Birthday Treats with the Art School Beauties

Yes, it has been awhile since my last post...unfortunately (or fortunately for the gamer in our household - ahem!) our main computer has had the biscuit. We are waiting for the arrival of a brand spanking new PC with all the works, so that I can continue to blog and mr. hubby can spend the next month making up for all the last gaming time he lost over the last week. Until then, I am trying to edit photos and update this post on a little laptop with the worst monitor known to mankind. Apologies for any strange colours - I'm not responsible!

Anyways, onto more entertaining updates... I had such a wonderful time yesterday! Five years after our graduation from the animation department at ECIAD, I finally got my act together and actually met up with my old pals. Not only were we celebrating the beautiful wendy's birthday, but we were also playing a lot of catch up! And sweet moses, were these girls busy! Let's see...Amanda just moved back from Halifax after working in the stop motion animation industry and discovering she has some entrepreneur blood in her, Helen has been to New York and got herself a long distance relationship and a whole new perspective on city life, Sascha is back from a temporary residence in London where she worked in British animation and had herself a sweet baby girl, and Wendy, being her true cultured self has been all over the place doing very well for herself as the talented and highly sought after photographer..hmm...have I forgotten anyone? Oh, yes - and myself...perhaps living a not so adventurous life but truly loving to hear every detail of everyone else's travels. Visiting with them has really got me excited about the trip to Europe we are planning for the fall. I can't wait to have some new adventures of my own!

And since it was Wendy's Birthday, of course I went knitting crazy and whipped up a Branching Out Scarf that I had been planning to knit for sometime now. What a perfect excuse to get some more lace knitting under my belt. For a long time I have been hating knitting with those complicated patterns, but this was an excellent project to start on. It was easier, although, don't get me wrong, I still could not carry on conversation or watch any tv as that would defenitely distract me.

Check it out!

And here is the birthday girl herself - sporting the scarf in all her glory :)



And here we are - all together for a photo. I have to chuckle when I see this because it was so funny watching Helen and Sascha run back and forth to set up their self timing cameras. Sigh, it was a defenite "had to be there moment"...

From left, counter clockwise: Helen, Amanda, Me!, Wendy and Sasha.

The Funkapillis disaster socks

Ok people, here is an example of a project gone horribly, horribly wrong. I call them the funkapillis specials and they must NEVER leave the house...ever! I can't get over how ugly they are! The yarn is just the nastiest combo of primary barf colours I could possibly find. I cannot remember for the life of me why I purchased this yarn in the first place. Seriously, I must have been on something. You can also see that this was a project poorly planned. I ran out of the ugly crayon yarn so I decided to use up this icky halloween orange colour cuz I thought - hey, go crazy or go home. I'm going all the way! The funny thing is that I cannot get rid of them because for however ugly they are, they are just as comfortable. I cannot get over how much cozier hand made socks are compared to mass produced store bought socks. My feet are in heaven - it's a good thing that comfort is blind otherwise I'd have to burn them.




On a more successful note, I finally found some ribbon to complete these baby booties. I've had these things completed for quite some time now, I just kept forgetting to get something to tie them up with. I think I'll give them away to a friend at work who is expecting a baby girl in September. They are so simple and cute - I'm quite pleased how they turned out.

That Cursed Sweater and Kool-aid spinning

So, work has been very frustrating for the last couple weeks (to say the least!) which is why there have been no posts since Razoir's b-day. But today I must post something to prove I am alive and creating. I have been knitting or spinning at least an hour every night, just to get rid of that nervous energy and unwind. I am finding that with age, I don't handle stress very well, even just compared to a couple years ago. Like many of you know, I have developed jaw problems due to clenching (from stress) and recently it has gotten worse with tension headaches and just pain in general. I think its time to quit the job, sell the house and move out to the country. I'm always planning my hobby farm and fibre studio...it's only a matter of time and money :)

To keep me sane at work I've also been checking out more blogs and reviews over the net - also, I am completely hooked on podcasts! It's like the fibre community I always needed - right there in my itunes. My favourites are Pixie Purls, KnitCast, The Fibre Cast and Knitting News. I love it that these knitters/spinners are just as obsessed about fibre as I am...makes me think I am not going loopy after all!

So, the last week or so I have been working on some socks and let me tell you, they are a peice of work! I think they look hilarious because the yarn is totally loud and I've actually run out of it so I had to use another crazy yarn to finish them. I'm nearly done so I'll post a photo tomorrow - until then, here are some other updates:

My ongoing sweater...sigh. What is up with this sweater? It is totally cursed because I just can't seem to get it finished! I'm so close, I just have to finish up the one sleeve, sew it up and put the zipper in. How difficult can that be? For some reason I have a block there - I must get past it...This is how far I've gotten so far...



