On the road

Hi hi.  I’ve been away!

Pippin hit the road to go to the Destination Dallas Needlework market.  This market is set up in individual suites on a few floors of one hotel, and I really enjoyed seeing the differences from the big January market that we were at in the Phoenix convention centre.  I’m brand new at this market thing and I think it’s really cool to have both formats.  There was a door to decorate for this one.

And a window!

My favourite setting up part is when Jill or Mary hand me the polka dots.  I love those polka dots.  There’s a zen groove to getting those things in just the right spot.  Jill and Mary are very good at letting me get on with that very important task while they figure out the stuff like, I don’t know, how to organize the stock, setting up the credit card system.  You know.  That stuff.  If they roll their eyes at me they kindly do it discreetly.

There are stars beside the new designs and some are in the What’s New part of the home page.  I’m going to have to figure out a new way of displaying new canvases now that I have more time to design and come out with more than one at a time!  All of the new designs are up in the different canvas designs pages too.

Pippin is lucky enough to hang out with Silk Road Fibres straw silk, and loving colour like I do I could stand in front of them and drool a little.  Such gorgeous rich colours there.

We also had Petite Sweets canvases joining the mix and getting lots of attention, but because I somehow left picture taking till the end they were already cleaned up off of the table.  Jenn!  I did still get a picture of the candy bowl there, I see.

The seats at this market were a bit comfier than the convention centre, I have to say, and at the end of the day we could shut the door and have some crackers and cheese.  Maybe a glass of wine.  Yes, a glass of wine.  And some wonderful dinners after we had time to collect ourselves a bit.  Mary and I were staying at another hotel nearby, and we had high drama and sketchy adventures every night there but one, so it was nice to fortify a bit before we headed back into that!

It was another great market and this was our first experience with cash and carry, so I smile writing this knowing that canvases purchased there are already back and for sale in shops all over.  It was so great to  meet up with shop owners who already sell Pippin, and new shops selling us for the first time.

I flew back through Toronto to meet up with my eldest and my youngest.  After plane, train, and subway I was so happy to get to his apartment in the sky and cuddle up under a blanket with a made-for-me latte.  It didn’t have a little fancy heart in the foam but I think it was still made with love.

Before flying to Dallas I had been buried at my desk finishing up designs for next January.  Lots!  So it was nice to have a few days to uncoil in Toronto.  We walked tons checking out some universities and the Royal Ontario Museum and I got myself off to the Art Gallery to reconnect with the Group of Seven paintings there.  Happy sigh.  All of that walking was offset by marathon “Bones” watching on Netflix.

I crossed paths with this guy outside a ceramics show.   Love his stripes!  Is it pretentious to think that he’d fit into the Pippin fold happily?

I love my watery view at home but am mesmerized by this view too.

So funny visiting a grown up kid.  And the other is getting up there too.  (And the other other, my middlest, is off traveling through Asia again so that’s why he was not in on this one.)

Now I’m home and have been taking a last run at a few designs that were giving me trouble before heading off.  They’ll be joining the rest heading off to the painters for January market and then I can start thinking about all of those new sketches I started in Toronto!  A sweet life I’m thinking.