Our First Getaway

Skip and I travelled to the area of my hometown for Thanksgiving. Normally, we'd attend the Brigden Fair which is always held on Thanksgiving weekend, but of course, not for the past two years. We took the iconic selfie at the Bluewater Bridge with a chip truck in the background. There were lots and lots of people out and about, enjoying the sights.

We visited my sister and brother-in-law for dinner on Saturday and met at the community dining room in their building for the big family dinner on Sunday. 13 of us were able to attend. It was a great opportunity for us to catch up on what everyone is doing with their lives after 2 years. The meal was so good, I didn't leave room for the many deserts that were offered. We came away well stuffed.

I didn't do any stitching while out of town. We briefly visited one friend - a former student - and dropped off all the vinyl LPs that have been sitting in my basement for decades. It was nice to hand them off to someone who would appreciate them rather than have them go directly in to the landfill.

We had fabulous weather on our drives to and from the Sarnia area. As I write this, it's 24C and brilliantly sunny. I call these lovely days in October 'bonus summer days'. Skip has been working in the garden, getting it ready for our first frost - which hasn't been predicated for the near future.

While away I watched several painting videos on YouTube. One of my favourite artist/teachers is Emma Jane Lefebvre from the Toronto area. Last week she inspired me to paint some maple leaves so out I went into the neighbourhood to find a leaf to trace. 

Watercolours certainly lend themselves to painting things in nature.

There are obvious pooling issues but I like the overall effect.

Near our community mailbox is some kind of oak tree so I tried an oak leaf next.

I have a smaller one I can use next (you can see part of its outline at the bottom of the above photo).

I next want to practice wet on dry techniques for a translucent layered look.

I also did a bit of stitching on the model for Teresa. My goal is to get it finished by the end of this month because I have several others I want to start or work on.

At the end of this month, some of us are going to attend our first stitching retreat since winter of 2020. A local quilt guild needed extra bodies to round out their minimum number required to run the retreat and invited several of us stitchers to attend. As we're all double vaccinated and in our area, our numbers are getting under control and slowly going down, we are pretty comfortable getting together with each other in a big space. We each get our own bedroom and meals will be presented farm house style. That is, rather than going through a buffet line, bowls of meat, potatoes, and veg will be put at each table for sharing among that smaller group.

It will be fun to get away with my stitching friends.

Today I also got a message from Caroline McNeill from (Stitching) Off the Grid Needlearts, that the True North retreat she's been planning to host since November 2020 may finally take place in Brampton ON in April 2022 pending confirmation of the dates and venue.  Poppy and I signed up for the original retreat but some of my other stitching friends are now hoping to attend. I am so hoping that with so many of us fully vaccinated, that our COVID numbers will stay low and we can officially feel like we've got COVID under control.