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!

Croc additions

It wasn't until I packed my green crocs that I noticed underneath, the words "Made in Canada" - which explains all.

Since being here and seeing so many croc wearers, I've also noticed q few croc accessories. Yesterday, we came across a shop selling "turbo straps" and many of the "little girly" croc wearers have customised their crocs by fitting specially made jewels and little button-type shapes (flags and fruit etc) into the holes. Is there no end?!

 

Joined the croc club

We drove out of Toronto today, to St Jacob, a Mennonite village where there was a Farmers Market. As we arrived, the heavens opened and this was the first stall we saw.

I tried on several pairs. This was only a small selection- there were as many crocs again on the other side of the board, more inside the stall and still more through the other side on the next pathway. Colours included silver and a kind of gold and did you note the price?! At more than 2 CA$ to a £, $34 was a snip!

The Mennonite girls running the stand were running to and fro looking for different sizes in different colours for their customers, whilst squeegeeing the huge puddles which were forming all the time. Of course, they were very conservatively dressed in their long, dark dresses and bonnets - and black crocs!

This pair came home with me - Mark chose the colour!

Holiday shopping

When on holiday, "normal" people go to the tourist hot-spots, to the museums and the galleries, perhaps.

Where do the Thomases go but to Lee Valley Tools? Someone, on some blog or other had recommended these Watchmaker cases and I felt I needed to see them in person. I've heard people from outside the UK wax lyrical about Lakeland Plastics before and thought that it was a little sad...but here we were, in our element amidst the tools and hardware.
But the Holy Grail was there. One will come home with me, and more will be ordered...

Later on this morning, whilst I browsed in The Paper Place Mark found a seat and settled down to wait patiently for me as I looked around this fantastic store. The delightul ?owner? came over and asked if I was the wife of "the guy over there reading the Lee Valley Tools catalogue" and when I admitted that, yes, I was, she also went into raptures over the place!

Good to know we are not the only people to find pleasure in odd places!

BTW, The Paper Place is a terrific source of bookbinding stuff, things Japanese and - surprise surprise - paper!!