*

Planner cover and some more inspiration

2011-01-10T18:21:00.006-05:00

Every year I sew a fabric cover for my planner. I use it every day.

This year's cover is simple. This is my favourite notebook cover tutorial.

I used my new serger to sew it and I swear it took me less than a minute. Love that serger.

I also bought some books today (at a discount store) for some inspiration.

I just couldn't resist this cute little knitting journal, too cute!

Today was our first day back at school after the holidays. Yes, it was a long break and I loved it. I'm pooped though and it's all I can do NOT to go and crawl into bed (at 6:30!). Yikes.

2010, don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out!

2011-01-04T19:51:00.005-05:00

Whew. You have no idea how happy I am to see the end of 2010. T'was not a good year.

I welcome the fresh start that the new year has to offer. More so this year than ever.

I found myself having quite a few Christmas gifts to give this year and there were some special people that I wanted to make something for.

Once I dragged my sewing machine out again, I started looking for ideas and decided to make some pretty Morsbags for the recipients to use as reusable grocery bags.

What a perfect pattern. I loved the way it was sewn. Simple and durable. I highly recommend it!

I gave 3 as a gift and I've already had phone calls telling me that the bags are already in use.

Santa was extremely good to me this year....

After my lesson at the sewing store I came home and made napkins. It took less than one minute per napkin and I just used fabric from my stash. I'm VERY excited.

On a health note: I've had serious sinus issues for almost 6 weeks now. Sleep has eluded me because I just couldn't get comfortable. I went to my naturopath yesterday and a few acupuncture needles and some homeopathic medicine later, I feel ALMOST normal. Apparently my good friend, Candida, has paid me another visit. Back to my sugar-free, gluten-free, diary free, diet.

Cozy Cowl

2010-12-15T14:34:00.004-05:00

Ages ago, and I do mean ages ago, I started to knit this simple cowl. I think I was bored with it so I set it aside.

Well, last night I picked it up again and finished it. I'm pretty sure I was inspired by the freekin' freezing weather we've had for the last few days.

I followed Lera's wonderful advice and cast it off using the method described in this Youtube video.

Here's my first attempt to photograph it (it made me giggle):

And here it is (after taking about 20 photos in the mirror):

Please excuse the crazy-lady hair and the fact I have on no make-up.

Weekend sew-a-thon

2010-12-13T06:15:00.004-05:00

I'm fortunate enough to live extremely close to The Book Depot's retail store . I went there last week
to shop for a little inspiration and came home with some super-great finds.

I've flipped through Sewing in No time which left me feeling especially inspired!

So much so, that I dusted off my sewing machine and had myself a little sewing marathon this weekend!

I felt very close to my mom when I was sewing. Truth be told, I felt very much like my mom when I was sewing. She loved to sew and was extremely good at it. I've yet to go through her sewing supplies and pick out what I want to keep. Mostly because I couldn't face it. But now I'm very excited to get to my sister's house and sort through her supplies and fabric.

The sewing I did this weekend will ultimately be Christmas gifts. I think I'm safe to post here what I was working on, perhaps I'll take some photos later this week.

It felt SO good to sew again!!!!!!!!

It's NOT a stripper pole!

2010-12-07T08:51:00.006-05:00

On the weekend I put up a Christmas tree. This is the first tree that Joe and I have ever had together. When we moved in together, 8 years ago, we had 3 cats and 2 dogs. It was not a Christmas-tree-friendly house. Now we're down to one dog and I decided to put up a tree.

So, of course, I was all proud of the tree and when our friend stopped by I dragged her into the house to oogle it. She burst into laughter and said it looked like a stripper pole. She has no taste.

I used the fabric garland I made a couple of years ago. I like it. It's all shabby-chic-ish to me.

My dog was not the least bit interested in the fact I was taking photos.

In other news. I broke my blog the other night. It's been soooo long since I've touched it that I completely forgot how to change the banner. Then Blogger sucked me in to "upgrading my template". Huh??? So things look a little different around here. That's likely not a bad thing. Now I just have to figure this out.

Dipping my toe in the water

2010-12-02T08:53:00.002-05:00

I'm still here.

Let's just say, I'll be very very happy to see the end of 2010.

A year ago my mother was diagnosed with cancer. My world was shattered. My mother is the greatest person I ever knew. Very very funny. Such a strong woman. She was my hero.

She fought the fight until August 9th, 2010. The saddest day of my life.

When my mother got sick any sparks of creativity I had were extinguished.

I packed up my sewing machine and supplies (not an easy task!) and turned my sewing room into a reading room.

Last week I felt like knitting, so I pulled out a pair of socks I've been knitting for quite a while now. They are not done yet, but I can't tell you how good it feels to just sit and knit.

Then, I decided that I miss my sewing machine. So I dragged that out and although I don't have a place for it anymore, I intend to make room for it in my "reading" room.

I miss blogging. Blogging was such a big part of my life for so very long. I would post something and within hours my mother would call with her comments. We'd laugh, she'd e-mail links to my entries to her friends so she could brag about what I'm doing. *sigh* I miss that.

So, I'm dipping my toe in the water.

I'm not sure what the future holds. All I know is that I want to knit. I want to sew. I want to make soap. I want to make note cards. I want to blog. I want to read blogs. I haven't wanted to do any of these things in a VERY long time.

Sony ebook store stinks!

2010-02-19T06:31:00.003-05:00

On Friday, February 5th I purchased a copy of "Food Rules" by Michael Pollan from the Sony ebook store.

I immediately started to read it and immediately noticed TYPOS! Dis tracting typoslike these.

I jumped online to the Sony online chat and even though I clearly stated my problem at the very beginning of the chat, one hour in the support person tells me that they aren't able to help me, that I have to phone Sony!

One hour in!

So I called the Sony Book Store help line and explained the problem withthe typ os again. I was told that the issue would be fixed in a couple of days and that I'll get an e-mail notification when the corrections have been made.

On that same day I sent a carefully worded e-mail to Sony (feedback@ebookstore.sony.com) explaining my disappointment with a) their online chat customer service and b) the quality of the ebook I purchased.

No response.

So on Monday I re-sent the e-mail.

No response.

I called the Sony reader store again and was told it could be WEEKS before the typos arecorrected. What??? I want to read the book NOW and it's not readable!

On Monday I was given a credit for my purchase (why didn't they do that on Friday???).

But I was still annoyed that a) the book still had typos and I can't read it and b) that I didn't get a response to my e-mail.

So....on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday AND Monday AND Tuesday following the dreaded e-book purchase I RE-SENT the same e-mail to Sony.

Guess what??? NO REPLY!

So I e-mailed Penguin (the publisher). First the Canadian office. NO REPLY and then the American office. At least the American Penguin people are nice enough to send me a computer generated "thanks for you e-mail, but we are flooded with e-mails and may not reply to you" e-mail.

So, two weeks later the Sony store is still selling the same version of the book, full oftypos and I still haven't had a reply to my e-mail.

So what am I going to do??? Boycott Sony of course.

I've discovered Kobo Books which is affiliated with Chapters Canada. They sell ebooks. They appear to have a fairly good selection and the books are CHEAPER than the Sony Reader Store! Food Rules is $9.9o at the Sony store and only $5.69 at Kobo!

So take that Sony! I'm divorcing you!

Now, having said that....I do love my Sony Reader. I mean LOVE it. I'm only divorcing the Sony Store, not my Sony Reader.

Since I'm a high school librarian I've shared this story with other staff who own Readers and when we have our regional library meeting we usually end up discussing different reading devices. I can't wait to share my story!

Amazing Grass IS Amazing!

2010-02-07T06:46:00.013-05:00

I was fortunate enough to have some free samples of Amazing Grass sent to me to review and I can't begin to tell you how excited about this product I am!

From their website:

Amazing Grass Organic Wheat Grass is one of nature’s most powerful sources of green leafy vegetable nutrition. Just one scoop in your favorite beverage helps you achieve your recommended 5 to 9 daily servings of vegetables.

Increases and sustains energy naturally
Detoxifies and cleanses your body
High alkalinity helps balance your body’s pH level
Strengthens your immune system
Insoluble fiber gently cleanses your digestive tract and promotes regularity
Complete food with enzymes and all essential amino acids
Natural source of antioxidants to help repair damaged cells
Excellent source of beta carotene, folic acid and vitamin C
Whole leaf powder- not from juice!
Dehydrated below 107 and nitrogen packed to preserve the raw food properties
10x the chlorophyll of tray grown wheatgrass juice
Field grown outdoors through a cold winter
Tested free of mold
Gluten free and Vegan
Certified Organic

Since being diagnosed with Candida last July, I've been really working hard at changing my diet, cutting out the processed foods and slowly incorporating healthy fruits, veggies and grains. The process has been very slow for me. I've got breakfast perfected. I'm doing pretty good with my lunches and dinners, the time that absolutely kills me is the 3 hours between getting home from work and eating dinner.

Amazing Grass caught my attention after reading about it on several health blogs. I imagined making myself a healthy smoothie when I got home from work to tide me over until dinner time.

Upon recieving the samples, I could hardly wait to make my first smoothie. I used the Amazing Grass Chocolate Superfood and made a smoothie with some almond milk and frozen banana.

OMG! It was incredibly delicious as well as perhaps being one of the healthiest drinks I've ever had!!!

Next on my list to try was the berry flavour drink powder. I prepared it the same way, in my Magic Bullet with half a frozen banana and some almond milk.

Again, it tasted better than I expected it to. It looked gross, but it tasted like a fruity, creamy milkshake.

The chocolate energy bar was by far my favourite of the bars. It was dense and filling (in a good way) and look at that chocolately coating!! Mmmmmm.

My experience has been with the powders and the bars that they are a completely satisfying snack. I was actually surprised at that. I can come home from work, whip up a smoothie and stay completely satisfied until dinnertime. That's EXACTLY what I was looking for. Not to mention the fact that I feel great when I drink it and I actually crave it after work.

I've already purchased my first full-size container of the chocolate powder and I know that Amazing Grass is going to become a permanent part of my diet.

You can order directly from the Amazing Grass website. They do ship to Canada and thanks to Teri Jo from the company who has provided the coupon code "healthy123" to save 15% off your order.

Again, I can't stress enough how yummy AND healthy Amazing Grass is!

Farmer's Market

2010-02-06T09:34:00.003-05:00

I was up at the crack of dawn today, very excited, and headed over to our local Farmer's Market.

I honestly wasn't even sure if it was open yet. I arrived at 6:30 and according to the website it was open at 6:00 (it was open).

I was so impressed. I talked to so many people. The apple man was my favourite, he gave me a few different apples to sample on top of the ones I purchased.

My total haul included cauliflower, broccoli, lemons, organic spinach and brussel sprouts, apples and some salami for Joe.

