We finally have good weather, and then what do we get? SKEETERS!
Every time I stopped to pick up after Jazz during out walk this morning, 15 of them would be on me! Needless to say we walked fast and didn't walk for long.

And, of course, there are firecrackers on the street again. Where do these kids get them?
I hope they'll get rid of them all by Tuesday.
I'm just glad it's warm because the fans and air conditioner reduce Jazz's ability to hear them - but she still slept in my room last night because of them.

Finally some Finished Objects, more from the "Creepy Cute Crochet" book - here is the Corporate Zombie:
and the monkey. I gave him googly eyes and now he looks all crazy and unpredictable - don't you think?

Here I am

Okay. I admit I've been absent this week - and there are a couple of reasons - the first two are to do with work. On Tuesday I had to go with a sales rep for a presentation so I was out of the office most of the day and on Thursday JP and I had a full day meeting in Richmond so we drove out on Wednesday night and stayed in a hotel so he didn't have to fight 2 hours+ of morning rush hour. Both events caused me to be very behind in everything!

Being born in the summer, I just love hot weather, just being out side, ahhh.... I used to say "you can never be too rich, too skinny, or too hot outside". Yes, it's not good grammar, that's why I don't say it anymore (that and I know that you can be too skinny) So I've been outside as well - that's the second reason I've been away from the computer.

While in Richmond on Thursday, I stopped by Daiso and found these goodies:

there are some coloured tapes, a piggy ashtray, some origami paper,

salad tongs, some embroidered greeting cards, notebooks,

papercoasters and some wooden dessert spoons.

Across the street at the Yaohan Centre, I bought these books:

Cotton Time and a book on needle felted animals

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My hair is a chin length bob (at the moment, it's always changing) and I just wanted to even it out. I thought "how hard can it be to cut a straight line?" so I went to First Choice Haircutters. Yup. I did. And it was a big mistake. After the women (who's the manager) finished cutting it, I asked her to cut it again because it didn't look straight. She did some snipping and insisted it was straight. So I left, and sadly I even tipped her.

When I got home and had a chance to look at it in the mirror, it was not straight - I even had a tail! Bah! It's not the 80's dude! So I opened the phone book and picked a salon. I had an appointment for Friday. I told my new stylist my story, and she just shook her head. At this salon I could watch her cut the back of my hair and observed a very straight line. Oh yes, and my bangs are no longer at a 30 degree angle either!It just feels so much better to have a good haircut, doesn't it?

After the haircut I stopped in at the LYS and had a hoot, in fact they even asked me to sit down and chat with them! Way too much laughing for a store! (but that's a good thing) I did pick up some sock yarn and a couple of skeins for a summer shrug, so now I'll be outside knitting, embroidering or completing some more Creepy Crochet, oh and reading too. Oh, and I'll be gardening as well - it's always time to mow the lawn isn't it?

Is it a long weekend for you?

Is it sunny where you are and are you enjoying the summer?

I'm still around, I've just been out of the office on work-y stuff. I did get to stop by Daiso yesterday, but I'll post a photo on Saturday. Right now it's time for me to finally enjoy the sun. I'm going outside with a Pom Tea and a book and I'm going to enjoy the sun.

I don't get a long weekend, but it sure has that feel about it.

I just hope all my neighbours don't head outside too, because none of them know how to do it without their stereo and don't seem to know what headphones are......

Hope y'all doing okay.
W.O.W.?

Wedding Pictures

....Skeleton Wedding that is! Here are my completed versions from the Creepy Cute Crochet book. I substituted and used what I had - the author (Christen Haden) suggested Fimo for the eyes which I didn't have (and JP said "and how is it that you don't have black Fimo", looking around my vast supply of crafty goodness...) and I know I have white tulle somewhere, but I couldn't find it fast enough, I thought a ghoulie green veil was a good alternative.

And now, without further ado... the bride and groom......

...yes it was an evening ceremony in the garden.
And rather formal too - he, with his top hat; she, with a floor length gown.

