Two hundred and thirty women and men attended the annual Embroidery Association of Canada seminar held this year in July in Charlottetown, P.E.I.
Three from Saskatchewan (Nipawin, Cut Knife and Regina) attended. The seminar consists of classes, exhibits, boutiques and merchant mall. After two days of classes, participants can choose between a non-stitch day, with three tours offered, or a one-day stitching class. Then back to two more days of classes or stitching on their own.
There are several different exhibits, some of which the attendees can vote for 鈥� viewer鈥檚 choice, seminar theme and group design, Canadiana challenge, pulled thread, original design (judged) and stitched items for next year鈥檚 classes. There were 35 exhibits in the viewer鈥檚 choice category, nine in Canadiana challenge and seven group entries. Both seminar theme and pulled thread had only four entries.
Marcella Pedersen of Cut Knife attended, taking a four-day class with Pam Cousins of Kelowna, B.C. stitching a magnolia flower with contemporized Mountmellick stitches. At the banquet, Pedersen won first in the pulled thread category with the picture entitled 鈥淗orus, the Egyptian Falcon.鈥� This is a judged entry.
With attendees voting on entries, she also won second for seminar theme (bridging stitches) with her picture of the 鈥淢arco Polo, the fastest sailing ship in 1851.鈥� By displaying the ship with the Confederation Bridge, Marcella was able to tie the two together with the 鈥渂ridging stitches鈥� theme with the following artist statement: Transporting goods and people by sail gave way to faster forms of transportation with the automobile, necessitating the building of the Confederation Bridge, thus changing the Islanders whole way of life and culture. No longer can 鈥渕ainlanders鈥� be 鈥渇rom away.鈥�
Pedersen鈥檚 husband Gil鈥檚 great-great-grandfather, John Frederickson, yard foreman, was the builder of the Marco Polo, the fastest and most famous sailing ship of New Brunswick at that time, April 17, 1851 (1,625 tons, 184.1 feet from stem to stern with a breadth of beam of 36.3 feet and depth of 29.4 feet). She was an important builder of the shipping trade in Sackville, N.B., carrying 930 passengers, plus 60 crew, from Liverpool to Australia in 76 days, compared to other voyages of 100 to 120 days. Her last voyage to Australia in 1867 finished as her first, 15 years and thousands of passengers later, 76 days from Melbourne to Liverpool.
After years of service, as though she knew it was her last voyage from Quebec to Europe, during a summer gale and vicious seas, she rallied getting her charges safely to land. The Queen of the Sea came home to Canada on July 25, 1883, to rest aground off the shores of Cavendish, P.E.I. Not one member of the crew was lost.
Watching on the shore stood a young girl who later entered a story in a national essay competition entitled 鈥淭he Wreck of the Marco Polo鈥� which won first prize and launched her writing career. The death of the Queen of the Seas gave birth to the writing life of a great lady of Canadian literature, Lucy Maud Montgomery, who went on to write Anne of Green Gables.
Next year鈥檚 seminar will be held in Victoria, B.C. in May with the theme 鈥淏eyond the Edge.鈥�
