way back down to the ship, we saw several road crews hauling snow away.

The next day we arrived at Kirkenes, our easternmost port. 

During WWII, Kirkenes was occupied by Germans and heavily bombed. A huge bomb shelter was excavated in the middle of town. 

Thousands of people would gather there during air raids. The shelter was quite roomy and well lit. 

From Wikipedia:

"During the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, Kirkenes was one of the many bases for the German Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe's Jagdgeschwader 5, and apart from that, the area served as a main base for supplies to the Murmansk front.

People of Kirkenes returning home after the Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive.

Reportedly, Kirkenes was second after Malta on a list of European towns experiencing air-raid alarms and attacks, with more than 1,000 alarms and 320 air attacks. The town was released by the Red Army on 25 October 1944 when the German Wehrmacht was pushed out and fled the area after having destroyed most of the remaining infrastructure. Only 13 houses survived the war.

We then were taken to a facsimile of a border crossing between Russia and Norway. The numbers on the posts indicate what number the border crossing was for each country.

We then were taken by bus, the 15km to the Russian border.

We could look through but, of course, could not venture beyond the gate.

Border selfie.

This completed the northward leg of our cruise. Some passengers (not in our group) disembarked here to fly back to Bergen. New passengers joined the cruise for the southward leg. 

to be continued...