Live, and in person!

Following on our visit to Orillia to meet with the 2020 Annual Team, we were inspired to try our own meetings, the first since the pandemic....so this week we held 2 meetings!

Most recent was a meeting via zoom. This is an online tool that allows folks to meet in a group setting. It’s ideal when you can’t meet in person. We had Brenda Ashton online, and Audrey Shewan joined us for a while. Francine joined in, too...but had issues with audio. We’re meeting this afternoon to see if we can work through them. Here are some screenshots from our call:

As with every gathering, there was a show and tell: Here’s a portion of Audrey’s cat rug:

...and here are some wee ladies I made, also inspired by the Orillia folks:

...and Brenda gave us a tour of the rugs in her home!

We also got to see brenda’s current project, a stunning landscape....I tried to do a screenshot during the meeting but it was blurry, so Brenda sent me a photo this morning. Here are her comments:  My Deanne adaptation. Thanks to Carol shewan and deannne for the intro to painterly..love it

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.....and now on to Monday’s gathering in Victoria park in cobourg. We snaffled the area north of the bandstand and on the east side of the parking lot.  It was a hot day, but we were cooled by a lovely breeze. 

There were 17 of us, plus 2 folks from Ajax and Karen Kaiser with all her lovely wools!  Here are some photos from the day:

Check out this gorgeous quilt that Heather made for Claire, in honour of her love of (and work with) dogs!

We had a successful day, so I think you can expect to see us back at the park on our regular Thursday morning, 10 till whenever, starting in August.....weather permitting.  Bring your chair (and a mask, just in case) and be ready to hook, chat and generally be social!

The Annual that Almost Was

The OHCG holds an event each year (the Annual) where rug Hookers gather for days of fellowship, classes, shopping and rug ogling. It’s a wonderful thing to attend and much anticipated by the folks across Ontario.....but it takes one heck of a lot of work to put together.....sometimes years of planning. 

This year, the folks from “area 11” were sooo close to delivering the Annual....everything was ready - prizes, gift bags, signs, class lists, volunteers, vendors, etc.....and then we had to cancel for Covid 19. We were all upset that the Annual wasn’t going forward,  but it was particularly difficult for the group that had worked so hard.  

Today, Dianne and I (in our new role as Annual Advisors)  were invited to attend the de-brief held by the group. This meeting is done at the end of most projects to celebrate achievements and to pass on learnings. We went to a park in Orillia and joined them for their regular Tuesday gathering. We were socially distant, but it was fun to get out with others!

The ladies showed us what they had prepared, and their creativity and generosity were clearly in evidence! The theme was “Everything Under the Sun”...with lots of sunflowers.  Here are some examples of the things we were going to see at the Annual....but what was also evident, but not obvious in the photos was the planning, thinking and ideas that ran behind it all. 

The team behind all this work include:

Brenda Hatcher

Chris Ennis

Suzanne Chaddock

Diane Audia 

Kathy Smith

Donna Dickie

JoAnne Inglis

Susan Barker

Barb Reif 

Barb Dietrich

Jean Chabot

Gail Mueller

Cheri Hempseed

Marion England

Marg Arland 

There were lots more folks involved behind the scenes. 

Congratulations for what was clearly going to be an event to remember.