a fine kettle of stitches

What a busy month April was! A bunch of different fibre events, a birthday and some shopping, too.

My birthday was last month, and my parents gave me a wonderful present — a Golding Ringspindle! It’s fabulous and beautiful. I fluffed up some wool and spun up some amazingly fine yarn. A little more practice and I’ll give that polwarth I got at London-Wul a go. I’ll post a photo as soon as I can find the basket I put it in…

The third Saturday of April (and of every month if you want to join us) was the second Anything Fibre gathering at the Sussx Artist’s Co-Op. I took a couple of bits to work on. My “Birds of a Feather” mat has reached the background filling stage and I’ve decided to embroider it instead of hooking.

I also took a lace knitting piece, but I won’t be doing that again — I had to reknit a row and then I found a stitch that had dropped several rows. It was a small group this week so we sat in the cafe and enjoyed the sunshine. I really enjoy this group since there are many different crafts going on and so many things to talk about. I would like to see it happen more often, even if it’s only a small group that gathers.

I go to rug hooking twice a week most weeks, and a good thing too because for a while that was the only time I spent hooking. This month, though, there were a couple of other opprtunites to get some work in on the mats.

First was the annual demo at the Saint John City Market. The Sussex Tea Toom Hookers and the Carnegie Hookers from Saint John go and spend a few days talking and demonstrationg and having lots of fun. I went on Thursday with D and L and we took Olive, our mascot with us. Olive is a wonderful carving my uncle Peter made of a hooker hard at work over her frame.
There were some Carnigie hookers with us and Sande Gunning brought in lots of lovely things from her shop in Glenwood. She got in another bolt of the lovely heathered green I missed last time around so I picked up some of that along with some other beautiful wool fabrics. Of course, I had to draw up a new piece to work on that required some actual hooking.

I also managed to fit in some shopping at Cricket Cove I picked up some Malabrigo laceweight, and now I really get what peoople are talking about when they say this stuff is soft. Knitting with kittens, indeed! I wish I’d picked up another skein though. The price was really good, and I’m a big girl, so what I have will only make a shoulder shawl for me. I also got a skein of Kreyon sock yarn. No plans for that yet, but I’m thinking some colourwork might be nice. And I got another bamboo circular, 3mm. I passed Coles bookstore on the way back and founda couple of items on the discount table, the
Little Box of Scarves, and Hip Knits. I know a couple of people who will love the patterns in these.

One Tuesday we went to the Trites family sugar camp for some hooking. My friend Joy arranges this each year with her husband’s family, and both times I’ve gone its been an absolutely gorgeous day. There were hookers from Moncton, Saint John, Sussex, Fredericton, and Dorchester.Quite a mix for there being only about 30 of us!

After walking in to the camp (it’s a bit of a walk, but a lovely one), we spent the morning hooking and chatting and having an all around good time. The Trites boys served us up a delicious lunch of buckwheat pancakes, maple baked beans, sausages and, of course, maple syrup. I picked up some maple cream for my parents (which they seem to be enjoying despite the squashing it got on the way home!), too.

You can see all the photos from the Sugar Camp here

I’ve been working on some knitting as well, but that’ll have to wait for the next post