Stitching Weekend

Jen1, Barb, and I headed off on Friday morning to the fall stitching retreat at the Elim Retreat Centre on Pigeon Lake. It is sponsored by our Trillium Embroidery Guild.

We did some shopping at Fowler's Corners, picked up lunch food on the way in Bridgenorth and arrived at about 2pm where most of the others were already checked in and set up.

After stitching for the rest of the afternoon, we drove to Ennismore to have dinner at Jesse's Tap and Grill.  My thin crust, "What's Old is New" pizza was delicious. Everyone else really liked their dinner selection as well. The restaurant was so good, I'd even consider making a special trip up there to dine there again. The rest of our weekend meals were served at the camp.

I by no means got pictures of all the projects people were working on but here's a smattering of what went on:

Kathy finished up this little Christmas ornament.

Jeanette got her drawer pulls all done. She only needed to select and stitch 9 of the 12 squares for the jewelled box.

Here's a closeup of one of the bejewelled pulls. Each drawer front was about 1.75" square.

The quilters, Louise, Lynn and Amy occupied Amy's bedroom and set up a small table to accommodate their three sewing machines. A night stand was the ironing board and a TV tray was the cutting table.

One of Amy's projects was to finish this quilt block that she will use for a pillow top.

The rest of us managed to spread ourselves around the bank of tables that filled the main room.

Jeanette had a schedule laid out for herself but she never did work on the pomegranate on this stunning Alison Cole piece.

Carol worked on this intricate, embroidery piece.

It rained much of the weekend but on our way to meals we got this lovely view.

Back at it after lunch we laboured on - some on one project and others on a rotation of projects.

Jennifer did her first thread painting project, embroidering a pansy onto muslin for a nametag.

She was pretty proud of herself, completing the project in one night.

Now she needs to decide how she will finish it into a nametag.

I started the goldfinch kit. I'm going to do all the stitching first then add the beads.

I also started the Jacobean crewelwork pillow that I had ordered last winter.

There are about 30 colours of yarn and 40 embroidery stitches.

I first learned the fishbone stitch on the leaves. The stems were done in the (not surprisingly) stem stitch.

These leaves used the Cretan stitch and the stem was the whipped stem stitch.

Barb gave me the good idea to practice the stitches first.

I did a bit of work on my Bryggen piece and tackled much of the water when I got home last night.

The quilters emerged so we could all admire their work.

It was a very nice, relaxing weekend of chatter, laughter, good food, and good company.

Another Boat

Two days ago I had this much done.

Yesterday I started another boat on the Bergen Bryggen (wharf).

Last weekend, Jen1 and I attended the Woodstock (WooLstock) Fleece Festival. It was well-attended and lots of fun. I didn't buy much but do like looking at all the pretty things. We then ventured another 15 min. down the highway to Ingersoll and stopped in at Stitch-It Central which is an excellent stitchery/knitting/quilt shop in downtown Ingersoll. We discovered this place last May on our way to the Lucy Neatby class in St. Thomas and wanted to make a return visit.

This weekend I'm off to Rhinebeck with three Rhinebeck virgins. It should be a fun time. We plan to attend the Indie Marketplace at the Best Western on Friday night and after the festival on Saturday start for home and stay near Albany that night for about half the price of staying near Rhinebeck. The weather is forecast to be sunny and warm (24C) so no Rhinebeck sweater for me!

The weekend after will be a stitching marathon at the semi-annual stitching retreat sponsored by my embroidery guild the Trillium Embroidery Guild based in Whitby ON.  Basically we arrive at the lodge up north on Friday and stitch and gab until Sunday after lunch. Jen1 and Barb are driving up with me. It should be a good time.

Then the following weekend the three of us are off to the Needler's Retreat at Glen House Resort on the Ivy Lea Parkway near Gananoque. There, we'll get to meet up with about 57 other knitters, including Jen 2 and we'll take part in three knitting workshops, a 'fashion show'. and share our favourite knitting books. All in a relaxing resort on the north shore of Lake Ontario.

This is the 'most wonderful time of the year' for knitters/ stitchers.

Some Progress

I've been catching up on shows that were PVRd while we were away on vacation. This gives me lots of time to knit and stitch.

I continue to work on the Bryggen cross-stitch and have started the boats.

While in Bergen, at the same shop where I bought the cross-stitch kit, I ventured downstairs to the yarn shop and found this:

The Dale Garn Arne & Carlos Advent Calendar

Every day has a different ornament pattern. This is the Gingerbread man.