I am going to shop at the market every Saturday morning. I can't wait until the summer when fruits and veggies are actually in season!!!!

Food Inc.

2010-02-04T20:25:00.003-05:00

I just finished watching the feature film documentary, Food Inc.

Watch it. That's all I can say.

I'm going to the local farmer's market on Saturday morning and I will be on every Saturday from now on.

needles, hummus and apps

2010-02-02T18:02:00.006-05:00

You know you're a blogger when you hand your camera to your acupuncturist and ask them to snap some photos so that you can blog about it.

Yup. I did that. And my acupuncturist loved it!! And yes those are needles sticking out of my head.

I had to make an emergency appointment today due to my recent "slight" *ahem* setback of my anti-candida diet.

And here's a photo I snapped while she was putting needles in my feet. *Lera, note the hand knit sock on my left foot!!!*

I love going to Lovely Lily (I added the "lovely" part to her name). She's hosting a workshop tomorrow night on nutrition and healing and I'm so excited to attend.

One of the things I've been munching on like crazy is hummus. Not the good homemade kind, but store-bought hummus. One of the main ingredients is canola oil which is a big no-no for me. I love hummus. So I came home and made a batch of candida friendly hummus. I basically used this recipe, but I've made it so frequently that I kind of just wing it.

I really really think the key to yummy homemade hummus is to cook your own chick peas. Don't use canned. I cook a whole package of chick peas at a time and freeze them in packages. Each package makes a batch of hummus. Easy peasy to thaw the peas and make hummus.

And lastly, Joe bought a new iPod touch recently and he's been playing with apps and music and movies. This prompted me to dust mine off and do a little shopping in the app store. I found an app this morning called Whole Foods Market Recipes. I haven't played with it much, but it looks great!

Do you have any iPod app suggestions??? I get overwhelmed when I'm browsing the iTunes store!

Evil peanuts and wonderful shoes!

2010-02-01T16:18:00.005-05:00

My anti-candida diet is quite strict. Peanuts are a big no-no for me right now. It's been months and months since a peanut has passed these lips. Last week I braved a peanut Larabar.

It was delicious, but as I was eating it I wasn't quite feeling "right". The following days I began to feel a bit itchy and my skin isn't quite feeling normal. Uh-oh. I placed and emergency call today to my naturopath and I'm going to see her tomorrow. This is a big eye-opener to me. Even though I am 6 months into my ACD, I still have a long way to go and I can't be cheating. I can't. Lesson learned. (I hope).

On a much more fun note, I bought myself a new pair of shoes on the weekend. A pair of Clark's "unstructured" shoes.

They are the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. I'm a Clark's girl from now on!

Listen to your mother!

2010-01-30T21:29:00.003-05:00

So. Joe and I were going out for dinner with friends tonight and I got the following e-mail before I left from my mother:

When you go out for dinner tonight, wear your new silver earrings, they look so nice with your new hair cut.

Since I ALWAYS listen to my mother, here's the proof that I wore them!

If only I had a newspaper to prove that the photo was taken tonight. It was Mom!

Quite likely, the best weekend I've ever had!

2010-01-25T08:52:00.006-05:00

Wow. Now that was a FUN weekend!

We had an opportunity to spend the weekend in Niagara Falls at the Fallsview Hilton with a bunch of family and family friends.

The weekend started on Friday afternoon for my mother who was surpised by her two friends when a limo came to pick them up to take them to the casino!

Here's a photo of Nicola, my mom and Carol in front of the limo.

The view from our rooms was amazing.

This photo cracks me up. My mother looking longingly at the casino across the street.

We ate (way too much!), laughed and had a super time.

Thanks mom for the best weekend EVER!

I love blogging

2010-01-21T19:05:00.004-05:00

I've been thinking about my blog, my blog friends and blogging for months. I've been procrastinating posting because honestly, I've felt like I need to blog about something spectacular for my first post "back".

Today a light bulb went off. I do not need to come back with a super-post. The super-post may never happen.

So here's what I bought today. A new stainless steel water bottle. I drink a ton of water and I hate that I'm responsible for so many empty plastic water bottles. In an effort to reduce my carbon footprint, I'm going to start using reusable water bottles. A small step, but an important one as far as I'm concerned.

It's pretty and it was cheap. Especially since I used a gift card that I got for Christmas to buy it.

And here's my lunch today.

I can't even believe how absolutely delicious it was!!! I cooked up a big tray of roasted veggies the other night (brussel sprouts, red pepper, onion, broccoli and cauliflower). I topped it with a bit of leftover salmon and some leftover hummus (which appears a bit oily now that I look at it in the photo) but it was good!!

That was much easier than I thought it was. My Mother will also be very happy to see a new post! (She stopped nagging me months ago about updating my blog.)

Red Lentil Soup

2009-11-09T18:52:00.008-05:00

Since the end of July when I was first diagnosed with Candida I have tried sooo many new recipes. Some have been a success, others not-so-much.

I bought some red lentils several weeks ago after seeing several red lentil soup recipes online.

I dashed home from work and gathered the ingredients.

I friend the onions, garlic and cumin while the lentils cooked.

I cooked the soup for about half and hour.

And then ta-da. Homemade red lentil soup.

I didn't love it. It was okay I guess. Perhaps an acquired taste? I know I blew it with the cumin. I don't really like cumin and as I was adding it to the onions I knew I was making a mistake.

I can't find the link to the recipe I used. When I searched "red lentil soup" most of the recipes were very similar, so I don't think it really matters which one you follow. If you make it, I hope you have better luck than me!

I'd love to hear what your favourite soup recipe is! I really really need ideas.

Feelin' good!

2009-11-09T09:24:00.005-05:00

Yesterday Joe and I did a photo shoot with some friends of ours who wanted photos to use as Christmas presents.

When we were done I had this incredible desire for Joe to take some photos of me for my blog. I have posted the odd photo here and there of myself in the past but I have NEVER felt comfortable about doing that.

Enough's enough. I'm on a new path and health and nutrition are a big big part of that. A wonderful side-effect of my new diet is weight loss. Not alot and not fast, but the extra weight is coming off as I start to nourish my body.

Now that I'm about to publish this post I'm still not entirely comfortable putting my chubbiness out there for all the world to see. Oh well, I think it's all part of my healing.

Lunch

2009-11-06T08:45:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I had a yummy salad for lunch. It was a base of spring mix greens, some leftover cooked salmon and some crunchy roasted chick peas. I topped it off with a bit of taziki. It was deeeeelish.

Finally

2009-11-05T10:10:00.004-05:00

OMG, I never ever ever expected to abandon my poor little blog for months!!!

Where I have I been? To sum it up in one word...healing.

Back in June I had what I thought was a severe allergic reaction to something. I broke out in strange hives that were very very itchy and I could not find any relief at all. After many many visits to my family doctor who didn't have a clue what it was and a couple of visits to the dermatologist who's solution to my issue was to take Reactine every morning for the rest of my life, I knew I had to take matters into my own hands.

The hives lasted for weeks. Almost a month in fact.

Out of sheer desperation, I opened the phone book one day and started calling homeopathic doctors in my area. I lucked out. The first place I called was able to fit me in in two days. I knew absolutely nothing about the doctor I was about to visit. I had no idea if she could help. All I knew was that it couldn't hurt. I didn't feel like I could be in any worse shape than I already was.

When I first met Lovely Lily (her name is Lily, I added the "Lovely" part) I was very scared. I had no idea what I was in for. On my first visit she asked me a zillion questions. She looked at my tongue, my eyes, my feet and I forget where else. She seemed to have a diagnosis very quickly. Systemic Candida. She did a bit of accupuncture and I left her office with a bag full of natural remedies. And a lot of questions.

I came home and spent hours and hours and hours researching Candida online. It made perfect sense to me. I knew that was my problem and now I had to fix it.

Candida is a yeast-like fungal organism found in small amounts in the normal human intestinal tract. Normally kept in check by the body's own helpful bacteria, C. albicans can increase in numbers when this balance is disturbed to cause candidiasis of the intestinal tract, or yeast infections of other parts of the body.

In my case I think the Candida was triggered by years and years of taking antibiotics combined with a poor diet.

I can't even begin to tell you how much I have learned in the past few months about Candida, diet and nutrition. Having said that, I still have so much to learn.

The anti-candida diet is essentially a sugar-free, yeast-free, caffeine-free, wheat-free, diary-free AND sugar-free diet. What's left your thinking??? Not a whole heck of a lot, so I thought at first. But as time goes on, I discover more and more things I can eat.

I have to say. Cutting out sugar was probably the very best thing I have ever done for myself from a health point of view. I find when I'm not eating sugar (in any shape or form), I'm simply not hungry.

I no longer drink coffee or diet coke. And honestly, it was not hard to give up. I was a die-hard coffee drinker. I set my machine to brew just before I woke up in the morning so that I could crawl out of bed and have a fresh cup of coffee.

Now in the mornings I have a green smoothie. Yup. A smoothie made with spinach!

That was yesterday's smoothie. It had spinach, frozen coconut milk ice cubes, frozen pineapple, stevia, coconut oil, a spoonful of coconut flour and almond milk. Uh, a far cry from coffee with hazelnut creamer I tell ya!

This morning I roasted some chick peas for munching on and for salads.

I adapted this recipe a little bit.

Anyways...I was inspired to blog today because I've fallen off the wagon a little bit. It took a couple of months to get the Candida under control. I still have a very long way to go until I'm "better". But I've been cheating lately and eating things I shouldn't be. I really need to get my head back into the space that it was in the summer and continue to beat the Candida monster.

I'm hoping that by using my blog and sharing my story I'll continue to be motivated to stick with it and get better.

Ghost photos

2009-05-28T06:09:00.008-04:00

Last night, Joe and I went out for dessert with our friends Bob and Mary. We filled our faces with cheesecake and coffee and then we headed to a local cemetery for a little photo shoot.

But look what we got! A bunch of creepy ghost photos!

Bob and Mary's ghost kissing...

Mary with a weird looking ghost behind her...

Joe appears to be kissing a ghost in this one...

Here's one of Mary standing beside a monument, look at those ghosts looking out from behind it!

And lastly, look at the strange apparition in this one...

How did we do it? Joe figured out how to take these photos using a long exposure and very small aperture on the camera. The trick is to use a small aperture and around a 10 second exposure. Once he hit the shutter release, he would count to 3 or 4 and then the ghost in the image would leave the frame, allowing for the background to be exposed in the shot.

For example, in the kissing photos, he would push the shutter release, count out loud to 4 and then the ghost would run out of the frame and the solid person would stay perfectly still for the rest of the shot.

Another trick is to do it either at dawn (ya right) or dusk when there's not too much natural light available. With the long exposure, it's very easy to over-expose the shot. It was almost dark when we took these photos.

There wasn't much post-processing involved. I think he just changed the images to black and white (or sepia in some cases) and cropped them.