The bride looks happy doesn't she?

Creepy + Crochet + Book = awesome

It's book review time!

If you're a crocheter and a fan of cute and creepy things - then I bet you will love this book!


I just got this book, oh oh oh oh oh.... so many adorable things to make! I'm going through my stash right after I finish typing so I can make a creature or two! And then I'm going to buy some Fimo so I can make that little grim reaper's scythe too. Other creatures include: Devil, Nosferatu, Queen Vampire, Skeleton Bride & Groom, Corporate Zombie, Trojan, Spartan, Ninja, Monkey and Robot plus more!

Anyway, that's all I got today, have yourself a good weekend.

A side of fish

My own craft challenge it to use up the bits of yarns and wools that have been given to me over the years, (and for which I am grateful for). I'm no yarn saint though.... occasionally I do buy new yarn for a specific project... most knitters have to, don't we?

With a large skein of 'macaroni and cheese' coloured acrylic I made an orange "Hallowig" (see previous post), but there was still plenty left over. So now I decided I'd make a goldfish:

(The white around his eyes is glue which is still drying -

I couldn't wait for it to dry before I took the photo.

I think the googly eyes are perfect for a fish, don't you?)

"Gretchen the Goldfish" is a free pattern found here.

I remembered this little thing we did in elementary school, and even wrote it in dry-erase marker on my father's aquariums years later - which always made him smile. When I taught it to The Kid when he was about 3, he loved it - he actually even mentioned it just the other day - and he's 9 1/2 now!

A B C D goldfish?

LMNO goldfish!

OSARD goldfish....

C D B D iiiiiiii's

(read it outloud)

Do you remember it?

Busy Weekend

It was JPs birthday on Saturday but the majority of our day was taken up by his sister's wedding and since he takes his birthdays pretty seriously and normally even takes the day off work if it falls on a weekday, I tried to compensate by bumping it up to Friday night.

Earlier in the day I baked him a 2 layer yellow cake (lots of butter and eggs). Then JP, the kid and I went for dinner at The Olive Garden and when we got home we gave him his presents. Then while the boys were playing with them, I finished icing the cake which was now cool enough for icing. It was too warm before we left for dinner and as JP says "premature decoration affects thousands of women and bakers every year".....

Saturday the boys donned black suits and white shirts and we headed into Gastown for the wedding and such. (I wore a black and white skirt and a wasabi green cardigan, just in case you were curious)

Sunday, was Father's Day but the kid had to go home early so we only had a bit of time to hang out before we took him home. With JPs broken rib, there wasn't too much movement happening. We did swing by Chapters on the way home and spent his birthday gift card (he's so sweet, he shared it with me!) and I did BBQ a couple of sirloin steaks for him.

On Saturday, I left Jazz with my neighbour overnight since we were away for so long at the wedding, and when I picked her upon Sunday morning, they asked if I drugged her because she was so mellow. She didn't play with the neighbour dogs like she used to, in fact, she'd leave the room and lay on the mat in the bathroom! (what an antisocial girl). I guess she's really gotten used to her solitude now that Maxx is gone.

All in all, the weekend flew by pretty quickly but the only thing I made was the cake, no knitting or embroidery or anything! And I'm not sure if I'll get any done today because after work I'll be trimming and mowing the lawns since the rain finally stopped and everything is so overgrown! (I'm not complaining though, I'm just so glad the sun it out and it's getting warmer!

I hope you were able to get lots done, let me know!

Meme

Okay, I wasn't really tagged, but Very Pink invited all her readers to participate. I loved the idea of the photo mosaic, so I decided I would tag myself!

The rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

To see it better in Flickr, go here.

Perhaps you'd like to give it a try? Leave your link in my comments so I can check you out!

