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":

One small change

I am participating in Hip Mountain Mama's One Small Change campaign. The basic idea is that all of us make one small change toward sustainability each month until Earth Day, and all these 'small' changes might just add up to something BIG!
I am joining a little late, and really wanted to get a post up right away about my change, so I have truly chosen a small one, but one that will be a big deal for me nonetheless.
I am going to only use a reusable coffee/tea mug from now on. This is big for me because I typically do not remember to bring one with me, and just end up buying my drink in a disposable container. I won't be doing that any more. If I forget my mug, tough. And since I don't have money to be buying 10 reusable mugs, I can't cheat, so I figure it won't take me long to get the hang of it!

Above is a photo of my mug in all it's rust coloured glory. I got it for 50 cents at the MEC gear swap last fall! Actually, MEC has an online gear swap, which is worth checking out if you are in need of any outdoor gear. Could be the seeds of another small change.

I have bigger plans in mind for my February change, which I will post about at the beginning of next week.

Above is a photo of me taken by my husband on a walk we took with friends behind our property last week. We live on Wolfe Island, along with about 1200 other people and 86 wind turbines! This one is about a kilometre behind our house.

Some Bunny Loves You.....

Here is my latest FO, two cute as pie bunnies. It's a very fast, but somewhat fiddly knit. My kids love them. After my disappointing first attempt at a Baby Surprise Jacket (didn't like the yarn, and didn't pay close enough attention to the increases..) these little bunnies are a very satisfying distraction indeed!
Here is the pattern. These would make really cute Easter gifts for little and big folks.




Have a lovely weekend!

Some Birthday Knits

As promised, here are two of the knitted items that I made Azzurra for her 7th birthday. The first is a child sized Caliometry in a mustard yellow/green Malabrigo worsted. It is super soft and fits her very nicely. She is trying to grow out bangs right now, so it is just the thing needed to keep her hair out of her face at school.



Next we have Neighborly. Made from Lamb's Pride in a lovely teal and some great hand-dyed bumpy thick and thin yarn that I acquired on my trip to NYC at Purl Soho. I really love the way it turned out. Azzurra loves it and has already worn it a few times. I will be making one of these for Sonika's birthday too! More details can be found on my Ravelry page here.

Happy Birthday!

I can't believe that it was 7 years ago today that I became a mother. My dear, how my little sweet Azzurra has grown into such a lovely girl. And I can hardly believe how quickly it has gone by. It's like she was a baby yesterday, and at the same time, I feel like she has been with us forever.


Above is a detail of the wall quilt that I made for Azzurra for her birthday. I am very proud of it, despite the beginner embroidery and crooked patched squares.


Azzurra's birthday table,



Happy Birthday to a very special 7 year old!!


Tomorrow I will post photos of the two knitted Birthday gifts that Azzurra is proudly wearing at school today.

Outside

We are blanketed in beautiful white snow here on Wolfe Island. These are some photos that were taken just after dawn this morning.






I really love this weather. Cold, clear and bright with lots of clean and lovely snow.

More of the holidays...

Some more images of our holiday season:

Window star and wool angel


Our seasonal table


Our advent calander


The "wall pockets" that I made for the kids for Christmas. It is one of the many amazing projects in SouleMama's newest book, Handmade Home


Some woolens warming by the fireside


Two happy girls in new handspun, handdyed, handkint hats!


And, last, but certainly not least, I bring you this: an image to sum up my New Year`s Resolution for 2010. I am really not much of a resolution type of person, but the timing is working out for this one, so, here goes...I resolve to become more of a fiddle player this year. I have taken lessons in the past, but my playing has fallen by the wayside. I have someone who is willing to teach me, I have the fiddle, and now I have the resolve! 2010 will be the Year of the Fiddle!!!

holidays

here is a glimpse into our home this holiday season...

Our advent table (photo taken by Sonika)


Solstice, spent in front of a fire, with friends, in a tipi!


Dear Sonika, at our Christams Eve feast


Nativity, set up by Azzurra and Sonika, using toys and found objects. The dolls were a "farmer" set that I made several years ago, the little angels were made by the girls last winter.



I hope a lovely holiday season has been had by one and all!

This Weekend...

With all the work I have been doing preparing for this year's craft sale season (which we are in the thick of), I have not been keeping my bloggy promises. I have loads of pictures to share from this past fall including two trips to New York State (NYC and Rhinebeck).
Alas, there will have to be some sort of year end retrospective mega-post to come.

For now, dear reader, I give you this:
My most favoritest Craft Sale of the year, happening in the fine city of Toronto, this weekend, December 12th and 13th, at the Theatre Centre on Queen Street. Check the lovely website for more details. Hope to see you there, dont forget to come by and say hello!

tomorrow:

the fat goose craft fair!



My first foray into the Kingston indie craft scene.