You could certainly achieve the same effect in Photoshop, but it was much more fun (and easier) to do it with the camera.

I don't think you need a DSLR to do this. As long as you can adjust the length of the exposure and your aperture on a point and shoot, although it may take some fiddling, I'm sure you could do it.

What fun!

I ♥ thrifting

2009-05-18T08:54:00.005-04:00

The past few days have quite successful in the thrifting department. I've been to Value Village more than once and my neighbour and I went to some great garage sales on Saturday morning.

I don't have photos of everything yet, but here are some of my deals.

Some of my garage sale scores include an older kitchen timer (25 cents), some pillowcases (25 cents) and some great divided plates (part of a bundle of stuff that I got so maybe 25 cents for the lot).

Now, when Joe saw the plates he said "What on earth are THOSE for??", he's not as convinced that they are cool as I am.

I have great plans to paint my kitchen this summer. I want to paint the cupboards white and use red as an accent colour. The whole kitchen needs to be gutted and re-done but I've decided to play up the fact that it's a 50's or 60's kitchen until we can afford to re-do it. I thought these cannisters from Value Village were perfect ($1.99 for the set).

I got so me great books (for me and for school) at the sales too. Some brand new bubble bath, a jug and a bunch of stuff for my backyard which I'll photograph soon. I've spent less than $20.00 and I certainly had a trunk full of goodies!

Apron

2009-05-10T11:40:00.003-04:00

Okay, so did I mention my knee is a mess? I think not. Here's the scoop. Three weeks ago I started walking every morning for about half an hour. I was doing 2.5 km a day. Not a speedy walker, but I wasn't doddling. Then, last Sunday I woke up with a VERY sore knee. It did not seem to be getting better and on Thursday (when I couldn't even walk anymore), Joe took me to the hospital for an x-ray.

Nothing appeared on the x-ray and the doctor said it was "muscular" (whatever that means). I'm taking ibuprofen and tylenol (together said the doctor) and it's not getting worse, but it doesn't really seem to be improving (much). The thing is, now it doesn't really seem to be my knee anymore that's making me limp. It feels like my calf muscle is VERY tight and sore.

This must get better soon.

Anyways, I sorted through yesterday's fabric jackpot and I've kept about half the fabric and have bagged the rest up for my Mother.

Then, this morning, I decided I HAD to make an apron and dug up my copy of Bend-the rules and away I went.

Now. Did I dig into my bag of fabric from yesterday? Nope. I headed straight to the bags that I'd set aside for my Mother and came up with this:

It's cute. I like it. I am going to use it. However, like everything else I sew for the first time, there are mistakes. I've never done gathers before and I sewed the waistband backwards and was too lazy to fix it. The waist isn't pretty, but I think the apron is.

Maybe I'll go dig through my Mother's bags (he he he) and see what other fabric I can turn into aprons.

Oh, and Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Seventy dollars

2009-05-09T10:54:00.004-04:00

Oh my. I just got back from a garage sale of sorts. I saw the ad for "quilting and yarn sale" online early this morning and new I had to go.

Seventy dollars later, this is what I got, and trust me, the crappy photos do not do the haul justice!

This is one of the bundles ($10.00 each, I might add!)

Fat quarters were $.25 each. Why didn't I buy them all?

I got NINE pillowforms, a bag of buttons and a stack of quilting magazines as well.

Good grief. Time to go sort.

Patchwork bag

2009-04-20T08:55:00.002-04:00

On the heels of my patchwork pillow, I decided to make a patchwork bag based on this great tutorial.

I have no idea what I'm going to use it for, but it's cute!

Believe it or not, I sewed!!!!

2009-04-18T09:37:00.003-04:00

I KNOW it's been forever since I've done ANYTHING interesting (besides getting married). This morning Joe trotted off with his buddy to go geocaching and I hit my sewing room early.

I'm not even really sure what possessed me to make a pillow, but I did.

I love it!

I'm Married!

2009-04-01T08:16:00.003-04:00

This post is for my Mother, Dianne, and my dear friend Lera who have both NAGGED ME TO DEATH TO UPDATE MY STALE BLOG.

Joe and I were married on March 16th at 5:00 pm at the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas.

We weren't alone. My Mother and two of her friends flew down for the big event, two of my Mom's friends who were vacationing in Arizona came (Hi Dianne!), Joe's sister, her friend AND my friend and her boyfriend came. Eleven of us all together.

Let me say this. We were ALL so impressed with the staff at the Chapel. They were professional and made us feel like we were the most important wedding they ever had. And Elvis??? Good grief!! He was absolutely INCREDIBLE! So incredible, that I think I was crushing on him.

We went to the Grand Canyon, Red Rock Canyon and Hoover Dam while we were there. We ate more food than I've ever eaten in my life and spent more than our fair share of money in the casinos. We are already planning a return trip.

I have done NOTHING on the crafty front. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. In fact, I'm still working on processing hundreds and hundreds of vacation and wedding photos. I am having so much fun with Photoshop.

MAYBE I'll have something crafty to show soon.

And we're off!

2009-03-11T08:38:00.003-04:00

My poor sad and neglected blog. The last couple of months have been spent trying to get healthy and getting ready for our Vegas wedding.

We leave our house at 3:00am tomorrow for the airport.

When Joe and I decided to get married in Vegas, we totally expected it to be a private affair. That's not the case though. My Mother and her friends are coming, my girlfriend and her boyfriend AND Joe's sister and a friend are coming. There's 11 of us so far and I wouldn't be surprised if a few more surprise us at the chapel.

The only thing that I'm NOT looking forward to is boarding our dogs. We've never been away from them even for a night and it will break my heart tonight to leave them at the kennel. We have been assured that it's a wonderful place and there is a vet technician who works there full time so they will be very well cared for, but still, they are my babies!!!

I'm at work today. Joe's been off since last Thursday. I'm totally going to be watching the clock today.

Kreativ Blogger Award

2009-01-25T13:31:00.003-05:00

Thank you so much Bonnie for nominating me for the Kreativ Blogger Award! I'm extremely flattered. Extremely.

Here are the rules for this award:

1. Copy the award to your site.
2. Link to the person who nominated you.
3. Nominate 7 other bloggers and link to them on your blog.
4. Then leave a message on their blog notifying them you have nominated them for this award.

Here's the part I HATE! Selecting ONLY seven bloggers for this award! Here goes nothing.

1. Lera is the number one blogger in my book!
2. Cici .
3. Mary .
4. Felicia has a beautiful blog and I love all her little creatures!
5. Lisa .
6. Katie.
and
7. Jen.

My happy place

2009-01-18T17:14:00.008-05:00

I haven't been blogging much lately because honestly, I've barely set foot in my sewing room. Over the holidays I was too sick to sew and it seems that lately there's always something else on the go that prevents me from sewing.

The past couple of weekends I've sent Joe out geocaching with friends and I've actually had a little time to sew and listen to some music (yes Lera, MUSIC! on my iPod!).

Today when I walked into the room I honestly felt a rush of happiness. I grabbed my camera and started snapping even though the light was terrible.

Here are a few of my buttons. Buttons make me happy. I have buttons in jars, buttons in little drawers. Buttons everywhere. Oh, how I love buttons.

My sewing machine. I love it. Joe bought it for me for Christmas a few years ago and I think it's honestly the best Christmas present I've ever had.

This is a little corner of my sewing table. It's covered in junk, but there's just enough space to cut out my beloved Simplicity 3835 pattern on it. That's all the room I need for now.

Here's my thread organizer. I need more thread. Really I do. I'm running low on basic colours and I think I need to get more soon.

And here's a crappy photo of my 4 (yes 4) most recent Simplicity 3835 tops. I've been sewing them to take with me to Vegas in March. I am also feeling good about using up my stash!

I cut out two more tops today but I've run out of steam. It's time to plunk myself in front of the computer/TV for the night and perhaps start a fire (in the fireplace). Joe will be home shortly and there's a roast in the oven. Today was a fun day!!

Here we go again

2009-01-15T11:19:00.003-05:00

Of course I have it in my mind that I need a new wardrobe of Simplicity 3835's to take with me to Vegas in March. Honestly, I have no idea what the weather is even like in Vegas in March (Mary?).

Not only do I need new 3835's but I need button accessories to go with each of them.

Here is my first completed 3835 of 2009 along with my new pink button pendant and matching button bracelet.

There's more like this in the planning stages. Trust me.

dum dum da dum

2009-01-12T07:02:00.004-05:00

Happy New Year! Boy have I neglected this poor old blog, but I've had good reason.

Does this help?

Joe and I are getting married in March. That's right. Joe and I are not yet married. We've lived together for years and already refer to each other as husband and wife, but we aren't married. Yet.

So, in March we're headed to Vegas to the Graceland Wedding Chapel to get married. It's all terribly exciting.

(That's a very close-up photo of my wedding dress.)

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T14:33:00.002-05:00

My cat and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Bookmarks

2008-12-16T14:26:00.005-05:00

The other day when I probably should have been doing something else I found
this cute little bookmark tutorial.

We whipped up a bunch of them today at school.

I used fancy buttons for these instead of charms. I think I just found another excuse to dig through my button collection.

A beanbag for my camera

2008-12-11T16:26:00.003-05:00

I don't have time to be sewing non-essentials right now when I've barely put a dent in my Christmas list but I had it in my head that I needed to make a beanbag for my camera (to use when I don't have a tripod handy) TODAY!

It's just a beanbag filled with little pellets that I finally found at Michael's after I called, asked them if they had them, they told me no and then I went and found them on the shelf myself.

It's light so it won't weigh down my camera bag and I think it will come in handy when trying balance my camera without a tripod.

It might just be completely useless. Time will tell.

It's coming together

2008-12-09T18:59:00.005-05:00

I've finally put together a couple little Christmas gifts!

These are handmade (by me) soaps in a little felted bowl.

I thought it would be fun to embellish the bowls with buttons (of course!)

I can get back to my knitting tonight after the little fiasco that happened here two nights ago. My not-so-bright dog not only unravelled the knitting I was working on but he also CHEWED the needles!!! The needles have been replaced and the knitting saved.

Pretty bowl and ugly soap

2008-12-05T18:58:00.003-05:00

Here's one of many more bowls I've knit and felted in the last couple of days.

This bowl was knit using Patons SWS yarn. Wow! Do I ever love the way it felted!

And sitting in my new pretty bowl is my new ugly chocolate raspberry soap. It sure smells great but I am not happy with the veins running through it. I have no idea why this happens. I have to figure that out.

Getting busy

2008-12-04T18:52:00.005-05:00

Last night I made some "Sweet Pea" scented bath bombs. Oh my, how I love them! I know that many people prefer showers to baths but I'm a bath girl all the way! I'd use these in every bath if I could.

And I've been knitting.

