Titania

Oh, I can't believe I nearly forgot this! I finished Titania - a Mirabilia fairy - back in February, only 3 months after it needed to be finished in order to get it to my lovely sister for Christmas (good things come to those who wait?). So when we were in Canada, I brought the rolled up, unframed stitching with me and brought to a local framers (Broadmead Gallery - I don't think they have a website) in Saanich. Here are the results, which I am really pleased with (as is my sister!). I'm so proud of this, my first 'big' stitching project, and certainly the first that I have had framed so professionally. (Having been a bit shocked at the cost of framing, however, I'm not sure I'll be professionaly framing anything but very special projects going forward!)

Stash Heaven

Wow. I had SUCH fun yesterday! First we went to Broadmead Gallery in Saanich with Titania to get her framed up to finish off T's Christmas present. It transpires that framing is a bit more expensive than I thought, so Titania is now set to be T's Christmas and birthday present for at least the next 4 years. At least that'll give me a chance to finish a matching one for her :) I don't have any photos of the piece, as it will take a couple of weeks to frame up, and by then we'll have made it back to the UK (best not think about that), so hopefully Mum and Dad will take some photos and email them over when they pick it up.

Then we went to the Button and Needlework shop in View Street. What an amazing place - and the people were so helpful and wonderful. I could have spent hours there, in fact we probably spent at least two. I sadly don't have an LNS near me which is anywhere near this quality, so to see a shop where I can wander in and find an endless supply of really interesting charts, amazing linens, including lots of hand dyed ones, more threads than I could find in 6 shops together back home, not to mention a multitude of fancy buttons and lengths of ribbon, well, I did go somewhat nuts. Here is the photo of what I brought away with me, and it contains: The Token by Long Dog Samplers, Scarlet Berries by Carriage House Samplings, 32ct Pearled Barley linen from Lakeside Linen, 36ct Vintage Exemplar linen from Lakeside Linen, 34ct Cafe au Lait from Legacy Linen, and then one skein of Caron Waterlilies, 2 skeins of Needlepoint Inc Silks, 12 skeins of GAST threads, and 11 skeins of WDW threads. Phew. I had such a great time!

Oh, and yes, the reason I went there in the first place was to pick up a small charm for Northern Lights that Kim from the shop had ordered and put by for me. It was the least expensive thing I bought :)

A special note for anyone who is planning to go to Victoria or lives locally and hasn't seen this shop (although I can't imagine there are any local stitchers who have not!) - check out the walls, which are packed tightly from side to side and working up towards the top of the two-storey room with amazing examples of stitched pieces. It was the icing on the cake, and the work was BEAUTIFUL. It was really inspiring, especially as I found so many examples of things I wanted to do myself. I kept pointing pieces out to H commenting - I've started that one; or, Oh, look how beautiful that is; or, That's in my stash. I think he sort of glazed over halfway through :) I wish I had taken some photos, for it is truly wonderful. Check out their website at http://www.buttonedup.com as I think there are some photos of the shop in there.

Welcome to BC

We've arrived! After months of anticipation, we're finally in BC. It's wonderful.

I had decided to bring my stitching on the plane to keep me distracted and amused, so I found a couple of freebies to start stitching - a scissor fob design from Drawn Thread called 'Heart Throb' and a small square design which I'm hopefully going to turn into a biscornu - my very first attempt at one, so we'll see how that goes. And, just in time, the threads at left arrived in the post (Silk 'n' Colours Pink Elephant and Needle Necessities Island Butterfly). On Thursday night then, having confirmed on our trip to Dublin the week previous what stitching implements could be brought on board (sewing needles yes, scissors no), I cut all the threads I'd need for these two small projects into useable lengths, got the linen ready, and found a small frame. The 9-1/2 hour flight from Heathrow to Vancouver passed quickly enough, and my progress (Heart Throb top, biscornu bottom) is here:


I'm intending to use the Pink Elephant to replicate this design for the back of the fob, and the Island Butterfly is used for the biscornu. I'm now not convinced that such a dramatically hand-dyed thread was the way to go, but hey it's only my first try and we'll see how it turns out - live and learn.

I'm hoping to finish at least the scissor fob design whilst I'm here as Mum is a champion sewer, and I'm not 100% sure that I understand exactly what the finishing instructions are trying to tell me.

H's flight wasn't quite as comfortable as mine. He'd had a bit of a sniffle before we left, and Thursday was spent on a teambuilding exercise with his company. Whoever was organising it must have a small sadistic streak ... I know, what we'll do is we'll take a number of office-based staff who have minimal DIY skills, give them some rope, barrels, and twigs and ask them to McGyver up a raft! And then they can race that raft on a lake! In April, yes! ... Well, I guess you can imagine what happened next: having far more confidence than was warranted in their floating barrel(s), H and partner set out on the race, only to capsize at the furthest possible point from shore and then have to swim back towing what was salvageable of their former raft. A bit of discussion ensued ('No, just because you were first back with a broken bit of your raft in your hand doesn't mean you won' - 'But the rules didn't say you had to actually be on the raft to win the race' - etc), followed by a prize-giving, and suddenly H had been standing about drenched in lakewater in April temperatures for the best part of an hour. Throw in a bit of chilly recycled air for 9-1/2 hours, and I guess neither of us should have been surprised that he woke up with a full-blown fever and the worst cold he has had in 4 years on our first day here. But he's cheering up, helped no doubt by the gift of a set of golf clubs once we'd arrived!

We spent a couple of days with my sister and her boyfriend, and they took us to Little Mountain, aka Queen Elizabeth Park. Vancouver is beautiful at the moment - all the spring shrubs and plants are in full bloom, and the rhododendrons and tulips are particularly gorgeous. Right is H, sharing some sunny weather in the park with BC's emblem flower - the dogwood. Sister T and A are below, with a bit of the mountains behind them.

I spent a bit time on Sunday doing some stitching - apart from the small designs for the plane, I brought Their Song with me as it has a small number of colours, making it easier to travel with, and frankly I am just loving this design and can't wait to spend even more time on it! An early start on Sunday (for some reason T and A weren't up at 6am...) meant I could devote a few hours to it, and then our trip over to the Island on the ferry meant I had a couple more, so progress is on the left. In fact I'm going to finish off this post and find a quiet spot to get this out again.

Once we arrived on the Island last night, I gave Mum her joint birthday and Mother's Day present - Mum's Heart I. And she loved it! Photo - FINALLY - at right. I'm so glad she loves it, and so glad I can finally post the photos from this project! I'll also now post the Mum's Heart II progress photos, as I know that H's mum will never stumble across them by accident.

I also gave T her (extremely) belated Christmas present, which is a Mirabilia design - 'Titania, Queen of the Faeries' (at right) is I think the full title of it. T has had a life-long fascination with fairies, and also a life-long streak of middling to poor luck, so hopefully this fairy will look out for her and keep her safe. I'm taking it to a framer in Saanich in the next week, and Mum and Dad will pick it up to bring to T for her to finally put on her wall. It's the first big design I ever stitched, and it was so rewarding to see her face light up when she saw it. I have two more Mirabilia charts in my stash pile, and although I was still learning most of the way through it, it still took me 5 months, so I don't know if I'll pick up the next one in a mad hurry. I'll maybe give myself a bit of a rest!

So I think that's brought you up to date for our trip, and I'll hopefully post a bit more when I'm here. I wish everyone as relaxing a time as I am having!