Friday, April 19, 2013

Mira, Mira on my wall, a recap of the 2013 Mirabilia Minions Retreat

OMG, I met Nora Corbett! And she's awesome. And she likes my angel RR. Heaven, for me, was in Greenville, South Carolina this weekend as I attended the Mirabilia Minions Retreat organized by the awesome, amazing and fabulous Leslie of Under the Sea Fabrics.

There were about 45 of us there, from most parts of the US and we were two from Canada. We laughed, we shopped at one of the cutest and friendliest needlework stores I've seen, Panda's Crossing, we mobbed and fawned all over Nora, we fondled fabric, we ate, we laughed, we even cried a couple of times. Oh, and of course, we stitched, though some more than others. I fall into the category of "talked too much, didn't stitch much" and I let myself be talked into a new start. Leslie had made arrangements for copies of the newest Mirabilia pattern, Gypsy Mermaid, and I had ordered her along with the threads and embellishments called for. And then I found this amazing piece of fabric that Leslie had dyed, Volcano, on 28 count opalescent Lugana. I had been thinking navy blue for Gypsy, but the fabric was so beautiful and the colours amazing against it. Plus, it was right there!

And so I've started Gypsy Mermaid. Below is my WIP, which is pretty much all the stitching I did this weekend. I'm also including a pic of my other new project, Siren and the Shipwreck. That's on a piece from Sunny Dyes, Hydrangea Garden. I decided to use Spring Glade for another Mira mermaid, Merchant Mermaid. What can I say, I like Mira mermaids!

In the next few days, I'll post pics from the retreat after I've sorted and organized them. I will also post pics of all my new stash -- expect your computers to freeze up as I was spoiled this weekend and also bought quite a bit. And I will have pics of my new, freaking amazing artwork by Nora.

Like I said, Greenville was heaven.

P.S. Full disclosure, the title of my post was borrowed from the t-shirts some of the local attendees had done up. Don't you love it?



Thursday, April 18, 2013

Mirabilia Minions Retreat, here I am!

This Winter, Leslie of Under the Sea Fabrics decided to organize a Mirabilia Minions Retreat as a way to celebrate the artist whose works we all adore. Greenville, SC is of course not right around the corner from my hometown of Ottawa, but at the time, I was on an extended "holiday", so I decided to make a road trip out of it and attend my very first stitching retreat. It didn't hurt that Nora Corbett, the artist behind Mirabilia, would be attending.

Fast forward a few months and here I am, with a brand new job, and the timing isn't exactly awesome. I thought about not going, but the truth is, after I lost my job, I was pretty depressed and planning for the retreat is one of the things that helped me get past it and look upon that forced break as an opportunity. The thought of not going after all that was pretty bleak and so I thought hell with it, how can I make this work. And so I found a ticket that was within what I wanted to pay, got up very, very early this morning to catch it, spent half an hour finding an alternate flight since the original plane was still stuck in Chicago because of bad weather and am now standing outside the Greenville airport terminal waiting for my taxi.

I can't wait to meet up with the other girls and I promise to post lots of photos. I'm also finally stitching. I went almost four weeks without stitching as I started my new job and adjusted to being a working girl again. I've started Siren and the Shipwreck and I LOVE her! A new mermaid was also released this week and I'll be among the first to get the pattern, thanks to Leslie's awesome work.

Tata for now, my carriage (ok, hotel shuttle) arrives!

Julie