Saturday, February 27, 2010

Church of Craft

Those of you in the Toronto area, please come out to The Workroom tomorrow, where I will be giving a workshop on drop spindle spinning at 3pm. Before that, they have their regularly scheduled Quilt Sunday, which I am just tickled to be finally able to attend.

This workshop will mark the final Toronto Church of Craft under the guidance of the lovely Leah. Her other life as a musician calls her away to live among the arts appreciating Germans.

Hope to see you there!
pleasurecraft handspun

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

WIP Wednesday

In which this:



becomes one more of these:



to warm the hands of this little girl:

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

A sign of things to come...



Here is a dandelion nature table doll that I made for the 5th birthday of a very special friend. I was especially pleased with how the dandelion itself turned out. Inspiration for this project came from the great book The Nature Corner, which has so many great doll patterns and ideas.

Making this little doll got me very excited about spring. Although we have been getting flurries here off and on, and trust me, after the mild winter we've had I am definitely not quite ready to say goodbye to Jack Frost, BUT, there sure is something great about the sunny face of a dandelion, isn't there? I can almost smell the sunshine!

Friday, February 19, 2010

Island Living

Living on an island means that I spend a lot of time on the ferry. It takes about 1/2 an hour each way, and for me, it can be a great time to be social, to knit, read, or quietly ponder the magnitude and beauty of this amazing, great lake that I live on.

Recently, the wind and cold caused a thick sheet of ice to form along the ends of the ferry, where the spray from the lake was freezing on contact.
It was a beautiful, magical, comical sight. Here it is captured late at night in all it's cold, eerie glory.




(and, yes, the bottom photo does indeed have a sign to warn us that the stairs are slippery!)

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

WIP Wednesday

I am hopping on the WIP Wednesday bandwagon. I will do my best to post a new work-in-progress each and every Wednesday.
This week I am working on my 2nd attempt at a Baby Surprise Jacket. My first just didn't look all that nice. The yarn was too unsuited for the pattern, and colours were pooling all over the place. In this one though, the colours are coming out beautifully!
The yarn is Misti Alpaca Pima Cotton and Silk, and more details can be found here.



My second may not technically be a WIP yet, but I am planning on knitting up a couple of the cute kittens from "Toymaking With Children" for Sonika's waldorf kindergarten class. I think I can finish two on the ferry this afternoon. The yarn is some handspun llama from many years ago. It is very soft, and the colours are just perfect for a calico kitty.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

watercolours



The kids and I stayed home yesterday to recuperate after a busy weekend. The girls both do wet-on-wet watercolour painting at school, so we haven't done much at home since last summer. Yesterday, though, they decided to use hearts cut from paintings for their Valentines this year, so out came the trusty Stockmar paints (primary colours only) and the lovely painting verse was spoken:

Painting spirits, wise and sage,
come out of the sky,
and onto my page


This was actually Basil's first time painting! You can see him looking over to his sister's page for guidance.


A quiet mood prevailed, and the girls were very encouraging to their little brother, helping him wet his brush, and cheering on his efforts.



Last night they drew and cut many hearts from their paintings, and tonight they will assemble them into valentines for all their friends. I will be sure to post a photo when they are all done!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Five Things..

that I am very excited about right now:

* Handmade tie tutorial from the Purl Bee

* The Ukeladies

* The custom made 100% silk dress I am having made by Christine (aka The Hempress) for my best friends wedding

* Loaf after loaf of the amazing No Knead Bread being pumped out in my kitchen

* This Valentine sewing tutorial. I can't wait (and shouldn't, only 12 days left!) to make a couple of these for some of my favorite folks

Can you share something that you are excited about right now?