Hi spiders, I have arrived back home after a wonderful vacation in the USA and Canada.
I started off in Chicago visiting my son and family and continued to Ottawa just after Memorial Day. There I stayed with a childhood friend of mine. She and Malvary arranged a lovely small lace gathering for me at Malvary's place . We were just five yet we managed to talk a lot and compare ideas about lace and lace books. I was just watching the lacemakers as I didn't have my lace pillow with me. The afternoon finished with several of us going out to dinner. Thank you again Malvary it was great. From Ottawa I flew to Vancouver where I stayed with Maureen. I know that Maureen has written to Arachne about this visit and the lace convention, so I won't dwell on all the particulars. I haven't read her e-mal to the list because I was unsubscribed for all the period. I had a wonderful time at Maureen's who took a lot of time to show me the sites of Richmond, Vancouver and surrounding. Amongst our short stops was a visit to Lenka. It was great seeing Lenka again, it was a very short visit since she was getting very busy for her fashion lace show which was held the next day. Lenka invited us to the show, which was just beautiful. It was a bit too hot on that afternoon, even for me, but nevertheless every moment was enjoyed. The wire lace was beautiful, it is so special and made with so much imagination. Just great. . While in Vancouver I had to go bead-shopping, since I had no idea what I had to bring with me for my workshop at the convention. Bead shopping is great but usually you buy a lot more than you need and are tempted by a lot of glittering little things. We went over to Vancouver Island , got there early had lunch in Sidney and then Maureen drove me around on the side roads to Victoria. I have been to Victoria about ten years ago but saw more of the touristic sites. We had a lovely cluster at the university where we were joined by Mimi and Marjory. I knew Mimi only by name since we have been making together a tatted round robin when I first joined arachne some time in the mid '90ies. Mimi even brought the doily with her to show me the end result. Thank you Mimi. I took the beaded amulet course and enjoyed every minute of it. We started with making cords in different ways and then went on to the making of the amulets. We did so much in just two and a half days. The whole convention was so well organized and the organizers put so much work into every detail. Our badges were hand made bobbin lace our little tote bags were sewn by members of the group. There were daily little lotteries and goodies many of them hand made. I was presented with a bobbin since I arrived from the furthest part of the world. It was a cute thought. Bev, Margaret, Esther and all the others (sorry if I didn't memorize all your names) put in so much work . Thank you all for the most enjoyable time I had at the convention. After the convention , I stayed a few more days with Janet Goodacre. We have been corresponding for about ten years and have never met before. Janet makes most beautiful Bedfordshire lace and she wears everything. She showed me Sooke and the area. But then, after two days it was time to go again. Maureen picked me up and we headed back to Vancouver. Next day I left for Los Angeles to visit some very good Israeli friends of mine. With this the lacey part of my trip ended. I went with my friends to Las Vegas for two days, they gambled a bit while I enjoyed watching the people and taking in the different sites of the beautiful hotels. It was time to pack again my bags and fly back to Chicago to stay with my son for another week and watch and enjoy my 10 month old grandson. All good things come to am end one day and for me it happened a few days before my return to Israel when I got a call from my son that there was a fire in my house. It is still very unclear to me how the airconditioner short circuited, but it did. Luckily it set the burglar alarm off and my neighbors who have a key rushed over to see what was happening and right away started to put out the fire. Apparently it was out before the fire brigade turned up. Luckily the damage was rather small, some of my lace doilies are gone, though my big lace pictures survived beautifully. My youngest son supervised the the cleaning (a team was sent in by the insurance company). I was talking to him just as they were putting all my table clothes into a machine at the laundromat. I just managed to have him pick out my filet lace table cloth, which my grandmother made, before it went into the machine. That is a very special table cloth which has pictures of different animals in it. At the time when Elaine Merritt was writing her article about animals in lace I have sent her pictures of it. I have some Orvis and hope to clean it with it, though I don't thing is has a lot of soot on it. The big problem is the soot everywheres. Most of it was cleaned but here and there I still find traces where the cleaners have missed something. I still didn't have a look into the drawer with the while lace threads and the bobbins, not into the drawers with the colored threads I'm using for making lace. I was really lucky. But now instead of making lace I'm still cleaning my house and getting all my things out of boxes. It feels a though I have moved. There is so much to do , it is soooo hot and there is no aircondition. I have to wait to have a new one installed next week. Well, this got to be a bit long, so I'll let you all go to your work or whatever you are just doing. Miriam in a very hot Arad, Israel - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED]