These are the beginnings of more felted bowls. I keep thinking of different colours I want to make and different ways I could embellish them. They are keeping me entertained, that's for sure.

And then there's soap. I've already made several batches for Christmas gifts. Chocolate mint, sweet pea and pina colada soap. I just finished making a batch of chocolate raspberry. I don't think it will be ready in time for gift-giving. Oh well. More for me. :)

Felted bowl, take 1

2008-12-02T19:48:00.006-05:00

I have to make a confession.

I've hardly thought about Christmas.

At all.

I have not made a Christmas list yet.

I have done nothing.

Now I'm starting to panic. I have a few ideas floating around my head but that's all they are. Ideas floating around my head.

I decided last night I had to get my act together. One of the things I've been thinking of is little felted bowls to hold little gifts (I'm not sure what yet).

Those are clementine oranges in the bowl, not normal oranges. I like the size of the bowl. Now I just have to figure out what to put in them and crank out a bunch more bowls.

Or not.

I might change my mind.

Fetching

2008-11-25T06:40:00.003-05:00

A while back, I knit a new hat. I knew immediately that I wanted to knit a matching pair of fingerless mitts to go with it.

I wanted fingerless mitts so that I could still use my camera in cold weather.

Although I have never knit cables before and was quite frankly afraid of them, I decided to knit Knitty's fetching fingerless mitts.

Here they are:

And here they are in action:

I'm thinking I need more of these!

I love Edward

2008-11-20T07:44:00.005-05:00

I'm a 40-year-old woman (I HATE to admit that) and I'm far too old to be excited about the opening of a movie. ESPECIALLY a movie where the heart-throb is a 17-year-old boy!!!! But I am. Excited. "I can hardly sleep" excited.

As many of you know, I'm a high school librarian. I'm very very involved in our school's "Twilight Club". Yes, a book club that exclusively discusses the Twilight series. We have more than 30 students who are completely obsessed with the books and can spend hours discussing who's cuter, Edward or Jacob.

We have made arrangements to get a "special" viewing of the movie tomorrow (opening day) at noon. We have more than 100 students going on the field trip. I think (sadly) I'm more excited than any of them.

It's "Twilight Madness" at my school and I'm afraid I've added fuel to the fire. I spend my days talking to students about the book and pushing it to those who haven't read it (there aren't many) like a drug dealer. We are even making our own Twilight t-shirts using t-shirt transfers and an inkjet printer.

I have told more than one student that I'd leave Joe for a vampire. In a heartbeat (ha ha ha).

I have staff and students e-mailing me about the book. When Edward leaves Bella I got an e-mail from an angry staff member telling me that she "broke up with Edward" when he did that. That e-mail came in at 11 o'clock at night.

If you haven't read the book, do yourself a favour and run out and get it today. Trust me.

Edit: I'm not sure if you're aware but the 5th book in the series, Midnight Sun is available to read on Stephenie Meyer's website, www.stepheniemeyer.com. I'm reading that today.

Butterflies and flowers

2008-11-17T14:46:00.009-05:00

There hasn't been much happening on the crafty front at all lately around here, mostly because my sewing room is a complete disaster and it's much easier to avoid that room than to deal with the mess!

After spending the day Saturday lounging around, reading and watching movies, Joe and I decided to go to Niagara falls on Sunday to take some photos.

We started out a the butterfly conservatory in Niagara Falls.

It was beautiful there, but oh my it was HOT!!!

After that, we went to a greenhouse that is operated by Niagara Parks.

The flowers were breath-taking but I have no idea what any of them are called.

We had a fun day and a fun evening processing all the photos we took. I'm so glad Joe decided to get himself a digital SLR, we're having a great time learning about photography together.

Notebooks

2008-11-04T19:31:00.008-05:00

I had almost forgotten about these. Back in August/early September I went on a fabric-covered notebook binge!

I used this tutorial.

I made big ones.

And little ones.

And ones for friends.

This is the one I carry in my purse. I love it because the pencil is tucked right into the pocket.

Warning...they are super easy and fun to make!!! Don't say I didn't warn you!

A hat

2008-10-30T06:31:00.004-04:00

I always seem to get the urge to knit as the days get colder. This year is no exception.

Lera sent me this link and I knew I had to make it.

That's me sporting my new hat and new sunglasses. I had to get new glasses and decided to have my old glasses coated and turned into sunglasses. I have not had real sunglasses for about a year (when I lost the clips that went with my old glasses). Love them!

Anyways, back to the hat...I love the hat. I'm a slow knitter, but it came together quite quickly. Even Joe said it was cute and he hardly ever notices things like that.

I have a matching pair of fingerless mittens in the works. Stay tuned.

More photos

2008-10-26T11:02:00.009-04:00

Joe and I have been camera crazy. Reading about and playing with RAW files, learning how to use new software and adjusting our camera settings.

Last night we went out for a drive. We ended up at two different pumpkin farms and took a bunch of photos.

I am SO excited about RAW photos! They take much longer to process, but boy, are the results ever worth it.

Today I'm off to my sister's bridal shower armed with my camera.

If you're stuck at home sick...

2008-10-21T11:11:00.002-04:00

Then you might as well curl up with Martha Stewart's new holiday issue!!!!

I found it at Walmart while I was waiting for my prescriptions to be filled. I've already quickly flipped through it and although I'm glad I bought it, none of the projects scream "make me now!". They might, once I feel better.

apple crisp

2008-10-19T20:03:00.005-04:00

On Friday night Joe and I bought some apples from a local farm.

Today I decided they needed to be turned into apple crisp (not an easy thing to photograph).

I've also been starting to play with RAW photos. I really really have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm having a lot of fun trying to figure it all out. Here's a photo of one of our cats, Maia.

And, I've been sick. I have had a terrible headache for the past few days. It's gone, but now I think I have an ear infection. All I want to do is sleep.

New lunch bag

2008-10-13T11:25:00.003-04:00

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving. I've cooked myself a small turkey so that I can have my absolute favourite thing, turkey sandwiches, for lunch this week.

To celebrate my sandwiches, I decided I needed a fancy new lunch bag. I used the Favorite Things Lunch Bag pattern.

I like it, I don't love love love it. Why? Because sewing corners is hard. I had planned to use the leftover fabric to make matching napkins (how cute would that be??) but I think I'm leaning towards saving the fabric and making myself another lunch bag when I find a good online tutorial. Although, by the time I'm done with this bag I'll probably be sick of the fabric so maybe I should go ahead and make matching napkins and move on. I think that's what I'll do.

Autumn

2008-10-12T18:46:00.008-04:00

I'm exhausted. We just got home from a long day at a local conservation area with some friends. The colours were beautiful, sadly, most of my photos weren't.

Here are the few I was able to save.

The first two are of the ruins of an old mill. I would love to go back and take some portraits there. We didn't have time for that today and the place was packed!

Our senior dog, Chinook.

I was playing around in the car.

The obligatory red leaf photo.

And a pumpkin patch we drove past on the way home (and I made Joe pull over to the side of the road at).

It was a very photographically discouraging day. I was playing with a new lens (that I bought second hand) and I don't blame the lens for my crappy photos, I blame the fact that I'm just not used to it. I took over 200 photos and liked maybe 10. Sigh.

Pumpkin muffins

2008-10-06T16:08:00.003-04:00

In October I get a craving for pumpkin stuff, muffins, bread, cookies, whatever. For the past couple of years pumpkin muffins have given me my "fix".

Yesterday, while Joe was out geocaching I made a batch. Yummm. Yummmm.

Joe doesn't even like them, so in an effort to save myself from eating the entire two dozen in two days, I've put some in the freezer in an effort to make them last. I have a feeling though, that even partially frozen pumpkin muffins would taste good!

Fabric napkins

2008-10-03T06:36:00.003-04:00

I was in "clean up" mode one day and decided that I was going to use up all the bits of fabric I had laying around by making fabric napkins. I cut a bunch of 14" squares and hemmed the edges with a 1/4" hem. Easy peasy.

When I was done I explained them to Joe. "Instead of using a paper towel, just use one of these!", he didn't get it. His response was, "If this is going to be complicated, you know I'm not going to do it", so I had to think of a way to streamline the use of the fabric napkins.

I knew the issue was going to be disposal so I found an old tote that I had made, cut one of the straps off of it and hung it in the kitchen door. So I went back to him and explained that instead of tossing it in the garbage, all he had to do was toss it in the laundry bag hanging in the kitchen. So far, so good.

In fact, on occasion I've come home to a crumpled napkin on the counter (they rarely make it to the laundry bag when he's home alone) but that's okay. He's using them!

Niagara Falls

2008-09-29T06:27:00.010-04:00

Yesterday, Joe suggested that we take a little trip down to the falls and take some pictures.

I realized that I really like taking photos of people.

This couple had asked me to take their picture with their camera. Once I did that, I asked them if I could take a photo of them. They were very happy to let me.

These flowers were growing out from a cliff. I didn't quite get the effect I was going for and in fact Joe said they look far too cartoon-y but I like them.

Here's a shot of the American Falls. The boat in the river is "The Maid of the Mist" which goes right to the bottom of the falls.

At one point Joe asked me if I wanted to do something touristy. I had no idea what he had in mind and very hesitantly said "sure". He wanted to do the Journey Behind the Falls which involves taking an elevator to the foot of the Canadian Falls and going in a tunnel BEHIND the falls.

This is the view of the falls from the viewing station.

And the prettiest rainbow ever at the base of the falls.

The viewing station...

And me being a dork at the viewing station...

It was a great day. We had a lot of fun pretending to be tourists!

And more buttons...

2008-09-26T17:36:00.004-04:00

So, I couldn't stop thinking about the bags of buttons I left behind at Value Village yesterday. I decided to go back today at lunch and re-examine them even though there really wasn't anything special in the bags that I bought yesterday.

Low and behold there was an even bigger, brighter, cleaner, prettier bag of buttons waiting for me!!!

When I opened it up I realized it was 4 smaller bags all in one.

What am I going to do with all these buttons?? I'm determined to use them.

I spray painted a tin can yesterday and glued a bunch of the white buttons from yesterday's batch to it. I used the boring white buttons that I normally would have thrown out with a few pink buttons thrown in for fun.

Voila! A new pencil/pen holder.

Spray paint and buttons make me very happy.

Thrifty Thursday

2008-09-25T19:09:00.006-04:00

I had some very good luck at Value Village today.

I have a route when I go to VV. First stop is ALWAYS the sewing notions, but I have to go right past the Pyrex section to get there so I am always on the hunt for pink Pyrex for Lera (I've yet to have any luck in the pink Pyrex hunt).

The holy grail of thrifting for me is buttons. I love them. LOVE them. My heart skipped a beat when I rounded the corner today and saw EIGHT bags of vintage buttons!!!!! I gulped and started to do the inspection. I was NOT buying all of them. I settled on two bags that seemed to have the prettiest buttons in them.

