My Ma

When we last left our intrepid sailors, they were making their way across downtown Victoria, B.C. from The Beehive Wool Shop (drool trailing from the corners of the their mouths after this most wonderful of yarn stores) and making their across a few blocks to the city’s other yarn store, Button & Needlework Boutique.

Though this store is tucked away in narrow (read: old and therefore historic) Trounce Alley, it would be both hard and a damn shame to miss. Hard because there is a big red button hanging above the store’s entrance and a damn shame because what the Beehive is to

Owner Michael

yarn, this store is to all things needlework – crewel, goldwork, needlepoint, hardanger, and embroidery, etc. It was named one of the world’s best needlework shops in 2006 by Inspirations Magazine. It also has a respectable selection of yarns, including things I don’t see that often: Lanaknits, Shi Bui and Muench. But needlework is the real star here.

Inside the store, we were really taken with a wall of buttons, many of them handmade or handpainted or made from unusual things. We knitters

Wall O' Buttons

might be interested in the sheep buttons which I thought were a hoot and a half. Many of the buttons had a Victorian feel, in keeping with the framed and featured pieces of needlework, which were on display everywhere. This was just a lovely shop – I don’t know how else to describe it – and that pleasant sense was reflected by the store’s owner, a man named Michael, who greeted us when we moved to the register with our purchases (can’t tell you what I bought ’cause it’s a present for someone who reads this blog). Ellen was salivating over the store’s size – perhaps 50 percent more floor space than we have at K2Tog, and she really got jealous when Michael told her there was an upstairs and a full-length basement. We got none o’ that at our store. Sigh.

Pretty Redwork Sampler

I took some pictures inside the store, but I have to say the ones on the store’s website, linked to above, are better. And they have an online catalogue. If you like needlework and knitting, this is the place. Don’t miss it when you visit Victoria.

And look – in one of the windows there was an embroidery picture of a cat that looked like our own K2Tog shop kitty, Bastet!

Bastet?

After we left that shop, we did a little souvenir shopping and then went in search of a Diet Coke for caffeine-starved moi. Only Diet Pepsi on the ship, and watered down at that. Then we all headed back to the ship for lunch. As the ship left Victoria that afternoon, we all convened in the London Room for our second afternoon of toe-up-sock knitting.

And it was going pretty well.

Back to Class

In addition to our socks, some folks brought other projects for show-and-tell. Lynn had this

Lynn's Sock

beautiful blue sock. I wrote down what it was made from and what the pattern was somewhere, but am afraid I have misplaced it since the cruise. But trust me, it was stunning. Kathy brought a crocheted shawl her daughter,

Kathy's Shawl

Joyce, had made for her. It was stunning – wrought through with beads and very light. And Ellen showed off a jacket she is making for her daughter from the book Knitted Jackets. It was also beautiful – and nearly done, in a charcoal shade of Crystal Palace‘s Panda Silk.

Ellen's Jacket

And our socks were progressing.

Here’s mine:

Its a Foot!

and then, of course, it was off to the more important things of the vacation . . . . .

Cheers!