Knitscene Magazine

Cool. I just received 2 issues of Interweave's Special Issue magazine, Knitscene - Fall 2007 and the Winter 07/Spring 2008. The patterns are a younger style and include a good range of projects(including some crochet). Interweave's website says this:

Are you a spirited knitter who feasts on yarn, knits in style, and likes to push your creativity level to the max? Knitscene magazine, a special issue from the publisher of Interweave Knits, is packed with first-sweater projects, fun accessories, and the best in techniques for the spirited, creative knitter. For a limited time only, get two of our popular back issues: Fall 2007 and the most recent Knitscene, Winter 07/Spring 08 for just $9.99.

Included in the Fall 07/Spring 08 issue is an interview (and a pattern) with the fabulous Wendy Bernard of Knit and Tonic blog which if you're not reading on a regular basis, you should. She includes incredible photos taken by her husband who's simply known as HWWV (which stands for 'he who wears Versace" ) and numerous comical stories all tied into her current knitting projects or experiences.

You do know I'm a magazinaholic don't you? And now I'm encouraging you to be the same. But I'm not ready for magazine rehab so no interventions please. Collecting knitting or crochet magazines feels a bit less indulgent because they stick around longer than the fashion magazines that get recycled within a few months. However, now that I think about it, magazines sticking around may not be such a good idea for my other dirty little secret, clutter.

Embroideries

Remember the other day I posted this embroidery?
Here are the others in the set, first - a ruby slipper:
Then some dice
And this one's still in progress, but I thought I'd show you anyway:

More to come this weekend (I hope.)

One of my favourite comic strips is Pearls Before Swine. Sunday's strip was priceless:

Stephan Pastis, will you marry me?

Thrifting Weekend - Part II

Speaking of found things, don't you hate when you find presents months after the event? Sometimes I give it to the person when I found it, sometimes it waits until the next occasion. I just found these Easter chocolates which I had bought for JP... too late to give them to him and shouldn't be held for next Easter, so I ate them. It was my duty. The things we do for love.
And now some more photos from this past weekend's Thrift Store shopping. This is my ultimate favourite item and I didn't even find it, JP did. I'm sorry the flash faded out the details. It's a metal painted birdhouse with a little birdie on the perch. When you wind it up there are bellows inside that make a birdie chirp and the bird moves around. We've searched through all sorts of collectors sites and can't find any reference to it, but other toys of the same era and manufacturer are apparently coveted items with metal wind-up toy collectors.
There was something about this next piece that JP liked and he feels there's a story to go with it. He really liked it. Do you know if there is any significance to it?
Next, I found this embroidered tea towel. The stitching is perfect and I think I even have companion patterns if I wanted to make more. This is perhaps another tea towel that I won't use.
Then we found these plates, which are helping to complete sets we already have. In the top right corner is a little ceramic holder for holding scissors. And now, the pieces you've all been waiting for ...... look at this awesome pineapple pitcher we found! I love it. It's so happy looking!

And our favourite, favourite, favourite piece, we practically bumped heads reaching for this one - it's a pineapple server with lid and matching plate! Woo hoo! This made us very happy!


And now, I have to find places to squirrel all this stuff away since we don't live in a very big house!

A Website

Have you heard about Artflock?

Their site says they are:

ArtFlock.com is an online creative community where you can buy and sell original art and craft. It's an ideal place to discover the latest artistic talent or to share your art and craft with new audiences.

Wow! What an amazing place to buy art work.

Sad knitting news

I just read on Craft Gossip that Knit.1 magazine is going to two issues per year down from 4. That really sucks. What gives? I thought knitting was as popular as ever... are people really skipping the purchase of magazines for on-line patterns? Is it the high cost of paper, and delivery?

First Adorn Magazine and now this.... what's a knitaholic/magazinaholic to do?

On a brighter note, you can check out this site - mylifetime. com for other craft ideas.

Morning Musings

When JP returned from his trip, he mentioned that his side still hurt and I was sure it was just a pulled muscle. On Saturday morning he headed to the walk-in clinic where the doctor confirmed that he had broken a rib! That's pretty scary to me. One tense golf swing and your bone breaks? And the poor guy had to load and unload suit cases and move and set up a trade show booth, plus play golf with clients all with a broken rib. All while not complaining - this guy's got one strong pain threshold.

