Tag Archives: Vacation

Here’s Halifax!

We’ve arrived in Halifax – yay!  It’s a lovely sunny evening and the town looks peaceful and old… so much gorgeous stone… I’m a happy girl!

Lighthouse

Lighthouse

Helen met us at the rail station as promised, and drove us to the Inn.  What a beautiful place – multi-roomed, a kitchen, everything one could need… and there are slanted ceilings and hidey holes.  I love it!  There will be pictures tomorrow (or soon).

In addition to picking us up, Helen brought over a lovely bouquet of flowers that were actually from the Halifax Public Garden – while I don’t know what the flowers are called, I can appreciate their beauty and luscious scent.

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Beautiful bouquet from the Halifax Public Garden

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After cleaning up and getting settled, we went for a walk along the waterfront.  There are still blossoms here – we get to experience them again!

Blossoms and Bo

Blossoms and Bo

We both kept taking pictures long after the light had become scarce – there’s just so much to photograph here – the contrast of old and new, everything and anything to do with water, etc.  After wandering for a few hours we found a pub with live music.  Perfect!  Had a great dinner and wandered back to the Inn.

I’m very much looking forward to the garden tour tomorrow.  Expect more flower/plant photos!

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On the train again…

Not that I’m obsessing or anything, but it’s so nice to have WiFi access again… and I’m even on a train!  More on this later!

Yesterday was Toronto day, although we didn’t really take advantage of being in the “big city”.   After resting, we headed out to meet Carol (from the Canadian Garden Council) for dinner.  She’s the person who first informed me that I had won the prize, and she’s been my contact for everything and anything… she’s fabulous!  We laughed a lot and she shared some of the funniest stories I’ve heard in a while.  I’m so glad we were able to get together.  I found out that the prize I won isn’t going to be offered again – the new one is a more scaled down version.  Yay 2014 prize!!

Carol and I

Carol and I

We wandered back to the hotel after dinner, and that’s about the extent of our Toronto experience.

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The Flatiron Building – across from restaurant. I love this building!

This morning we were up bright and early-ish for the next leg of the journey.

Outside Union Station

Outside Union Station

What can I say about the Toronto to Montreal leg?  They wanted to feed us… constantly.  We had snacks, meals, constant beverages, and then they brought out either individual cheese plates or ham/cheese sandwiches – we said a resounding “no!” at that point.  The staff was, as has consistently been the case, amazing.  Such good service, and always so friendly and respectful.  I don’t think I’m going to be able to travel if it’s not first class anymore… I like it!

I remember the word for "flour" from school

I remember the word for “flour” from school

After that journey, we started on the next leg – Montreal to Halifax.  This is another sleeper car journey.  Remember how I said the previous sleeper car was tiny?  Nope… it was palatial.  This one is still like playing house in a dollhouse, but now we’re in the doll’s dollhouse!  This is a newer train – bought from Europe.  These cars were originally going to be used as Chunnel cars, but for some reason they weren’t, and Canada got a good deal on the purchase of them.  At dinner we sat with two men who work for ViaRail and we learned an awful lot – it was educational and entertaining!

Moving around the bunks when they were set up was… um… entertaining – yeah, I’ll go with entertaining.  Peals of laughter (some of it slightly hysterical) could be heard from our cabin as we attempted to get comfortable.  The laughter was a little subdued this morning as space frustration set in.  We are, however, in overall good spirits – we just have the addition of a few new bruises and bumps on the head.

We’ll be arriving in Halifax this evening.  In my head I had it wrong and thought we were on this train for two nights.  Even though we slept well, a full size room is going to be heaven!  Helen, one the senior gardeners from the Halifax Garden is going to come pick us up from the train station.  People have been so nice!  We do the tour of the garden tomorrow (Tuesday). Looking forward to it!

Going over a bridge - Montreal

Going over a bridge – Montreal

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Studio fun!

Wow… it has been a long time since my last post, but I’m back in creative-land.  I spent some time in the studio this weekend, and enjoyed it muchly.  A lot of time was spent touching up some older pieces of jewellery – resizing, adding a new patina, that sort of thing. The majority of time was spent turning a pendant into a bracelet.  Here is the pendant:

Flower pendant

Flower pendant

I’ve always liked it, but haven’t worn it in ages. The inspiration for the design was from a picture in one of Lemony Snickett ‘s “A Series of Unfortunate Events” books.  There was a picture of a grappling hook that made me want to make jewellery.  My design turned out more like a flower than a mechanical object.

I decided this was a perfect item to set a stone on.  I found a lovely little fluorite cabochon, and after a few missteps, I added on a bezel setting (I am SO out of practice!). I then hunted through my larger scrap bits for silver for the links.  I heated/melted the metal using a process called reticulation… the end result can look like a landscape, and it is totally unpredictable.  Here’s how it turned out:

Flourite and sterling silver bracelet

Flourite and sterling silver bracelet

I tend to make a new piece of jewellery prior to trips… this will be my Via Rail bracelet as the trip I won is coming up soon… yay!

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I have holiday brain…

… so this may be a rather rambling post.  I’m coming to the end of a very relaxing week of vacation, and I’m feeling well-rested and content.

I’ve spent some time this week looking through books on jewellery making and getting excited about going back to the basics – I’ve gotten quite lazy with aspects of jewellery making – I don’t remember the last time I set a stone, and I have some gorgeous stones waiting to become part of a piece of jewellery.  A few ideas have already been sketched out… Yay!  We also took some photos of my jewellery on the beach and other locales.  Once the pictures get edited (gack!) I’ll be posting them.

We spent some time at Qualicum Beach and visited a wonderful shop called Let’s Knit!  I found some fabulous roving there – hand-dyed and a very different texture from what I already own.

Happy new roving

Happy new roving

Although I had brought a healthy selection of roving to work with, I thought I should start with the local stuff.  This is the beginning of an experiment…

An experiment

An experiment

I’m working on silk chiffon and plan to wet felt it (Nuno felting), but rather than place loose bits of roving on the chiffon and wet felt it right away (hoping desperately for a non-windy day or the roving tends to fly), I needle felted it first, and have let the needles ruche the fabric.  When I get home I will wet felt it and then start working into it properly.  I look forward to seeing what it becomes, texture and image-wise!  I consider this just the primer… many more layers to follow!

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