Three Bears

I met my long-time friend, Paulette, for lunch today. We met over 25 years ago while playing in the same community concert band. She played the flute, and I the oboe. We have kept in touch via Facebook all this time and get together for a gabfest once or twice a year.

Since she's known me through many of my ups and downs, I consider her a special friend - one who really merited one of my amazing little knitted bears. This is my second-newest one and as yet he has no name.

But he's dang cute, and little like Paulette. She gets the honour of naming him, too, as I hadn't already assigned one to him.

My crafty friend and travel buddy, Poppy, asked me to make one for her, a girl,  with a sweater in her favourite colour - watermelon. She even gave me some watermelon-coloured yarn as, believe it or not, I didn't have any already in my stash. She gets to name her, too.

I delivered it today so she could take her to Vancouver this weekend.

She seems to have settled in as indicated by Poppy's latest text.

With Poppy away for a week next week, I thought Sparky could use some company so Everett went to live with him, too.

Everett, too, has settled in nicely in East Oshawa. In fact, he looks pretty cool just hanging out. Hopefully Sparky won't get too lonely with Poppy away next week. I'm pretty sure Everett will be good company for him.

I know these three bears will live happily ever after. 

Stitch North Spring 2026

Poppy, Barb, and I arrived at the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Brampton last Thursday night at 6, registered, and unloaded the car. Then we headed to Pos Bueno Mexican Restaurant downtown for supper. Seeing as it was my birthday, the management gave me celebratory churros for dessert. Yum!

Friday morning, Barb and Poppy were close to the front of the line to get into the ballroom and secured spots for us. We were joined by Katie and Clare - both from Toronto. They got a great table beside a wall where we could lean our bags, and with an electrical outlet nearby; handy for charging lamps between bouts of stitching.

There were about 32 tables with 7 chairs at each. Most chairs were filled, although we did have an empty (defective) chair at our table - so only 6 of us.

I started two projects:

Hello from Liz Mathews’ ‘Merry Christmas Quaker Star’ from last year’s Jingle Ball. I’m doing it with the called-for DMC floss, 1 over 1 on 28ct Monaco from my stash.

I hauled out this long-abandoned sea turtle project,

and suffered my first casualty. Fortunately, one of the vendors,  ‘Gammas Treasures’ supplied bandaids to our retreat goodie bag.

I also had one finish - the Pumpkin Biscornu. I’ll sew it together and stuff it when I get back home.

As I wrote this on Friday, I was scarfing down popcorn up in our room, preparing to go back downstairs for ‘Make Your Own Sub’ for supper.

Door prize tickets were drawn at 8pm (didn't win anything) and the ballroom stayed open for stitching until 11pm. 

We stitched 'til about 9:30.

Days later...

Saturday we continued stitching. We had lunch each day at Wendy's/Tim's across the parking lot and went for dinner at Boston Pizza just down the road on Saturday night.

This was as far as I got on my 'birthday start'. 

My new stitchy friend, Amanda, showed me more features I could use on my Markup R-XP software - making it easier to stitch from black and white charts.

With my newfound knowledge, I was able to get a lot of stitching done on my Jan Hicks 'Love Birds'. Once home, I was quite obsessed with working on it some more.

Of course, Ernest was my supervisor.

Another project I finished was adding the 'bling' to my 'Smitten' project. I just need to figure out how I want to finish it. For scale, Ernest is 5 1/2" tall.

I participated in the smalls exchange. I had duplicates of the hummingbird biscornu and scissor case. Our table was the last one called. My donation and one other was left. This is what I received - a very cute, tiny, colourful flatfold. We stitched until 10pm.

Barb wasn't there when we took the group photo on Sunday before our departure; she was loading the car with her stuff. From left to right: Poppy, Clare, me, Katie, and Amanda.

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole weekend. Getting there and home via the $$$ 407 $$$ was a delight.

On Monday morning, I surveyed the stitchers and MaryK was keen to attend Stitch North in the fall and has consented to be my roomie. Last night I signed up for the retreat and booked our room. She was going to sign up today.

It's always fun spending time with enthusiastic stitchers. There were lots of vendors but I didn't buy much and nothing for myself. My current stash is vast so I'm hard pressed to expand it unless I have a use for any stitching item I would create.

Next up will be our stitch day this Saturday - the first Saturday of May. That's also the first day of the 'Victorian Embroidery Sampler' by Why Not Knitting Academy which I'll try to keep up with every day for a week. Videos of the live stream will be available for 30 days.

I've got it all kitted up and ready to go. 

Pumpkin Pincushion

While rummaging around in a pile on my desk, I found another abandoned project - a partially done Blackwork Pincushion that I started (then abandoned) back in 2022. Kim Beamish's design was in the October 2022 issue of Just Cross Stitch Magazine.

The partially completed  piece was stapled to a printed copy of the chart. I'm doing it on 14ct Aida because it's full coverage. This makes it very easy to stitch as one doesn't need to be quite so careful counting threads than if it were on an evenweave or linen.