Me? I had a very stiff shoulder and neck yesterday - nothing broken- but man did it hurt and I'm sure I was vocal about it. I guess I'm a wimp.

And speaking of my sore shoulder, I have no idea how it came to be other than sleeping on it funny, or tension because I had to go to a work dinner last night. Is it possible to be so subconsciously tense about an event that I can manifest pain? I suppose so.

It's much better today, is that because of the pain killers or the fact that the dinner is over with?

~~~~~~~

This morning as I was walking my dog I passed the gas station and saw the price was 143.9 per litre! Three days ago the same gas station was selling it for 129.3 per litre. Holy crap people! It's a good thing other products don't have price jumps like that - can you imagine if the price of milk jumped 14 cents over the weekend? A 10% price increase really hurts, especially when for many of us we either get no annual increase to our wages, or less than 5%; that takes a chunk out of people's paycheques!

On this same walk, I also noticed that several people had filled their planter boxes with silk flowers- perhaps they are tired of all the rain and realized that any flowers that have bloomed are being destroyed by the rain drops. Over the last couple days I saw flowers that had bloomed and then dropped their petals all within a few days - those poor gardeners may not have had the chance to notice their flowers had come and gone.

And finally, as I was walking, I passed a guy with a Blue Heeler that I have seen many times over the past several years - we stop to talk to each other and talk about our dogs (and let the dogs smell each other). He told me that he calculated that he's walked over 5,000 miles in the past seven years, 'which is almost like walking across Canada' he said. It would be interesting if we kept track of other things we do on a daily basis - how many miles/kms of yarn have we knit or crocheted? or how may yards/metres of thread have we gone through....or how much we've got in our stash? I think we'd be quite surprised. On second thought, I don't think I want to know....

Do you have the Monday blues? Then time to brighten your day browsing through this website - Blue Ribbon General Store - a girl's credit card could get in trouble here - oh I think I could place a really big order if I was still bleary eyed from the weekend.

I like the kids chopstick holders, the cat tape dispenser, the bone pushpins and the "What's for Lunch" spinner.
What's your favorite item(s)?

Thifting Weekend - Part I

JP is back from his business trip, which means we had Chinese Food (a tradition he likes to keep up) and we did some shopping. It was nice to have him home, had a meal out and shop! We did not have any more creepy, scary fortunes. I did have one fortune cookie with 2 fortunes in it though.

And looking around my fave blogs this weekend, I see I wasn't the only one hitting the thrift stores. I guess a bunch of us had the same idea. Isn't that funny how it goes?

Here are some of my favourite finds - first, 2 monkeys climbing up a palm tree with a clock on the top - the clock doesn't work, but I can easily replace it:

Twin gyroscopes still in the box. My brother had a gyroscope when we were kids but he never let me play with it. Still, it was fun to watch.The box is in good shape and so are the gyroscopes, a fun thing to have around, no?
We had to pick up this little ceramic poodle, it is made from red clay and stamped from Japan - definitely more than 20 years old:
JP's new favourite t-shirt - it's a guy sitting on the couch with a video game control and a girl standing next to him, with the word 'neglecting' below..... (ha. ha.)
I adore this Jim Beam Bowling Pin! It's glass and about 12" tall:
Also found were 3 craft books - one is a "Better Homes and Gardens Complete Knitting, Crochet and Embroidery" book from the early 70's. It covers a large variety of techniques; the second is a book on crazy quilts which includes many patterns for embroidery and the third was a "Beginners Guide to Crewel Embroidery" which also had some good embroidery patterns. I found a larger afghan hook too, and made a test swatch - hmmm, I think I might be making a baby blanket, I quite like the afghan stitch.

Alrighty, I'll post the rest of the photos tomorrow. Hope you had good weekend.

I'd better get going, I gotta watch Mad Men tonight - it's not a new one though, the new season doesn't start until July 27th! (boo that it's so long from now, yay - there is a second season)

