Off The Grid NeedleArts

You will be able to purchase registration on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 at 6pmEST

The retreat will be held at the Courtyard Marriott Brampton/Toronto on Sept25-27, 2020. You are welcome to come on the Thursday night to meet with other stitchers in the lounge area.

One registration per person please! Retreat Fee: $130 + HST (13%) = $146.90  (approx. $113 USD)
Included in the Retreat Fee:• Stitching Room available from 7am-11pm – there is a lounge space for small group stitching outside of these hours.• Stitching room available beginning early morning of Friday, September 25, closing at noon on Sunday, September 27

• Pizza Night on Friday evening!

• Swag Bag!

• Access to vendors who are attending and/or selling during the retreat 

NOT included in the Retreat Fee:• Guest room rental: $149 per night + Taxes (does NOT include breakfast) — you will be provided with a link after registration to book your room!!

• Airport transportation to/from the hotel – • Airport transportation to/from the hotel – you will need to arrange to the hotel, Taxi/Uber/Lyft. The hotel can arrange return to the airport $30 flat rate taxi.

• Transportation to any other destinations in the area

• Any meals not specifically included above

BEFORE attending StitchNorth Retreat, you will be required to sign the Stitch North Retreat liability waiver. You will be contacted to complete and sign the waiver within the next 60 days. 

REFUND POLICY:Cancellation more than 30 days before the retreat:• Let us know if you need a refund. If we can find someone else to take your place, you will receive a 100% refund. Interest is strong so we can likely find someone!

Less than 30 days before the retreat:• No refunds. During this period, final preparations are being made for the event and it will be too disruptive to accommodate cancellations. Hard costs are incurred for the retreat and we need to ensure those are covered. Thank you for your understanding.

Trying to figure out the new landscape of WordPress to be able to publish details of the upcoming retreat for those not on FaceBook. Might need to get my 11 year old to help me. Ooof.

More tomorrow afternoon.

Me circa 1980ish, and as others have pointed out – sporting an awesome tote bag.

When we’re little and we think about what we want to be when we grow up, it seems like such a wide open world. We can do or be anything. From a young age, I knew I wanted to be a musician – a performing musician on a proper stage with fancy dress clothes playing beautiful music. I love playing the flute and the piano. I was lucky enough to have parents who trusted my decision to attend University and work towards my Performance major future. Fast forward a few years, a few new hobbies and a new found love of all things craft related – playing my instruments started to take a back seat. Creating new things with beautiful materials occupied all of my free time and when I wasn’t making, I was dreaming of making new things.

This past year has brought amazing change and new growth. In my 40’s, I appear to be making a career change and moving away from music towards being able to put all of those dreams of what I can create into full time work. The opportunity to share with an online community the passion with which we approach our daily craft has been rewarding. New friendships with kindred spirits all over the globe have been more than I could have ever hoped for. As a child, a frequent comment on my report card was, “Caroline would do better to talk less to her neighbour and apply herself to her work.” or “excellent communicator” or some other way of saying that I talk too much. Now, I like to think that I was simply preparing for my later life path. Thank you for reading my blog, watching my videos, joining with me on the FB group, Instagram feeds, and supporting Evertote by buying project bags.

If you’re interested, I chatted with Gary and Christine of Fiber Talk (I didn’t want to be rude and tell them that they had spelled Fibre incorrectly… ) (just kidding) (mostly) and they’ve posted our interview today. I like to think that my Elementary teachers would be proud, and say knowingly – “boy, could that girl talk a blue streak!”

Fiber Talk with Caroline Hauffe

Just checking in. I hemmed and hawed over paying to renew the hosting fees for this blog because with all of the other avenues of chatter – this one seems to get left behind. I decided to go ahead because sometimes it’s nice to have a place to direct traffic if we need it for whatever takes our fancy. You know, like a Modern Folk Embroidery SAL, or something like that………

So, my question to you is – are there actually people reading this? Do you want to see anything here in particular? More dog photos?

If you could leave me a wee little comment, I’d so appreciate it. There were 45 spam messages to clean out when I logged in to write this – it’d be nice to know there is a human that I’m writing for.

Thank you!

Caroline

This is Louise. About a month ago, she slipped on some ice and broke her kneecap in half. This was her first night out of the house since the accident, and it was to attend knit night at our local needlework shop here in London, ON – KnitStitch.

Louise will be writing the patterns for the tutorials that I am doing on my YouTube Channel – Off the Grid Needlearts, helping to teach my friend, Ginger Gerald Stitcher how to knit. We’ve just finished the series on how to make a dishcloth, and learning how to make a hat is next.

The list of supplies to join in the fun is as follows:

• 1 x 100g ball of worsted weight yarn
• 16″ circular needle in either 4.5mm (US7) or 5mm (US8)
• 1 set DPN’s – double pointed needles to match the size of your circular needles, either 4.5mm or 5mm
• stitch marker (you can use a paperclip in a pinch
• tape measure

I’ll be posting a tutorial on Continental knitting style tomorrow, and a lesson on gauge on Saturday morning.

Happy Knitting!

Through making flosstube videos, I’ve made some lovely new friends. One such friend – Ginger Gerald Stitcher wants to learn how to knit. So, I decided that I would teach him how through a series of video tutorials on YouTube and he would record himself learning each technique and upload his progress on his channel. We are hoping that others will join us as he learns.

You can find my introductory video HERE

and here’s a list of supplies if you’ll be joining us in learning how to knit! Our first project after learning the basics will be a dishcloth.

One pair of US8 – size 5mm needles 

One ball of inexpensive yarn for practicing learning a few things

One ball of 100% cotton to make your dishcloth

That’s it!

See you soon,

Caroline

Tips for washing cross stitch projects!! – see the link here: Needlework tips and techniques

Photos from the my favourite exhibit at MOMA

What a gift, to see these treasures!!

I’ve had a couple of requests to de-mystify those little acronyms that crafters now come across on the internet.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, I’m going to link to a very wonderfully detailed list (from a fantastic website) Cloudsfactory. That should take you directly to the list that they compiled.

Shirley tagged me on this photo in Instagram. I thought it was apt.

Happy Monday everyone, now – where’s my coffee…….

I’ve recorded and am uploading episode 7 of From the Stash Pile. This Alessandra Adelaide piece was my show and tell, and I said that I would post an up close photo here as the glare was so bad on the screen. It was hard to see! This is her “Coffee” pattern and I used 32 count fabric (of some sort…) and stitched one thread over one using DMC cotton.

Happy Tuesday!