I was missing one of the colours - DMC Variations 4124 and ventured to Michaels after stitching yesterday to pick it up. It's a variegated orange thread. 

Michaels didn't have it so I bought 4130 instead.

Well that didn't work at all. Instead, I decided to stitch with one strand each of the lighter and darker pumpkin colours in the pattern. That worked out much better. Then I added the blackwork.

There are two charts for this pattern - one for the top and one for the bottom. Initially I was going to use quilting fabric for the bottom but didn't find anything appropriate in my stash so have decided to stitch the bottom after all - basically the same.

Then came the hunt for more 14ct Aida fabric...

I seem to have given most of it away or stashed it someplace that I've forgotten about. The only white 14ct Aida I have is some Fiddler's Lite that I must have bought back in the Mesozoic Era for only $4.86 (plus tax, I'm sure).

Just out of curiosity, I did a search for what it costs today on the open market.

Yikes!

Since it's all-over coverage, it doesn't matter that it's a different colour fabric - as long as the fabric count is the same. 

Thursday's going to be a BIG DAY. The girlies are taking me out for brunch for my birthday, then I'm heading up to Quilter's Cupboard to take advantage of my 20% birthday discount. I have my eye on the wool felt appliqué kit - Fine Feathered Friends.

Not that I need any more fabric or projects (cough), but there may be something else that appeals to me.

Then I'll scurry home and get packed up to head to Brampton for the first weekend of the Stitch North Retreat with Barb and Poppy that begins the next day. 

There will be lots of vendors there selling hand-dyed fabrics, stitching supplies, project bags and stitching mats, needle minders, patterns, etc. Who knows what I'll be tempted to buy there?

But before all that festivity, tomorrow I'll be visiting my dentist to see about a broken tooth. The lingual cusp of one of my premolars cracked last week and is only held in place buy suction and the gum. I'm hoping it can be patched up so I can again chew on the left side of my mouth.  More work will need to be done on it, in fact I'm scheduled for a root canal on that tooth mid-May.

Another Project Finished

I've continued to work on the Silk Sampler from Yvette Stanton's 'Frisian Whitework' book and finished it last night.

It was quite different from usual stitching on linen in that most of the elements are over 3 threads, not 2 so looking for the more open holes doesn't work. 

I liked how easy it was to un-stitch when I found mistakes and usually could use the same strand of Perle cotton again. It used a lot of thread but only one ball of B5200 was required. I had two balls of it but one looked lighter than the other - almost like the one I was using was Blanc and the other was B5200 but they both had the same label. No matter, though, because I got the whole sampler done with the one ball.

Initially I was drawn to this design because my late stitching friend, Sharon, had this hanging in the foyer of her home and I used to admire it every time I saw it. She told me our stitching friend, Sylvia, had stitched it so I asked Sylvia about the pattern and it was she who told me about his lovely book.

Of course, I ordered the book and found the pattern. The original was stitched with many colours of hand-dyed silk threads.

It is lovely but I like the all-white version better.

I would like to order a frame for it but I'm still waiting for the rest of my previous order to arrive. I sent them an email yesterday so hope to hear from them about it soon. I'd like to get another couple of pieces framed, too. 

I've been on such a journey to get some of these old pieces finished and fully finished. I'm gearing up for my birthday start.

I've also been half-assed working on the biscornu stitchalong.

I got tired of counting a lot so added some grid lines last night. There's a lot of 'confetti' so only counting within a 10 x 10 area is a lot easier.

I have also signed up for a week-long stitchalong that starts on May 4. It's the Victoria Sampler Challenge from Why Not Stitching Academy.

It's a pincushion that features several different stitches - two colours of DMC thread and some beads.

I was going to print the design on Sticky Fabri-Solvy and stitch through it and the fabric. I decided instead to use my lightbox and trace the design right on my fabric. I ordered new Frixion pens because all my other ones are crap and the felt-tipped one that does work makes lines that are too thick for this project. 

I also want to start this design I've admired from Hobby House Needleworks.

I'm sure I have appropriate fabric in my stash. I just need to settle on what thread colour I'll use. DMC 115 is nicely variegated but there are bits of it where the red is too bright and I didn't want to be cutting those bits out (as I have on another project). I'll go through my thread stash and decide on a colour. 

All this planning and thinking about stitching is because I'm gearing up for Stitch North this weekend. Kimat Designs will be there as vendors so perhaps Meagan and Kim will have suggestions for me. I would like a slightly variegated thread for this.

When I take a break from stitching, I work on my Mystical Lanterns crocheting. I have about 40 of the 154 lanterns done. 

Every once and a while I pick up my Helix sock project. I'm about halfway through the foot of the second sock.

The light-coloured yarn will be removed later, the stitches above and below it will be picked up and the afterthought heel will be inserted. I forget why the stitch marker is there...

It's going to be a busy week.

Somewhat Obsessed...

Since getting reacquainted with the Yvette Stanton 'Silk Sampler' piece from her 'Frisian Whitework' book, I've become quite obsessed with working on it.

