{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Camp!

I had the joy and honour to be an instructor at the Blue Skies in the Community Kids Day Camp this past week.
What a great week! I had three fibre arts groups, with kids ranging in age from 7 to 13, and had so much fun with them! Not to mention the great times after camp with friends new and, well, less new!
Thanks to all the great kids, families, friends, director, instructors and support staff!!!

Hope to see you all again next year!


Roan doing his arial hoop routine at the big last day show


Exotic Azzurra with pagri and gourd banjo.


Some felt-in-progress from one of my students


Goldenrod dye pot


clowning Neal


The post-camp glow

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

island living

Can you blame me for not posting more often?






I will have a crafty post for you tomorrow though, promise!
Also, take a listen to my current theme song.

The Big Day!

We are home from our busy wedding-full weekend in Toronto. T and K's wedding was an amazing, love filled day, and went off without a hitch!
If I do say so myself, the ties, bow ties and dresses were a big hit, and looked and photographed beautifully.
Below are the girls dresses, as worn. They were made using my own pattern. The bodice is roughly based on the 'Flower Girl Dress' from the Heather Ross must have, Weekend Sewing. The skirt is the simple, charming, tied tulle tutu that can be found all over the net.

Special shout out to Marinko for his amazing 11th hour help with the tutu. That was fun!!


That's me on the right, as maid-of-honour.
Check out my hair!!! I'll have to find a better head shot. It is an amazingly executed (and long lasting!!) faux finger wave, as styled by Michael of Aveda Toronto.

tie-ing the knot

Anyone who knows me personally knows that this weekend coming, one of my best friends is getting married, and that I am the maid-of-honour. Outside of all the regular duties that that entails, I am also putting my crafting skills to work. I have signed on to make ties for the groomsmen, bow ties for the ring-bearers, and flower girl dresses for my daughters. The bride is a woman of extremely high tastes, and luckily for me that has meant working with Duppioni silk for all of these projects.


The ties are the fist project up. They were made using this amazing tutorial from the Purl Bee. They are fairly easy to make, but with all that hand sewing, they are quite time consuming. The tutorial was put up for Father's Day last year, and seeing as that time is just around the corner, I would encourage any of you to make one of these for the special man in your life. I am making a couple of cotton print ones for Bryan, too.

Stay tuned for bow ties and flower girl dresses. Here is a sneak preview of the one of the dresses!

busy spring

Wow. I can't believe a month and a half have gone by since my last post.
Spring (and summer-like weather) has been here for a while. Many craft projects have been started, and several finished. The school year is almost over. The island around us has turned green and come to life. An extensive garden has been planted. Chickens are on their way. We have plunged into the lake. The fiddle has been played.

We have sure been keeping busy around here.



I will be returning to regular posting in the next couple of days with a glimpse into a couple of the sewing projects I have undertaken for my friend's wedding.

Sonika is 6!

My dear second child. Sweet and wily. Funny and thoughtful. Kind and patient with her younger and older siblings. Born 6 years ago today.


One of the handmade gifts she received from me was this angel mobile, which was inspired by a project in Living Crafts, I think it was the Winter 2009 issue.




It's her very own angel to watch over her each night.

5 Things...

...to be excited about right now (not including of course..the forsythias, crocuses, willows, grasses, mosses, geese..and all the other spring lovliness going on outside my door).

- making these spring bonnets, designed by Amy Karol, for my girls

- the little yellow bunny that arrived in my mailbox last week, just in time for easter. Thanks Claire!!!

- this great list of spring activities for kids courtesy of Rhythm of the Home

- this song slays me

- finally picking my 'lady of the lake' back up, after months of neglect. I am more than halfway, and think this project just might get finished soon!


Leave a comment...what are you excited about right now?

Kniterary

If you are in the Peterborough area, please come out to the Peterborough Public Library tomorrow night from 7pm to 9pm for the monthly Kniterary night, where I will be teaching the knitters of that fine city to make yarn on a drop spindle.

This moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

out of commission

Since my last post I have:

-taught a wonderful group of fledgling spinners
-celebrated an amazing hockey victory with dear old friends
-spent the week teaching handwork for a Waldorf grade 1+2 class
-started a knitting circle at my children's school
-had a complete muscle spasm/seizure in my neck
-been to the chiropractor and for xrays
-fought off a throat virus/infection?

Is it any wonder I haven't posted all week?

Below are some photos (taken by Becky and Tina off their flickr..hope you guys don't mind!) of last Sunday's Church of Craft spinning workshop. Thanks to all who came. I had fun!

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!

WIP Wednesday

In which this:



becomes one more of these:



to warm the hands of this little girl:

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!

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!)

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.

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!

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?

And now for something completely different.. Or, For the love of The Hidden Cameras.

Although I don't often blog about it, I love music. I love Canadian Independent Music, among many other well deserving genres. One of my favourite Canadian bands is The Hidden Cameras. I am lucky enough to be acquainted with some of the members of the band (Meadowvale and Toronto represent!), and this past fall I got to see them on three consecutive weekends on their North American tour, first in Toronto (at a dear friend's wedding!), then in my new hometown of Kingston and finally in Brooklyn, NY.

Below is a photo taken of me, up on stage in Brooklyn with The Hidden Cameras (and the ever-lovely Gentleman Reg) gleefully helping out with the final song of the night. It was also my birthday. And my three best friends were there with me. What a night.


Now, if you have the time, enjoy this charming video from last year.
Ladies and gentleman, "In the NA":