My next stop is always the bedding/linen department. I got lucky today and found three brand new knit dish cloths for $1.99. Okay, two knit ones and one crochet one. I love these!

I already have a project in mind for the buttons. All I will say is it involves spray paint. I'm excited.

Mary and Bob get married

2008-09-22T06:48:00.008-04:00

Our friends, Mary and Bob, got married on Saturday. Joe and I took photos for them.

Boy, did I ever learn a lot!

I could never ever photograph an event on a really hot day. Saturday was beautiful, but boy, were we ever hot running around taking photos, and it wasn't even hot out!

And I need to be more assertive when taking photos. There were tons of people snapping shots. As a result, most of my photos have everyone in it looking in different directions.

I also really think that formal, traditional photos aren't my thing. I really liked the "fun" photos that Joe and I took the best.

It was a super day. We had a ton of fun. We will be sifting through photos for days now!

Edit: I'm not a professional photographer and never will be. Joe and I took those photos as a favour to our friends Bob and Mary. We took some practice photos of them in the summer to help prepare for the big day.

With minutes to spare...

2008-09-20T13:11:00.004-04:00

Joe and I are off to a wedding this afternoon. Our friends who are getting married are not hiring a photographer so Joe and I decided to offer our services.

It is a casual wedding so I decided I needed a "pretty" Simplicity 3-8-3-5 for the occasion. At my Mother's request, here's a photo (so she can see it).

I cut it out last weekend and have worked on it for about 15 minutes at a time (whenever I've been able to drag myself away from the Twilight books). I JUST finished it and ironed it.

We are leaving in an hour. Must run!

Stephenie Meyer, I love you, or, why I haven't done anything creative

2008-09-18T20:09:00.006-04:00

Last Friday (one week ago) I was sitting at work (I'm a high school librarian) and I had a copy of Twilight sitting on my desk that someone returned. I had more than one student "ohhh and ahhhh" over it when they saw it sitting there. I decided to take it home for the weekend and read it.

Oh my goodness. I was hooked after the first chapter. By early Sunday morning I was kicking myself for not having brought home the next book in the series, New Moon.

Fortunately, I knew that New Moon was also sitting on my desk at work and I knew I could dive right into it on Monday. I did.

Without giving anything away, the second book took me a bit longer to "get into". I had only read about 1/3 of it until last night. When I got home from work (after I had put dinner in the oven) I started to read. I am almost done. I have an hour before I have to start getting ready for work and I think that's more than enough time to finish it.

Now, here's the problem...a student is reading the third book, Eclipse. He's a fast reader and I know he took it home last night. Did he finish??? He better have!!!!!

Geo-picnic

2008-09-14T21:29:00.001-04:00

For the past 2 months Joe and I have been part of a team working on organizing and planning a HUGE geocaching picnic that took place on the weekend. It was a great success, in spite of the rain.

Joe camped at the conservation area Thursday, Friday AND Saturday nights (in the rain) while I VERY happily stayed home to take care of our senior dog. I went to the event on Saturday and had a super time. I took a few photos but spent most of my time helping Joe bbq lunch for 200 people.

Tonight will be spent unpacking three days worth of wet, stinky camping gear. Perhaps I'll lock myself in the sewing room for the evening.

dishcloths or washcloths?

2008-09-09T11:59:00.007-04:00

Okay, on Saturday evening I was knitting my latest pair of socks when the urge suddenly hit me to knit something fast. I'm a slow knitter. I love knitting socks, but I needed a hit of instant gratification.

I remembered that I had a ton of cotton yarn leftover from my dishcloth knitting days and started surfing for dishcloth/washcloth patterns. It was THEN I remembered that months and months ago I had signed up for Ravelry but had never really looked around. Well. Let me tell you, that is such an awesome resource!

I quickly found a Grandmother's favorite dishcloth pattern and had whipped up two before I knew it.

Then, on Sunday, I needed to make another and found this pattern for a Chinese waves dishcloth. This one makes a really nice think fabric.

It doesn't end there (of course). Last night I knit this one using this checkerboard pattern.

And here they are in all their pretty glory.

I think two will become new dishcloths and two (the white ones) will become new washcloths. How exciting.

Also...I had to re-install Picasa on my work computer and I didn't know that there was a new-to-me version out! I love it. It allows you to easily put text on photos (as you can see). I look forward to playing with it a bit more.

The first (of many)

2008-09-06T14:45:00.004-04:00

I could hardly wait to get to my sewing machine after reading Amandajean's awesome storage cube tutorial.

This was my first attempt. It's a little wonky, but that's MY fault, not the tutorial's!

I made the cube without the binding at the top and added it as an afterthought. I shouldn't have. I was lazy, sewed it with the machine and it's not pretty. Notice I took the photo so that you can't see the inside of the cube???

I'd make another one right now but I don't have any more cardboard. I think I'm going to be pushing cereal for breakfast around here for the next month or so!

Photo Walk

2008-09-03T06:32:00.006-04:00

I survived the first day of school. Again.

I was exhausted at the end of the day and when Joe came home and suggested we go down to the local park after dinner to take some photos I cringed because all I wanted to do was flop on the couch.

We went, and it was fun. This first photo is my favourite. I'm really having fun fooling around in Photoshop, and since I have NO IDEA what I'm doing, it truly is fooling around.

I had some fun playing with shutter speed at the water fountain.

And although I like the idea of taking a photo through a hole in the fence, I wish that the view was a little more interesting.

And it was fun to play with this photo in Photoshop.

I really do want to start Project 365 again. My last attempt lasted about a week and then I got all bummed because I missed a couple of days and quit. I think I'm going to resolve to take more photos. Project 365 is a great idea but it's kind of like dieting, you miss a day or two and then you quit.

Pendants

2008-09-01T09:05:00.004-04:00

I spent the better part of the weekend cleaning around the house and getting ready to go back to work on Tuesday after having 9 weeks off.

I hate Labour Day weekend, and it was especially terrible this year with Joe working 18 hour days.

Oh well.

The only fun/crafty thing I did this weekend was make some scrabble tile pendants using this tutorial.

They were fun and easy to do. The brown one on the far right is the only one that gave me issues. There was an air bubble in the glaze and when I tried to pop it it made a bit of a mess so I threw more glaze on it. It does look wonky with the sun reflecting on it but I'm sure I can wear it without anyone seeing the flaw.

I'm racing around this morning doing housework and I'm hoping that Joe will be home this afternoon so that we can squeeze a last little bit of fun out of the day before I have to go to work tomorrow.

Summer's over

2008-08-29T12:16:00.006-04:00

We're home from the cottage. Early. Joe got a phone call early yesterday morning asking that he get back to work to deal with some issues. We were devastated. He's a much better sport than I would be though. Oh well, at least this way I get a few days at home before I have to go back to school.

We did have fun while we were at the cottage. Joe bravely went down a natural waterslide. It was quite a sight...Joe, a 40+ year old man and about 20 kids playing in the water. It made me giggle to watch him.

We had a lot of fun taking photos that day. This is another one of my favourites.

While at the cottage, I managed to FINALLY finish up a knitting project that I've had on the go for months! It's a swatch that I had to knit so that Joe could find a geocache. The idea of the cache is that given a pattern you knit up a swatch which contains the co-ordinates for the cache. When Joe first asked me to do it I said no problem thinking I could just chart the pattern and tell him the co-ordinates. Sadly, that wouldn't work because in order to log the cache you have to have photo containing the cache container AND the knitted swatch. At least it's done now. Thank goodness.

I also had a little time while at the cottage to work on a pair of socks that I started knitting last year some time. It always seems that the last week of August marks the beginning of my knitting season. What fun.

And...I bought myself a new laptop. I can hardly afford it but my old one is three years old and was seriously starting to annoy me. I'm still in the process of setting up this new one but let me tell you, it rocks!

Thrifty Thursday

2008-08-20T15:44:00.007-04:00

I've been dropping in to Value Village a little more frequently lately. I often come out empty handed, but the last couple of visits have been slightly successful.

I've had pretty good luck in the fabric department lately. These pieces are all at least 3 yards long. My absolute favourite fabric is the floral one on the top of the heap. I've already made a pillow out of it.

I've also been visiting the shoe department. It has never been part of my regular Value Village routine but lately I've had some super luck there.

I love these simple black sandals. I'm not sure if you can tell from the photo but that leather is so soft and comfy!

And how cute are these?? It's too bad that the summer is almost over but I tend to wear sandals until the snow falls so I'm sure to get lots of wear out of them yet.

The beautiful yarn in the photo is all ready to be packed to take with me to the cottage. It came from Felicia for my birthday and I think it's time I turn it into a felted bag.

A cheater pillow

2008-08-19T13:20:00.005-04:00

I'm trying to clean up my sewing/craft room before I go on vacation (on Saturday) and have to go back to school (after Labour Day).

Buried beneath a pile of junk I found another pillowform. I quickly remembered that I had recently found a piece of fabric I had bought AGES ago at Joann's. It's a patchwork fabric. No, I did not have to sew all those teensy squares together, someone else did it for me!

I like the fabric that I used for the backing almost as much as the front. It's made of some recently thrifted fabric from Value Village.

Trust me, in real life it's not nearly as wonky as it looks in the photo.

Now I'm going back to keep cleaning. Who knows what else I'll end up making today.

Oh, and I'm creeping around as quietly as I can. Joe's having MAJOR computer issues at work. He finally came home from work about an hour ago. He had been there since 9:00 am YESTERDAY!!!!!!!!! That's about 27 hours straight. He's napping until 3:00 and then I have to wake him so he can go back. And get this...he's supposed to be on holidays this week. That's not happening!!

What a weekend!

2008-08-18T11:11:00.003-04:00

So, on Thursday afternoon I went to the dentist for a cleaning. By Thursday night I had itchy thighs and feet. What's that about??? We had our friends Bob and Mary over to look at the photos we had taken the night before and the second they left I had Joe take me to the drug store to buy some Benadryl thinking I was having an allergic reaction to something (even though I have no known allergies).

The Benedryl helped a TEENSY bit and by Friday night I had Joe going back to the drug store to get me something to put on the huge welts so that they would stop itching. He brought me home some hydrocortisone cream as recommended by the pharmacist. That also seemed to help a teensy bit.

So, early on Saturday morning I had Joe take me to the walk-in clinic to get things checked out. I was diagnosed with an infection, NOT allergies, and was instructed to stop taking the Benadryl and was prescribed a cream to put on the welts.

Things were NOT improving. I had to miss my Mother's surprise birthday party on Saturday which totally bugged me AND I was stuck with a $27.00 birthday cake that I had ordered for the party (we're still eating the cake by the way).