Kool-aid yarn!! A couple weeks ago I dyed my left over roving with kool-aid - my first attempt at dying ever. And I think I found my calling because I just had so much fun! Next time I'm going to try painting the yarn to get more variation (I ended up mooshing the colours all together -oops!) The only thing is that the wool still smells really strongly like kool-aid. Is that going to go away? Maybe I didn't soak it long enough at the end...I'm not sure. But I sure am having fun spinning it. It really makes me want to get a wheel and learn to ply.



Here are a couple examples of my first attempts at spinning. I was really pleased with the plyed yarn, but the others look pretty funny. I just wanted to document them before they get tossed.





My blog has defenitely become my knitting/spinning haven, so I am thinking of changing some parts of this blog template and I'm going to try to make my own graphics. I just have to figure out some html. Yikes, that should be fun...not!

Well, the sun is out and it's time to go enjoy a day of gardening and chores. Have a great weekend!

Razoir's B-day and my lonely socks...

We had a little family b-day get together to celebrate Theresa's happy day and here are the cupcakes I made for her. So sparkly pink and totally delicious :)

The weather was so nice, we had to head out to the beach. Here's the clan at their best. Harry becomes such a kid when he hangs out with our nephew Josh - it is completely out of control and hilarious! My sister-in-law is the blonde hotty in the centre photo.





I also started knitting some socks this weekend - but I was so wary to begin another sock pattern. In the past I haven't had much success with projects that require me knitting two of a kind- as you can see from the photos below. It's great to see a project come together, and then I lose interest in starting the other half. I suppose I lack the committment there - but I am determined to complete my 2 socks this time. In the meantime, I'll share the portraits of these lonely halves so they don't feel completely forgotten in my knitting basket.

I also have this problem with mittens too.



I'm off to try dying some wool with kool-aid now. MMMMM...kool-aid.

The Sun Run has Sprung!

We did it! Another year of the Sun Run under our belts and both Harry and I have done a personal best for our annual spring 10K run. We were happy to have Harry's sister and nephew along for the ride too - we had a blast! Here are the official results of the clan:

Harry 58:27 5:51:08/km 9:25:00/mi
Sandra 1:00:26 6:02:57/km 9:44:00/mi
Joshua 2:02:10 12:13:22/km 19:40:00/mi
Theresa 2:02:12 12:13:22/km 19:40:00/mi

My personal goal was to be under an hour, but I'm not all that disappointed considering there was a record of 50,746 people we had to share the road with. It was insane! I've never seen so many people! I usually bring a camera so I can keep a record of the year's run, but decided not to this year because we didn't want to do a baggage check. I'm totally knackered today - my hamstrings are shot and my lower back is a bit tight. But it's all gravy baby! I'm so happy we did it - Now bring on the summer!




I also had a great Easter holiday in Grand Forks with the folks - despite my lingering toothache (I was recovering from a root canal all week! Ug!) And I nearly managed to get my entire sweater complete. I'm still finishing up the last sleeve, but I took a break to block the rest of the sweather peices (see pic below - you know you want to!). Stitching it together has proven to be challenging, and I'm trying not to be too hard on myself about my finishing skills. Boy am I getting worried about putting in that zipper - defenitely need to do some research on that one - wish me luck!

Quilting left-overs

Well, before we take off to spend Easter with the in-laws, I thought I'd share a little bit of crafy fun that has been hovering in my corner for quite some time now. I have tonnes of left over fabric from the few quilts that I have made, as well as old jeans and flannel shirts that Harry no longer wears because they were ripped from work. So, here is a little something I came up with by putting them together. It is a fabric notepad holder that holds the paper and pencil and it also features an extra pocket to hold loose papers. Yes, I know. It truly is irresistable - wink wink. But seriously, is there anyone out there who might find this useful? I just wanted to make something small and this is the idea I came up with, I don't know how useful it really will be. But it sure is cute - even if I do need to take some more sewing lessons to learn how to stitch a straight line!






It also gave me the opportunity to use one of my new glass beads as a button. Check it out!



Here is another one I started to work on.




Oh, and in case you are wondering - no, I am not dreading my Easter weekend with the in-laws. In fact I've been looking forward to it for quite awhile now. My in-laws are a hoot and many people will be jealous to hear that I honestly enjoy spending time with them. Yay for me! Ok, gotta go pack now. I have a full weekend of visiting and eating and even knitting ahead of me. Have a wonderful long weekend!

The Magic of Melted Glass

What a fantastic day! Just got back from a beadmaking class that I attended with my friend Kay. We had so much fun - and look at the cool stuff we made! Here are all the beads I made, strung together in all their glory :)



It was so exciting to make glass melt, and then manipulate it in the fire to become something totally new, and wonderful. I have a lot of practicing to do, especially on the dots but I'm really looking forward to that. I've posted a photo of Kay working on her stuff so that you can see what the workstations looked like and how you hold the glass to form the bead. Her and I are both hooked! Just don't put your hand in the flame again, Kay! Ouch!