On the back of each page is a recipe or an alphabet to personalize the ornament.

Here's the recipe for Gingerbread - Pepperkaker.

European recipes are metric and express quantities with degrees Celsius, grams, etc. like Canadian recipes. However, unlike in Canada, liquid measurements deciliters (dl) are used. This recipe also uses teaspoons (ts). I will use my trusty Google translate app and try out this recipe.

Arne and Carlos have lots of merchandising in Scandinavia and, I assume, the rest of Europe. In a small city's wine shop I found their boxed wine with several knitting projects adorning the box.

'Cozy' wine.

I sure hope these guys are getting wealthy on all this fame.

It certainly made it fun for me, a knitter, to find knitting-themed items while on my trip.

Feeling Lazy

I find it takes me about a week to recover from an active trip or long drive. This trip recovery has been no exception.

I haven't accomplished a heck of a lot but I have been stitching away on my Bryggen cross-stitch.

Once I get the buildings done, I can start the wharf and boats.

I attended the Warkworth Spinners and Weavers' Spin In in Campbellford on Tuesday. It is always held the first Tuesday of October and I have attended many times.

Two years ago we filled the hall with about 90 people. Last year was significantly fewer - maybe 60 and this year even fewer. I think everyone was surprised at how few people turned up. This year no one from my group won a thing! And I had even bought raffle and 50/50 tickets. I think the guild will be re-thinking how they advertise the event. I know I have trouble finding anything about it online.

While in Campbellford, we went to the Empire Cheese Factory where I bought some cheese curds, 4yr. old cheddar and garlic aioli spread. Yum! I also popped into the thrift shop downtown and picked up 3 pairs of blue jeans @ $1 each (no tax) for a denim quilt I want to make.

We have nothing planned for Thanksgiving this weekend but we may go into the city to see Scooter and perhaps take in a movie.

Home Again

Skip and I are home from our wonderful Scandinavian tour and have more or less recovered from the jet lag. We both acquired colds from our tour manager but are almost over those as well.

Before we left, I googled yarn shops in all the cities we'd be visiting. The search window is under the 'Popular New Yarns' on the Yarns page in Ravelry.

I had an opportunity to visit one in Copenhagen but wasn't in the mood to make the extra effort to get there. However, when we were in Stockholm, on our walking tour of Gamla Stan (the old city) I saw the tote bag I wanted in the window of Makeri 14. The red heart is the location of the store.

I was thrilled to have found it as there was no other souvenir that I was looking for. There were lots of items I could have purchased on the tour - sweaters, mittens, gloves, hats, figurines, yarn, etc. but at this point we are trying to get rid of 'stuff' not acquire it so I limited myself to things I'd use regularly.

Our last city was Bergen, Norway. It is very picturesque. Our hotel was in the old part of town just up one block from Bryggen (the old wharf area) which is a UNESCO heritage site.

One of the first stores we saw on our walk along the waterfront was a store called Nilssen which featured knitwear, stitchery and kits, and in the basement yarn and patterns.

I wanted to buy an iconic design and selected this one from Permin. It was pricey - about $50 Canadian but the threads were already separated out on cards.

I decided to not use the Aida fabric included in the kit and when I got home, I popped over to my LSS (Local Stitchery Shop), Hedgehog Stitchery to buy some nice, 28 count white linen fabric for the project.

While there, I picked up some linen fabric to replace the perforated canvas that came with a Buttons and Beads kit I had purchased there before my trip.

The fabric was almost an exact colour match to the perforatedpaper.

On one of our driving days in Norway, we stopped for lunch in a little town called Gol (rhymes with 'cool' or 'fool') where there was a very cute and well-stocked yarn shop called Strikkeglede (Knitting Joy). I purchased two 50g balls of Fabel sock yarn that were very reasonably priced - about $6 Cdn if I recall.

I had brought the Zigzagular pattern with me on the trip so was able to start the first sock. I started with a 2.5mm needle and 72 sts and went down to a 2.25mm needle for the heel and foot.

I finished it the other day and have started the second one.

I used a Fish Lips Kiss (FLK) heel.

Fabel yarn is notorious for being difficult to match for identical twin socks so I didn't even bother trying to match the second sock.

I'm currently trying to edit my photos to get ready to created a digital scrapbook of my trip. It's going slowly but I want to finish before my memories get vague.

Tomorrow several of my spinning buddies and I are heading to the annual Spin In in Campbellford, ON. It's organized by the Warkworth Spinning and Weaving guild and is held on the first Tuesday of October every year.