So, by 2:00 am on Sunday morning I was laying in bed CRYING because I was still in agony (2 applications of the prescribed cream and 2 baking soda baths later). So...again first thing on Sunday morning I was BACK at the clinic looking for help. This time the doctor looked at the now VERY red rash on my legs and feet and said "this is an allergic reaction, stop using that useless cream, here's a prescription for prednisone and go back to taking the Benadryl". *sigh*

The only thing I can think of that may have caused this is something that happened at the dentist. I don't know what. I called the dental office this morning and asked if they used a different freezing. They had not. So the cause of this reaction is still a mystery although I still suspect it has something to do with the dentist.

So...for the first time since Thursday night I feel human again. I still need the Benadryl as my feet are still itchy, but all the hives are finally gone.

Thank goodness. This is NOT a good week to be sick. We are headed to the cottage on Saturday so I have all the pre-vacation cleaning and shopping to do. I also need to get my life organized because the day after we come home I have to go back to work!!!!!!!!!

Anyways, I did manage to sew another Simplicity 3835 this weekend. During the few moments that I wasn't in agony, sewing was a great distraction.

The whole time I was working on the top I could hear my mother's voice telling me that I was "not doing it right". She would have taken great care to match up the print. I did not. When I told her about the top this morning and that I KNOW she wouldn't approve of it, her reply was "well, you can wear it around the house at least". NO!! I do plan to wear it out, even though the stripes do NOT match up. Sorry Mom!

It's time for another dose of Benadryl which is sure to make me sleep for a good two hours and then it's time to do a little cleaning and packing.

I certainly hope your weekend was better than mine!!!

Bob and Mary

2008-08-14T06:38:00.007-04:00

Our friends Bob and Mary are getting married in September.

Once I caught wind of the fact that they were not having a wedding photographer at their wedding I suggested that Joe and I could take some pictures for them as long as they remember we are NOT professional and really have no idea what we are doing.

Our offer was happily accepted. I did ask that we have a chance to take some photos before the wedding just to practice, so last night we went down to the lake and had a "trial run".

I took 660 photos, Joe took well over 700. It was a long couple of hours for everyone. I've done my first two sweeps through the photos and have deleted all the obviously bad ones. I still have about 400 to sift through.

I'm happy to have had a bit of practice. I feel a little more confident now about shooting at the wedding.

The previous photos are just cropped. I haven't even started editing yet but I know that Mary is eager to see some of the photos.

Yesterday, while doing a little internet surfing I discovered "overlays". I really wanted to figure out how to use them so once I sifted through all 660 photos I decided to have a little fun in Photoshop. I really like how it turned out.

So, I'll be sifting through photos today and trying to figure how on earth to use Photoshop (Elements). I hope that Bob & Mary are pleased with the photos.

Migraine

2008-08-13T07:50:00.005-04:00

I have had a migraine since Friday. It's not quite as bad as it sounds, once I take my medicine I feel almost okay.

As a result, I haven't done much the past few days and I hate that. I have a zillion blogs to read and e-mails to respond to so if you haven't heard from me lately, that is why!

Finally, yesterday, my friend who I took the photography class with asked if I wanted to go and and do a little shooting. I have a new circular polarizing filter that I have been waiting to play with so I said "yes", migraine and all.

The day was almost a total photographic bust. It was cloudy and threatening rain all day. As we were heading back to the car Jodi noticed a monarch butterfly fluttering around in a garden of flowers.

It was a surprisingly willing model. We were able to take quite a few photos before it fluttered away.

And once it did, I took photos of the flowers.

Unfortunately, I didn't remove the polarizing filter before taking the photos and I'm not too sure about the colours. I'm anxious to see Jodi's photos without the filter to see just how much of a difference there is.

Simple pillows

2008-08-11T07:27:00.003-04:00

Last week I made a couple of new (extremely simple) pillow covers. The front is one piece of fabric and the back is two. The cover is removable for washing purposes.

I'm starting to do my annual "I can't believe I have to go back to school so soon" freak out! It's been a super summer, but way too short!! My sewing "to-do" list looks almost the same as it did at the beginning of the summer. I have two weeks to fix that although even they are filling up fast with other activities. AHH!!!

Pillowcases

2008-08-08T08:09:00.003-04:00

While I was at Value Village yesterday I was looking at pillowcases. Maybe it's time to buy some more I thought, but I didn't see any that caught my eye.

When I came home to sew I realized that before I could do anything I'd have to clean my sewing room (since I couldn't move in there!). So...as I'm folding and organizing all my fabric I kept finding pillowcases. Lots of them. Huh???? How could I have forgotten about SO MANY pillowcases!!!!

I took that photo before I even found them all. There are more.

So, then it dawned on me. I could actually use them as pillowcases!!!! So I pulled out a few that I could actually use on my bed. I washed them and stuffed them with pillows. And guess what? They look great! Brilliant.

Now, what to do with the others? I really think they would make great "green" shopping bags but I LIKE getting plastic bags when I shop. That's what I use for garbage bags.

Any ideas?

Thrifty Thursday

2008-08-07T08:20:00.005-04:00

I've not had much luck AT ALL at Value Village of late. The few things recently that have tempted me have been way too expensive. Their sheets are now around $7.99 EACH and they have started to individually price their books (hardcover books used to be $3.99 each). The other day, I found an interesting sewing book and when I got to the cash I discovered it was $9.99. Forget that!

I was determined yesterday to find something and I wasn't disappointed.

I found these cute clothespins that I imagine hanging my cards/photos/whatever on to take photos for my blog (consider yourself warned).

I skimmed through the sheet section but none seemed to warrant the high price tags. Such a disappointment.

I headed over to the shoe section and I found these great (almost new) leather sandals for $4.99. A steal!

I have it in my mind that I need to fill our windowseat with cushions. This is NOT practical in any way with two cats and a huge dog who frequently wait in the window for us when we're out, but I'm still determined. I also don't feel like spending up to $10.00 per pillow form for this project so I took a quick peek in the pillow section and found an acceptable pillow to cover for $2.99.

I spent around $10.00 and left a happy camper. Could I be so lucky two days in a row??? We'll see.

Home again

2008-08-06T07:18:00.008-04:00

My mother and I are back. We survived our girly road trip. We lost count of the number of disagreements so there is no grand total, unfortunately. Honestly though, we had a super trip and while talking to my mom last night on the phone she asked where we were going to go next summer and told me to start saving my money!

I have to thank Lera so much for being our tour guide while we were in Maryland and for all that she did for us. I'm sure that none of you will be surprised to hear that she is one of the kindest and funniest people I've ever met. I'm so happy to have had the chance to meet her and her beautiful family.

My only (slight) disappointment about the trip was the fact that I hardly took any photos. It wasn't that I didn't see a million great photo opportunities it was just that there was no place to safely stop to take the photos. The beautiful back roads of Maryland have NO shoulders and with all the hills it would have been very unsafe to pull over.

I did take a couple of photos at a viewing station on the way home while driving through Pennsylvania.

While we were in Maryland, Lera took us to a few of her favourite thrift stores. I managed to scoop up some sheets while we were there. The middle sheet is a gift from Lera, one of the sheets I bought is MIA. No doubt, it's still in the laundry.

On Sunday Joe and I want to Canal Days. It was a lot of fun seeing all the different vendors and walking along the canal.

We had hoped to go on a boat cruise but it was completely sold out.

I'm almost caught up on laundry and once I dig out my sewing room I hope to do a bit of sewing this week.

Hi, from Pennsylvania!

2008-07-28T07:00:00.006-04:00

My Mom and I hit the road yesterday. After an 8 hour drive for me, we finally ended up in Mansfield, Pennsylvania, approximately 210 miles and 19 fights later.

Our first stop, of course, was Walmart in Warsaw, New York.

Not only was it the prettiest littlest Walmart ever, all nestled in the mountains (I'll talk about mountains in a moment) but it was the quietest Walmart I've ever been in.

Now, I consider myself quite smart, but boy was I ever astonished to realize that what seems like all of New York State and what I've seen in Pennsylvania so far is completely covered in mountains.

Time to pack up the laptop and hit the road again.....I have to check with my Mother and see if the fight-meter gets re-set to zero or do we start where we left off????

he he he

(she just said it should be re-set to zero)

Painting and one for the road...

2008-07-24T10:00:00.004-04:00

Why don't I remember painting being so hard???? I decided that last week I was FINALLY going to paint the dining room. First of all, I had to deal with some wall repairs. Our house is 80 or 90 year old and has plaster walls which are being held up by wallpaper. I spent the first day making some minor repairs, but they did take me all day to do!!!

Next up, the walls. I painted them a very neutral taupe colour and I'm quite pleased with that but that took me two days. (Am I a super slow painter, or what?). Then, even though I had decided I did not want to paint the ceiling, it became apparent that I HAD to. It was very dingy compared to my new freshly painted walls.

I had never painted a ceiling before and foolishly decided to start that project at 5:00 in the evening. When the sun went down I had to stop and finish that up the next morning, I was really having trouble determining what I had painted and what I hadn't.

Then came the trim. Fortunately, Joe was home and gave me a hand with that, but again, that took an entire day.

But I'm happy with it.

I had big plans to do the hallway and doors this week, but I just couldn't do it. I plan to get around to that in August as well as paint the bedroom and bathroom.

This week I've been getting ready to take a Thelma & Louise style road trip with my Mom. We are leaving on Sunday and coming home on Thursday or Friday. More about that later.

But of course, how could I possibly hit the road without at least ONE new Simplicity 3835???? I couldn't.

This fabric drove me nuts. It was a bit tricky to sew because it had some stretch to it. I think I love it, but the jury's still out.

I might be able to blog while I'm away, but if not, have a super and safe week!!

We're back

2008-07-16T12:35:00.005-04:00

Whew! What a super week we had up at the cottage!

We arrived last Sunday and I woke up at sunrise on Monday morning to get some photos.

As I was snapping the photos the loons were calling and the fish were jumping right out of the water. It was perfect.

That was the extent of my successful sunrise photos. I woke up early every other day that week to an overcast sky. I'm glad I snapped the few photos I did while I had the chance.

The other highlight of my week was revisiting my favourite geocache of all time, "Screaming Skulls". It's a geocache located near the property of a retired high school teacher who has filled his fields with amazing sculptures.

Since we've been home I've been knee-deep in painting. Our walls are ALL in desperate need of a paint job. I've been repairing old plaster walls and prepping for some serious painting in the next couple of weeks. I'm not exactly sure how much sewing or craftiness will be happening in the near future although I do plan to make some new throw pillows and cat beds once all the painting is done.

Break-time is over....back to work now.

See you in a week!

2008-07-05T07:55:00.004-04:00

Joe and I are headed "up north" tomorrow to spend a week at the cottage. We rent the same cottage (from a friend) for the same two weeks each year, next week and the last week in August. They are without a doubt the best two weeks of the year! We always seem to end up with a cottage full of friends and this year is no different. We have friends joining us for several days next week which is ALWAYS so much fun!!!

