The Designer

Freda Murfin lives in Calgary, Alberta close to the beautiful Canadian Rockies, with her husband of 62 years. They have three wonderful children, four grandchildren and one precious little great grandson. All of whom live in the Calgary area.

Freda has stitched as long as she can remember. She grew up in England and all little girls learned to stitch. As the years went by she fell in love with petit point, especially the flowers. At that time her attitude was ‘Why would anyone do cross stitch? It’s just twice the work!’ 

Then fate stepped in. Freda fell into a group of stitchers at one of our local shops. She had never been part of such a group before. One night someone brought a poem she had found on the internet and the comment was made that ‘someone should make a sampler out of that’. Freda said that she would do it and thought to herself "I don’t know what I was thinking? I had never stitched a sampler in my life!"

Freda drew the graph and all the stitch diagrams by hand and someone else graphed the writing for her. Needless to say, she was hooked. The new version of this chart is “A Stitcher’s Wish”. She continued to design new pieces, just selling them to our local shop until ten years ago when she decided to market them properly.

"What a ride it has been! Your response has been far more than ever expected and is so very gratifying."  Freda enjoys being involved in the local Guild, the Calgary Guild of Needle and Fibre Arts. Being able to share her enthusiasm for needlework is very special  It is absolutely amazing that, at her age, her life is so exiting and so rewarding!

 

The Shop Owner

Lisa Kampel has been stitching for most of her life – primarily cross stitch when she was younger and then exploring many other embroidery styles as the years have gone by.  Lisa started to travel abroad with her family when her children were in their early teenage years.  The family travelled all over the UK and Europe and was lucky to see many exciting things!  She was immediately struck by the tapestries and textiles in the castles, cathedrals, museums and abbeys they toured. On one of the early tours of the UK, she visited Hampton Court and purchased the Mellerstain Firescreen kit from the Crewelwork Company.  While on the train going back to London, Lisa opened the kit and started reading the instructions… and well…. she had absolutely no idea what to do!  Lisa's embroidery journey began while sitting on that train.  Upon returning to Canada, Lisa immediately sought out and joined the local embroidery guild and has been embroidering and creating like a wild woman ever since!

Since joining the local EAC guild (Calgary Guild of Needle and Fibre Arts) Lisa has been able to expand the breadth of her stitching repertoire to include Japanese Sashiko/Kogin, surface embroidery, stumpwork, crewelwork, goldwork, blackwork, canvas work and needlepoint (counted canvas) just to name a few. The very first course Lisa signed up for was the Basic Crewelwork (a correspondence course offered by the Embroidery Association of Canada). She has attended as many EAC Seminars, online courses and workshops as time will allow.

Lisa continues her embroidery journey by stitching many things, dabbling in writing, designing and teaching - and now by becoming a shop owner! 

To learn more about Lisa, visit her blog at https://finishingisfun.ca/