Six things I want to tell you today:

1. The new season of Mad Men starts on Sunday. If you like nostalgia, you should watch it.
2. It's June and I'm still wearing sweaters and socks. It's great weather.... if you're a slug! Good thing the first day of summer is June 20th. We're below our historical daily average temperatures ...say, how come the words "global warming" aren't being mentioned right now?
3. My husband comes home from a business trip today, that means we get Chinese food for dinner.
4. I don't like bread with holes in it because it doesn't toast well and then I have to spread my peanut butter around the big air bubble.
5. I am grateful for the abundance I have in my life.
6. I'm embroidering some images just because I like embroidery and the images are uplifting. I have no idea what I'll use them for yet - part of a quilt? patches/appliques? I'm just not sure. Here's one:

Doesn't that drink look yummy?

Signature Maker

Okay, this is a fun way to spend some time - work on your signature, check out this site

Here's what I made:

That one is for my brother - gotcha!

Stitch n' Bitch battle is over

Hey Knitters - do you recall the kerfuffle surrounding Debbie Stoller's use of the term "stitch n' bitch" and the Sew Fast Sew Easy law suit? Well it's all over, read Debbie's statement here.


EDIT: a reader just brought it to my attention that the link I gave doesn't work. Hmm, it seems that the website withdrew yesterday's post. I guess someone had a issue with their posting of Debbie Stoller's statement. Even more interesting isn't it?

WEBSITE ALERT: Craft Gossip

Okay people, another website to check out - Craft Gossip, take a look see, here's the knitting page.
(scroll down for previous days)

Okay that'll keep you busy for a while... don't forget to come back here though, 'kay?

The Captain in You

I was just watching TV and saw the commercial for the Captain Morgan Pose Off competition, which reminded me of a story:

About 10 years ago, my brother had a side job working as Captain Morgan - he had the full costume and would be assigned locations to visit, handing out samples and other promotional items. One time he even snow boarded down Hemlock Mountain in his Captain Morgan costume to later give away the Captain Morgan snowboard. Sometimes he had a 'wench' or two with him (I see now they are called "Morganettes") to help hand out the promo items.

Any way, one day I was chatting with a girl and for some reason I said, "My brother is Captain Morgan"

And the girl scoffed at me.

"No, no, really, he's Captain Morgan" I said again - I have no idea today why I cared so much that she knew this fact.

To which she replied "yeah, and my brother's Superman".... all right, fine. End of conversation.

Every time I see the commercial for the Pose-off, it reminds me of this. And now you might think of it to.

A strange fortune

JP came home from work the other day and handed me the fortune from his lunch, which he thought was odd:

Of all the fortune cookies I have seen, I think this is the most fortune like of all - don't you?

Everybody is happy, I hope you are too

The BBQ Gods must be happy because I've had a successful barbecue week including some excellent Maui Ribs - including some Big Boy Pork Chops and a couple types of steak. I also barbecued some asparagus which turned out incredibly good so I will be repeating that recipe as frequently as possible.

Yesterday while trimming my kiwi vine, the kid stood by to find snails and then had a race on is arm - and even found a baby one. The snails look happy, see?

It's raining today, which is good for the garden, and also means the neighbourhood is nice and quiet - that makes me happy. This also means the worms will come to the surface so the many birds that visit my garden should also be happy. Yesterday, I counted 5 potato plants and the rain will help reveal more I'm sure - more happiness.

Today I'm puttering, doing little craft projects including a cross stitch. JP's out of town so I'm just puttering. Mainly I'm working on some self reflection projects - exercises for goal setting etc. It's very interesting but I do find I need to take a break so in between I've got a crochet going as well.

I finished some crafts but haven't taken pictures yet. I needle felted a little dog, crocheted a baby seal and a doggie this week as well.

And that's all I feel like writing right now. So, your turn - are you happy today?