The past couple of days have been spent packing and making lists (oh, how I love to make lists). I did squeeze in a little sewing time, of course.

Here's my latest and greatest version of the ever-so-popular pattern, Simplicity 3-8-3-5. I know the photo only shows one, but I actually made three and I've made a new observation about the pattern. It turns out a teensy bit different each time I make it. I think that the fabric choice has a lot to do with the drape and appearance of the shirt, but I also think that my variation of seam allowances have a lot to do with it too.

Thanks to Lera I've discovered that sewing darts in the back of the top can give it a little more shape and make it a little more flattering. Having said that, I don't put the darts in until the very end after I've tried on the top to see if it needs it. Two of the three tops I've made in the past three days did not need the darts.

Today is going to be full of last minute trips to the grocery store, packing, lawn cutting and car cleaning. Oh, did I mention there seems to be an over-population of bears at the cottage??? I think I'm going to go to the dollar store today to buy a couple of children't tambourines to take with us on walks to keep the bears away. Any other suggestions?

Have a super week everyone! (I will!)

Soap, pendants and a winner!

2008-07-03T07:25:00.005-04:00

Yesterday morning I unmolded my soap.

I made three different kinds, freesia, apple blossom and a peppermint foot soap. They still smell a little bit funky, but experience now tells me to BE PATIENT, they will be fine in the end.

I also made a few more button pendants.

It's crazy how happy they make me. I've also discovered that I really prefer using the shank-back buttons so the pendant doesn't look quite as buttony.

The next few days are going to be full of packing and getting ready to spend next week at the cottage. I can't wait to sip my coffee down at the dock while watching the sunrise. Heaven.

And last but not least, the winner of my little give-away is lucky commenter number seven, Mary Sarah!!!

A good day

2008-07-01T17:32:00.010-04:00

Yesterday was very productive around here. In the morning I made three different kinds of soap. It's not quite as good as it sounds, I made one batch and divided it up into three smaller ones, scenting and colouring them all differently.

This morning I can remove it from the molds and slice it. That's always the fun part. The not-so-fun part is waiting three weeks (not 4, Lera) for the soap to cure.

Once I was done being a soap-maker, I decided it was time to sew a new bag. I used the Grand Revival Flea Market Bag pattern thanks to Dallas who ever-so-kindly sent me the instructions to replace my missing ones!

I really wanted a neutral bag that would go with almost anything. I used a heavy denim for the outer fabric and a funky orange and green fabric (from my stash) for the lining. I used green thread for the topstitching all around.

I made the small size because I really didn't want anything crazy big. I'm thinking now that I would like it a teensy bit deeper so I might just have to make the larger version.

I really like this pattern. It was a little tricky for me two wrap my brain around, but once I got started it came together quite quickly.

Happy Canada Day!

2008-07-01T06:15:00.005-04:00

Today is Canada Day and thought I'd mention a book that I'm reading. It's called Timbit nation : a hitchhiker's view of Canada.

Timbit Nation is the story of a journalist from Toronto who decides to hitchhike accross Canada. The book is part history lesson, part geography lesson and part comedy sketch. I'm completely loving it, it's the perfect summer-time read for anyone who wants to learn a little more about Canada.

The night before last when I was falling asleep I was thinking about a Martha Stewart recipe I used to make quite regularly, grilled flatbread. So yesterday morning I went to the grocery store to buy yeast and made a (double) batch and had some for lunch.

I cannot stress the following enough...I am NOT a fussy, bread-making person. I appreciate that people make their own bread, but bread-making is NOT FOR ME! Having said that, I could make this recipe every day. It is SO EASY and the results are SO YUMMY. In the past I would make my own hummus to go with it, but yesterday I opted to buy a small tub instead. I have a hunch that this just might become the "summer of the grilled flatbread" around our house.

The only change I made to the recipe is I omit the salt at the end. I'm sure it's because I just didn't read that you were supposed to do that the first few times I made it. Anyways, I don't miss the added salt.

I'm already thinking about how great they would be as pizza crusts and fajita wraps. I highly recommend this recipe.

Summer days and a plea for help!

2008-06-30T07:34:00.006-04:00

On Saturday we went to the Friendship Festival in Fort Erie, Ontario. I had never been before and enjoyed wandering through the stalls looking at all the different vendors. There were live performances scattered through the grounds, clowns, a midway, and a food area with extremely overpriced food. $9.00 for french fries??????

Of course I had my camera with me and let me tell you this ladies, a camera is to a woman what a puppy is to a man. Not once, but twice I was approached (by rather attractive gentlemen) and quizzed about my lens! Too bad Joe didn't see that!

Here's one of my favourite photos of the day.

Yesterday (Sunday) I had the day to myself, Joe went geocaching. The first thing on my to-do list was to make a new summer bag, of course!!! I pulled out the pattern (which I had already used once) and guess what?? The instructions are GONE! I have all the pattern pieces, with NO INSTRUCTIONS! I need instructions. If I remember correctly, it was a little bit tricky and I have no idea where to start.

So here's my plea. If you happen to have the Grand Revival Designs, Flea Market Bag pattern and are willing to e-mail me the "Reader's Digest" version of the instructions, I would really really appreciate it!

So, once I realized I was NOT going to be able to sew the new funky summer purse what did I do???? I made ANOTHER Simplicity 3-8-3-5, of course.

I used a taupe coloured gauzy fabric. It was a little tricky to sew with and it turned out a little bit big. I suspect it's because the fabric has a little stretch to it. I'm going to try it on again today and see if I'm right, if so, I'll be adding the darts to the back of it.

I've also been playing with buttons. Last night I sorted through my VAST button collection and selected a few buttons to make pendants and bracelets with.

I LOVE summer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hellllo summer!

2008-06-27T05:20:00.003-04:00

Today is officially my last day of work before summer vacation and I'm so excited I can hardly stand it.

The past month has been a blur. We bought new living room furniture so for days before it's arrival I was cleaning like crazy and post-arrival I've been sewing curtains and cushion covers. Now it's time to paint, but I need a little rest before I tackle that job.

One thing I've done (and I'm actually pretty excited about) is re-open my long neglected Etsy Shop. Currently I'm only offering two different sets of photo cards, but my head is filled with ideas for other goodies to make for the shop.

To help me celebrate the beginning of summer, blogging regularly again AND the re-opening of my shop, I'd like to have a give-away. I'm going to send one lucky winner a set of my "painted doors" photo cards. All you need to do is leave a comment on this post telling me what your crafty plans are for the summer (if you have any).

I'll draw for the winner one day next week.

feeling ducky!

2008-06-03T16:12:00.002-04:00

I really really really thought I'd have a sewing project to post today, but I don't. I had bit the bullet and purchased an $8.00 yellow gingham sheet at Value Village which I *thought* would make a very pretty/Springy Simplicity 3-8-3-5 but it quickly became apparent that it was going to look like a sheet that I made into a top. I do not typically wear pastel colours and it was a very buttery yellow that appeared almost white from a distance. Yuck.

After neglecting my sewing machine for weeks, this project did not reunite us, sadly.

I'm still completely consumed by the photography class I'm taking. Last night we started to look at how to use Photoshop. Next week's class is all about Photoshop and I can't wait. I have to decide in September if I'm going to take the second part of the phography course or take a Photoshop class. Decisions, decisions.

And here's a little photo that I made using Picnic, a cute little online photo editor. It looks like a fun little program!

Just popping in...

2008-05-26T09:23:00.002-04:00

I'm just popping in to say "hello". I have not abandoned my blog, even though it certainly seems that I have!

I've been 100% occupied with my photography class. Every spare moment has been spent out taking pictures. My sewing room has not seen action in weeks.

That will all change soon enough. The school year is winding down (only 5 weeks left!) and then I'm off for the whole summer. I can't wait to get back to sewing!

Here's a photo of our senior dog, Chinook. I took it while we were camping (yes, camping) this weekend.

\

Happy Memorial Day to all my American friends!

Photoshop fun!

2008-05-13T10:06:00.005-04:00

I've been trying to learn how to use Photoshop. I love the simplicity of Picasa for photo editing, but since I've started taking the photography course I know I need to learn a "grown up" photo editing program.

I've been playing with the colours of some of the images I've recently taken.

I decided that I really liked how they turned out and had the images printed. Then I turned them into little note cards.

I think they might make quick little gifts, which is always a good thing to have on hand.

I need help...

2008-05-05T07:11:00.005-04:00

I know I haven't been posting regularly. I've been sewing a little bit but mostly I've been all about taking photos lately. I've been bitten big-time by the photography bug thanks to the course I'm taking.

Here's a shot that I took yesterday while out taking photos for my class with Joe. I love it.

On Saturday I worked on another Simplicity top. My newest modification is to add darts to the back to make it just a BIT more fitted. (Thanks Lera for that tip!)

The fabric is a Tracy Porter print from Joann's.

Now, here's where I need help. I'm out of control. I can't stop making tops from this pattern. They are so simple to sew and the results are outstanding. I'm loving all these pretty comfy tops!!!!!!!

I thought I had them all ironed and ready for the photo, but when I went to take the photo I realized that two still needed ironing, so they didn't make the photo shoot. This photo also doesn't include the first three that I made that I think are too short and I don't wear. I've also given one away.

I say I need help, but what I really want is more fabric to make more tops!

busy busy busy

2008-04-27T19:46:00.003-04:00

I am pretty sure that this is just about the longest time EVER between posts for me but I've just been completely pre-occupied by my camera.

I'm two weeks into the photography course I'm taking and I've spent this entire week taking photos. I can guarantee that I've never taken so many photos in my life!

I've squeezed in a TEENSY bit of sewing time but with all the photos I've been taking for class I haven't had time to breathe, let alone update my poor neglected blog.

I have to hand in my first assignment tomorrow night and having not sat in a classroom (as a student) for close to twenty years (wow!), I'm fretting just a little bit.

Oh, and as much as I love that photo of the pinwheels, I can't use it for my assignment, it doens't fit the "simple" criteria so I thouht I'd share it here.

Camera Strap

2008-04-22T16:55:00.002-04:00

After my little photography field trip on Sunday it quickly became obvious that I needed a little padding on my camera strap for comfort. Last night before my class I made a cozy for my camera strap.

It's much more comfortable to wear than the plain strap. I think I'll make another one that's not so pink, but this will do for now.

Niagara Falls Aviary

2008-04-20T19:07:00.008-04:00

I have been sewing (a little bit) and I'll try to post photos very very soon of that.

In the meantime, I spent the better part of the day today at the Niagara Falls Aviary taking some photos with a friend.

While we were waiting for the rest of the group, we snapped a few shots of the American falls.

