What a great city Montreal is, yet not one where people usually choose to spend a spring break. But it's close and Mother Nature was ridiculously kind to us with magnificent sunshine all last week, and there is always lots of great food and beautiful things to see.

You will all be glad to hear that the concept of knitting is alive and well in the city. Witness one of the "knitted" toques which adorned many of the bus stops. Actually it isn't really knitted (are you surprised?) but an extremely clever design of black stitching on a padded fabric that looked a lot like stitches. Notice they even took pains to shape the ribbing around the bottom, although the stitches didn't change to represent the knits and purls which we know produce this indented effect in real knitting. But they get major points for trying.

Actually the whole toque-on-the-bus-shelter thing was part of an ad campaign for milk and a comforting evening of entertainment coming up soon. The poster pictured here, which is in fact a picture of an actual knitted piece, is really impressive for the quality of the reproduction and the persistence they show in getting their message out there: The ad campaign is EVERYWHERE throughout the city. But the most impressive version of the poster that I saw was an entire subway car covered with a reproduction of the knitted fabric. It made me wonder how long a real knitted "metro car cozy" would last at those speeds.

We also got to go to the Museum of Fine Arts which was featuring a presentation of the stained glass work of Louis C. Tiffany, son of the great Mr Tiffany from Tiffany and Co. of NYC and consequently "Breakfast at Tiffany's" fame.

I saw this beautiful piece that I've pictured here, and it was my one little glimpse of real spring flowers in these magnolias. What surprised me most when examining these pieces of stained glass up close is that the individual pieces of glass are not flat. Some can be up to an inch thicker in some sections than the piece next to it, or even from one part of the same piece to another part of it. I guess it's part of what makes the amazing textures and colours jump out at us.

Well, back to the store today. It's nice to have work that one is glad to get back to after a holiday.