Seen on a shop doorway today

Today we spotted this notice on the entrance to a shop. Though the Grumpy Shopkeeper might think she is the only shopkeeper of such disposition, I thought she might like to know that she has some way to go to match this one! 

Another day, another yarn store

Today we had a mooch around the Berkshires, and, thanks to the landlady of the inn where we stayed last night, we found another amazing yarn store. This one goes by the name of Colorful Stitches and is in Lenox MA. What a wonderful selection of yarns were there to tempt me - though on closer inspection, many were Colinette, some were Rowan and others Debbie Bliss. Good to see the home team well represented! The skein which really wanted to come home with me is in the photograph - top left hand corner - a yummy melange of twinkle, eyelash, fuzzy and plain. But at $96 a skein (and I'm pretty sure I got that right) I really felt I could manage without.

We didn't only shop for yarn today. We also visited the Norman Rockwell house - terrific place - and Edith Wharton's home, The Mount which was also fascinating. My list of books to read when I get back gets longer, with the addition of The Age of Innocence. We also did a drive-by of the gingerbread house - errrmmmm, "quaint"? - and arrived at the Hancock Shaker Village twenty five minutes before closing. Drat. We will have to try to get to Canterbury later in the week.

So, we've had a busy day. Wherever we've been, people have commented about the security alert back home and the news channels here are, quite understandably, full of it. We have been pleased to be able to access the online BBC News website for a more familiar, authorative take on the situation. Let's hope the situation calms before we set off home in a week's time. 

Next in the "Yarn Shops of the World" series

Well, it was only just off our route today...

We're now in New England, in The Berkshires to be precise, and Webs was just a short detour from the Massachusetts Turnpike. My goodness! Jaw dropping stuff for people like me who think the Get Knitted warehouse in Bristol is large! Not only was there a huge showroom with a whole department for needles, another for weaving stuff (hardware, books and yarns), another section for spinning (again, hardware, books and fibres) there was almost every knitting yarn you could think of (and then some), books, patterns and magazines alongside.

So, just when I thought I'd seen it all, a helpful assistant showed me the "other stuff" - the warehouse! Almost as much again, in boxes and on shelves.

The staff were all delightful. Knowledgeable and prepared to offer opinion without being pushy. Understood about "unshopping" when the heap of yarn in the basket began to take over...

Confession time will be when I get home and I will reveal all my purchases. Yes, I left money there. My excuse is that I brought two skeins of yarn which I left with Nadine yesterday, and there was a two skein hole in my suitcase just begging to be filled. The rest can be squeezed in somewhere, I'm sure. 

Meeting friends

One of the joys of participating in internet-based groups is getting to know like-minded friends from all over the world, and better still, meeting up with them in person from time to time.

Today, I met Nadine Fenton, artist, list-friend and author of the Knitting with a Poodle blog, between Ottawa and Montreal in what she described wonderfully as "the largest log cabin in the world"!

Nadine is a talented jewellery designer and makes the most exquisite rings, bracelets and necklaces using textile techniques in metal and semi precious stones. Her work is absolutely stunning - beautifully finished and about to be shown in some very prestigious places! I felt very privileged to see some of her newest pieces up close and can only say that however good her photographs on the website are, in reality the pieces are even better!

We enjoyed company for lunch in the form of our husbands, Mark and Todd, both of whom had chosen to wear their hand-knit socks today and modelled them with pride!

A really super day...pity we can't do it more often!

Blog as aide memoire

We've had a great day here in Ottawa, mooching around Parliament and then the National Gallery. Made lots of lists, which I will surely lose, so I thought I'd blog a bit. I know where I'll find the information then! The picture above shows one of the five ladies in a collection of bronze statues commemorating the successful attempt to admit women into the Canadian Senate in 1929. What character!

We began our gallery visit with a beer in the cafe...but moved swiftly on to the contemporary galleries where photographs were allowed! This room came as a surprise, for not only were the exhibits somewhat minimal, we both found we liked them! The picture above shows four: a rope, a black steel cube, a heap of industrial felt and lastly,"cayman", an arrangement of blocks in the angle between floor and wall. It rather snook up on us, because we'd walked past it without noticing it until we saw the information card on the wall. Mark especially liked the pile of felt - some wonderful twists and turns in there and it had quite a bit of personality. Unfortunately I failed to note the artist details, for which I apologise.

Unsurprisingly, no photographs were allowed in the permanent collection, so a click will be needed to see the pictures. The National Gallery of Canada website is a great one, though, and I've had fun setting up my own "cybermuse" gallery. The first painting to really grab our attention was Jean Paul Lemieux' "The Noon Train". This deceptively simple oil painting seemed to hold our attention and we would have loved to have brought it home with us! Other paintings which caught our eye for a variety of reasons were:

William Brymner "In the Orchard" and "A Wreath of Flowers"; Gustav Hahn's "Hail Dominion", which was painted thinly onto burlap (hessian) leaving much of the weave showing through; George Reid "Ave Canada"; Franklin Brownell "Lamplight" and H Mabel May's "The Regatta".

We would have cheerfully brought home any of the "Group of Seven" works, but especially coveted the small oil sketches by Tom Thomson, a Canadian artist of whom we knew nothing until today. One of this group was Lawren S Harris, whose "Snow II" had both of us amazed by the use of colour - by painting the snow in the foreground a deep lilac, Harris managed to create a wonderful sense of light in the background. Clever!

Finally, a curiosity. We stood for a while working out how Angelique Merasty managed to create the patterns by biting into birchbark. Described as a "birchbark biter", she created the "bittenbark patterns" with her teeth... I guess that creative people have to use whatever means they can to create their art.

Wonderful day. Terrific gallery - and we only did the Canadian bit. Thought the European art could wait until our next visit!