We then met up with the rest of the group for our tour. I have never seen so many cameras, lenses, tripods, monopods and camera gear in my whole life!

I took 87 photos in all. I think I like maybe 7 of them.

One of the gentlemen there was helping out my friend. They had the same camera and he had a backpack full of lenses he was letting her try. When I saw his face I knew I recognized him. I asked his name and quickly remembered that he was a student at the school I worked at before this one. His only comment was "you had blonde hair then". It was funny and I felt old.

It was a fun time. If nothing else it made me realize just how much I have to learn.

orange and strawberry

2008-04-14T08:34:00.003-04:00

I made two more batches of soap this weekend.

A small 1-lb batch of orange dreamsicle soap.

And a larger, 3-lb batch of strawberry soap.

I wish I had made a large batch of the orange dreamsicle soap because it smells so good! The strawberry scent is not-so-good yet. I'm hoping it improves with time.

I'm completely excited today. I signed up for a 10 week SLR photography course at a kind-of local community college. My first class is tonight!

Her talent does NOT run in the family

2008-04-13T20:02:00.005-04:00

My mother, DianNe, spent the weekend at a quilting retreat. On Thursday when I asked what she was bringing with her she innocently replied "my Christmas table runner". I'm sure I made some sort of joke about the fact that she's STILL working on it. Although I did see it in it's very early stages and I remember thinking how pretty it was.

I just received an e-mail from her friend and I am completely in awe of my Mother's talent. Trust me, I will NEVER EVER attempt any quilting project of this magnitude. EVER!

Do yourself a favour and click on the photo to see the detail of the applique!

It is all ready for the applique embroidery around to be done around the edges. Then it is on to sandwiching the batting and backing and then she will free-motion quilt it. My Mother is the free-motion quilting queen. She took ONE class and has the technique perfected. I'm not kidding. At all.

To quote my Mother's friend Dianne (her name is DianNe too):

You will not be allowed to touch it; as I think there are plans for having it showcased 'under glass'! So this is your sneak peak of the runner!!!!

I'm in awe. Way to go Mom!

More Lounge Pants

2008-04-12T14:58:00.003-04:00

I had these cut out and mostly sewn first thing this morning and then we went out and did a little geocaching.

I came home and finished them up and here they are in all their glory...more lounge pants made from a thrifted sheet.

This is part of my efforts to use what I have. This sheet has been sitting in my stash FOREVER! I'm happy to have finally used it.

Now I'm trying to decide what to sew next...hmmmmmmmm

trains and cranes

2008-04-06T17:34:00.007-04:00

It's been far too long since I've spent any time in my craft room doing anything!

The nice weather arrived this weekend and we were out and about today doing a little geocaching and taking some pictures.

First stop was an old train.

I had a little bit of fun editing the photos and saturating the colours.

Later on in the day we stopped when we saw what we thought was a heron in a farmer's field. We snapped some photos and the owner came out to talk to us and set us straight.

It was NOT a heron, but rather a sandhill crane and this little beauty is headed to the zoo.

With any luck, my sewing machine and I will spend a little time together this week. I have so many things to sew, and so little time!

Weekend Sewing

2008-03-30T10:50:00.007-04:00

I woke up on Saturday morning feeling like it was time for a new Spring bag. I haven't made a purse or bag in AGES and I had the itch.

I am so out of practice when it comes to making bags and I know that so I just made a simple bag. I interfaced the outer fabric with fusible fleece and the lining with a heavy interfacing. It also has a magnetic snap closure.

I love it, but it's an odd shape. It's way too tall. (What WAS I thinking?)

It might not be so bad once I cram all my junk into it.

And then I had to finish hemming ANOTHER Simplicity 3835 blouse.

Which of course HAD to have a matching pendant.

And then, this morning, sticking with the "use what I have" theme I decided to make a pair of lounge pants for the summer (if it ever gets here) out of a thrifted sheet. I don't have a large collection of thrifted sheets, but I've decided it's time to use them. Now, I didn't realize until AFTER I cut out the pants and started sewing them together that the sheet was partially faded!!! Consider yourself warned! I carried on because these pants are just for bumming around the house in.

They are slightly cropped and I used bias tape around the hem just for something different. I think I'm going to have to make more of these to replace all my flannel jammie bottoms for when the warmer weather arrives.

Now I'm off to Value Village to look at the sheets. I'm allowed. I really don't have any others to make pants out of! And then I might meet up with Joe and the dogs who are already out geocaching.

I hope you all had a great weekend!

Using what I have

2008-03-28T08:18:00.004-04:00

I have decided that I'm going to carry my Canon point and shoot camera around in my purse for photographic emergencies. Of course, this was an occasion for a new zippered pouch! I was up early this morning and decided today was the day I was going to start carrying my camera around with me.

I made a padded pouch for the camera and a smaller pouch to carry spare batteries and memory cards.

The fabric is a cute Japanese fat quarter that my sister gave me for my birthday and I added little vintage button zipper pulls to the zipper.

Unfortunately, today's not the day for me to start taking photos. Joe is using my DSLR today and has BOTH of my camera cards with him.

And...I had barely turned off my sewing machine when I sat down to read some blogs and wouldn't you know it but Felicia of Fluffy Flowers fame posted about the exact same topic today.

Scrabble Tile Magnets

2008-03-26T09:38:00.003-04:00

I'm pretty serious about de-stashing! The first thing I found that I had to deal with were a little bag of Scrabble tiles. I had purchased them to make pendants, but I really wasn't happy with the ones I made. What to do with a bag of Scrabble tiles?? Make magnets of course.

Sadly, I have crappy letters. Much like I normally do when playing Scrabble.

Now I want to make more Scrabble tile magnets to give as gifts! I have a bunch of little round tins that I think would probably hold 4 or 6 magnets each. I am NOT buying more Scrabble tiles though. I'm happy to have found a use for these ones.

It's a sickness...

2008-03-25T16:57:00.005-04:00

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter! We didn't do too much around here. We met up with some friends and had quite a relaxing weekend.

I did a little bit of sewing and if you read my blog regularly you will not be the least bit surprised to hear that I sewed up another Simplicity 3835 top. I cannot believe how much I completely adore this pattern!!!!!!!!

My sister, who has an awesome Etsy Shop gave me some great big buttons to cover for my birthday. I used one of them to make a pendant to match my new top.

As I was closing the door to my craft room this morning I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I have WAY TOO MUCH STUFF!!! I've decided (again) that it's time to "use what I have". I am going to seriously go through all the junk I've accumulated (I know I've said this before) and purge. I'm going to approach it differently this time though. Instead of facing the daunting task all at once (making it impossible to do) I'm going to approach it pile by pile, drawer by drawer. Maybe this approach will work. I hope so.

I'm still allowed to shop (my rules) but only for things that will help me use what I have.

Wish me luck! Yikes, I'm scared.

More button bracelets and e-mail woes

2008-03-19T12:47:00.005-04:00

I've made more button bracelets. I don't think I can ever have enough of these!

And...I am having Hotmail issues AGAIN. I've created a Gmail account and I'm trying to decide if I like it. It is sooooooooooo different than Hotmail and quite frankly, I don't like change. What I would like to know is do those of you who use Gmail like it? I'm troubled by the fact that you can't make folders and it's a little bit clunky replying to messages.

Any thoughts? Hotmail vs. Gmail?

Wallet (take 1)

2008-03-18T08:23:00.005-04:00

I have been on a quest to make the perfect wallet for a VERY long time now! I was very excited to see this amazing wallet pattern for sale as I've been admiring it for AGES!

I was hoping to have the pattern to play with on the March Break, but I was a dummy and had it shipped to my work address instead of my home address so I didn't get it until yesterday. So, last night I ran home from work and made a new wallet.

I made two BIG mistakes. The first one being I used fabric two fat quarters that I've been saving for a while now that I really liked. When will I learn???? When making something for the first time I should NEVER EVER EVER use fabric that I can't replace. Secondly, I didn't have any white velcro! What?!?!?!? I seem to remember thowing out a ball of tangled up velcro not long ago thinking that I had more. I didn't. What I did have was some terrible black VERY sticky velcro. I immediately decided to make the wallet with the sticky black velcro and call this a "prototype".

Well, the velco completely gummed up my machine. I finally cleaned up that mess but by now I knew this wallet would never be usable so I just kind of rushed through it, not being extra careful.

Here's the inside. I really botched that up. There isn't even enough room to put my cards in slots on the right side.

I've already cut out fabric for a second wallet and I plan to go get velcro today at lunch so I can work on it tonight.

I'm still so mad that I used those really pretty fat quarters!!! Live and learn.

March Break - Day 4

2008-03-13T14:11:00.005-04:00

I'm cheating today with my post because I have done absolutely nothing crafty today at all. I've been knee-deep in cleaning the house in preparation for my Mother's visit tomorrow.

I had asked Joe to make me a 1 lb soap mold for my birthday. I ended up with three because of a misunderstanding. He knows that I typically make three pound batches, so he assumed that I wanted three molds when I really just wanted one so that I can experiment with smaller batches. I win, I now have three awesome 1 lb soap molds!

I had to test the new molds to make sure they worked (of course!). Last weekend I made two small 1 lb batches of soap, freesia and apple blossom scents. I love them both, but the apple blossom scent is quite faint.

During my cleaning spree today I found two cotton dish cloths that I knit AGES ago. I just had to weave in the ends. So, even though I have NO time for anything today, I sat for 15 minutes, wove in the ends and now I have two pretty dish clothes to show off when my Mom arrives.

March Break - Day 3

2008-03-12T15:46:00.003-04:00

Well, I sewed another top from Simplicity 3835. I know it's boring to read about, but I really needed a top to match a pair of black pants that I'm wearing on Friday night to a fancy restaurant.

As I was sewing it I wasn't lovin' it. I kept thinking I'd wear it on Friday and then give it to my Mother (DianNe). But forget that! Once it was done I was diggin' it. I followed Lera's lead and lengthened the pattern by about 2 inches (I had only added about 1 for the previous ones I've made) and I really like the little extra length! (Thanks Lera!).

I'm off to a geocaching event tonight and then I'll be in full cleaning mode tomorrow to prepare for my Mother's arrival on Friday. I'm thinking March Break, days 4 and 5 might not be so crafty. We'll see.

March Break - Day 2

2008-03-11T13:50:00.005-04:00

My sewing machine and I have become re-aquainted in the last couple of days and it feels GREAT!!!

I made not one, but two more tops from Simplicity 3835 and I know that before the summer is here there will be MANY more!

The first one is made of one of my favourite fabrics from Joann's. It's an orange print and I love it.

The next one is made from a cheapie fabric I bought at Len's Mill Store. It's strange, each side has a different print! One side is blue paisley and the other is a weird horse shoe print.

I am happier with it than I thought I would be.

Now I'm off to make matching pendants.