I had a lot of trouble doing the horizontal spacer lines of chain stitches until I ran some sewing thread through that line, spacing the running stitches in 3s - the width of each chain stitch. Much less bad language was uttered after that. 

Looking at this photo, I realized I've left out a couple of elements in band 5 which I'll go back and add.

My daffodils are in various stages of blooming - depending on where they are located and how much sun they get. 

In the back garden.

By the corner of the deck (SE exposure)

By the side door (full eastern exposure).

We still have about 6 weeks until the danger of frost is past. I look forward to all the colour in the garden.

This photo from last year popped up on my phone yesterday. It made me very happy. 

I'll be glad when all this gloomy, rainy weather abates.

Elim - Spring 2026

My guild offers a weekend retreat twice a year; usually the last weekends of April and September. This spring it was held last weekend because the organizer will be away the last weekend of April this year.

Poppy and I carpooled up to Elim Conference Centre on the east side of Pigeon Lake - north of Lindsay. We first unloaded our stitchery stuff at the Chapel where fourteen six-foot tables were set up for us. There were going to be a total of 26 stitchers over the weekend - some coming for the three nights, some for two, a couple for one night, and some only coming up for the day.

Most rooms have two beds but most of us don't share a room. There's a sink in many rooms and communal bathroom facilities. My upstairs room was very cozy but my preference is staying in one of the four downstairs rooms.

Thursday evening we had dinner at Jesse's in Ennismore. There was such a large serving of the souvlaki that I ordered I had the remainder for lunch the next day. Meal service started with dinner on Friday.

On Saturday morning, some folks ventured to Peterborough for a fibre festival but I already own all the fibre, and yarn that I have any need for so I chose to stay behind and stitch. 

One of the first projects I worked on was the wool felt appliqué watering can project.

This was a much more ambitious project than the previous wool felt 'bowl fillers' I had worked on. I'm a little over halfway done attaching the wool pieces, then will have the embellishing embroidery to do.

I then hauled out Newcastle Bouquet which I started about 5 years ago and keep abandoning. The gridding is really important because the elements are placed quite far apart. I managed to complete the two leaves on the bottom left and some of the outline of the flower above them.

Next was a little bit on the 'Bees in the Greenhouse' project - more of the white outline. I could have done more but other projects were calling to me.

I did a wee bit on the Spring Biscornu stitchalong.

Then completed the eyelet square in the second row, third column. I only had a diagonal of eyelets done in that square when I picked this project up. 

I just need to figure out what I'll do in the last two squares. One of my sources is an antique Danish pulled thread pattern book I picked up for $5 at a used bookstore in Sydney BC several years ago.

The one piece I did finish was 'Smitten' that I had started last year. I believe the 40ct hand-dyed fabric was a piece I bought in 2024 at Colorado Cross Stitcher in Loveland CO when I was out there visiting my longtime friend, Francey, in Fort Collins.

The pattern calls for snowflakes all around the mitten but I'm going to use HotFix 'bling' instead.

The last project I worked on was this whitework piece from Yvette Stanton's 'Frisian Whitework' book. 

I competed the second band at Elim and got a start on the third; then while still on a roll, I obsessively stitch the third and fourth bands yesterday at Monday stitching and last night. I brought my iPad into the dining room (where I was stitching) so I could continue binge-watching 'ER' episodes.

Because I didn't get to 'hurkle-durkle' yesterday as I was hosting stitching, I slept in this morning, listening to a podcast, alternating with some dozing off in my cozy bed. 

It took me a long time to fall asleep most nights at Elim so I had a lot of sleep/rest to catch up on.

It was a really fun weekend. When stitching at home, there are always household tasks to do that interrupt the stitching process. At a stitching retreat, we are without responsibilities and can indulge ourselves for extended periods of time.

Next week, Barb, Poppy, and I are heading off to the first weekend of Stitch North; another opportunity to get together with other stitchers and vendors for a lovely weekend away.

Spring Garden and Stitchalong

My daffodils out the side door are always early to bloom. They have a mostly sunny, eastern exposure beside a brick wall which absorbs then radiates heat. They're almost under the warm air vent from the dryer.

The daffodils in the front yard are in the shade so don't get the sun's warmth. We had a couple of inches of snow two nights ago and because it's not been above freezing, the snow hasn't  melted. The rabbit(s) have already nibbled on the tulips on the front right as can be seen with one ragged, bent-over leaf.

 

I've been binge-watching 'ER' on Netflix; I've watched 32 episodes (25 from Season 1 and 7 so far from Season 2). Only 299 (!) episodes to go. The show ran for 15 seasons with most seasons having 22 episodes.

With my nifty new 5.0 magnifying glasses I've been able to stitch in the evenings while seated comfortably on the sofa whilst watching TV. Part 3 of my Spring Garden Biscornu arrived in my mailbox today. I finished all of Parts 1 and 2 last night.

Part 3 is almost exactly the same as Part 1, just rotated clockwise 90°. I'm using colonial knots and since I'm stitching on a light green fabric, am using Blanc for the bee's wings. I'm curious to find out of there will be a beehive on every corner... stay tuned.