Thursday, June 19, 2008

It will be her 26th summer.................

Happy Birthday to my baby girl. Nicole was born on one of the hottest days recorded in Edmonton 26 years ago, June 18.











Look at her now. Heading off to work. The painting of the tree in the background was made by Nicole for Mother's Day a couple of years ago....a girl of many talents!
Last night was spent with just family, eating, reminiscing, and of course birthday cake.

This is what Nicole thinks of turning 26....total denial..lol.

We barbequed, and unfortunately I didn't get a picture of DH cooking the burgers under an umbrella in the rain. That would've been such a good picture. As per usual the weather cleared up within an hour. It would've been nice to eat outside.

This birthday thing seems to be turning into the birthday week. It's now carrying over to this weekend where we'll be going bowling, and I know there'll be lots of interesting pictures to take there....
**Update: Bad Blogger Bad. Forgot my camera.

Progress on the sewing front.....Started the sundress....

Monday, June 16, 2008

Where did 14 days go?

Not much knitting progress recently.....here's the latest on the sock. Heel's done, and it's home free to the toe.














On the spinning front.....We went to a farmer's market and I found a local breeder of Angora Goats, Spring Harvest Farm. So I might be in the market for some fleece. I'll have to see how the budget can take it. I had to buy a sample bag of her roving (100gr) which I'm thinking I'll blend with some alpaca.
I got two deliveries in the mail this week....I was so excited to get my serger.......

so during the evenings I managed to finish this..... It's a cotten/linen blend material, and I loved the border along the edge which I thought would work well with a Simplicity pattern I had at home...I call this my hippy shirt. Can you smell the patchouli? ;)

The next delivery was my English Woolcombs. I haven't had much time yet to get going with some raw fleece, but I took some alpaca I had and quickly combined it with some silk. Love these combs which I purchased by phoning and talking to Gerry (Ray's wife) from Ray's Spinning
Accessories . Thanks to Jody for the recommendation!
Friday the 13th we went with the kids and their friends to Edmonton's Festival of Beer. The crowd was very well behaved and we came back with some freebie drink shakers....

We had a lot of fun learning about the different beers that are available here from around the world, and my new favourite is a tequila blended beer. Go figure. I don't like tequila, and I thought this was a Mexican beer, but soon found out that it's made in France, and it's their #1 beer.
Below are some pic's of other drinks that were sampled, and we now have added to our selection at home:

DD's favourite are a blueberry ale, and raspberry ale. She tends to like the fruity flavours. Click on pic's for more bigness.
My DH's fave was a wheat beer which was rather tasty from Germany.










In the garden, some new pretties....

Some standard poppies that are the first to show up in the spring, and then the hosta's which are in the shade part of the garden, and then my pink oriental poppies which are still in bud form.

The fish are back in the pond, but they're all hiding. They're getting used to their new home, and they're not in the visiting mood. So pic's of them will come later.

I did manage to get a picture of our one baby fish from last fall. He/she some how survived the other cannibal fish and is now in his/her new home 'the big tank'. It must seem so big and lonely.Noodles was having some wretching episodes, so I gave her a dose of Zantac, and she's back in fine working order! Appetite's back which fuels her fitzy running around the backyard.
**Since writing that statement we've had a torrential downpour and West Edmonton Mall flooded again. You know it's bad when they have to close the mall. So because of the rain Noodles isn't running around outside....she's happy inside away from the thunder.Another quick note that I just remembered. I took out a book from the library, and fell in love with it immediately. Victorian Lace today by Jane Sowerby. The photography is absolutely amazing, as well as the patterns. I promptly looked it up on Amazon.ca (for us Canadians) and it said that I'd have to pre-order it....I then went to Amazon.com and it was in stock. I ordered it from them, and it was here in less than a week. What's up with that? I'm getting books faster from the U.S. than from the Canadian Amazon website.

Grumperina has a very good review of the book with a lot more pictures of the patterns.

**Victorian Lace Today Corrections and Clarifications

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

More Progress.........

on the bathroom reno downstairs. This past weekend dear hubby unfortunately got the dirtier end of the stick when he was knocking out some old cast iron plumbing, and got his finger pinched. The nail immediately turned purple, and I'll spare the details, but the nail is coming off....eewwwwww.

But here's a picture of what he got accomplished on Saturday......he worked so hard. Sweat dripping off the forehead hard. Purple finger throbbing hard. It's all new abs black piping put in. It doesn't look like a lot was done, but organizing where we wanted everything to go was half of it. Plus a couple trips to Home Depot, and the day turned into 9:00 pm by the time we were finished.

Words can't say how proud I am that DH has the shutzpa to take this project on. He has no fear. It's going to be great when it's done Dale!

DD was gone this past weekend to Seattle, and she bought me a nifty apron....So this morning I had to take some pictures of the apron with the Bath and Bodyworks, and the Mr. & Mrs. Smith DVD which were both bonus gifts.

Now you may think, 'What!? She gave her a flippin apron?' The thing is I love aprons, have always used them (bad habit of wiping my hands on pants) have sewn some, and try to find unique ones through my travels.

This white apron was bought during a stop while on a cruise to Alaska in '06. It's silk screened with a landscape shot of Creek Street, Ketchikan, Alaska. I haven't used this one yet because in no time I'd have it dirty and it would need washing, and I'm not sure how the silk screening would stand up. So for now I take it out once in awhile to look at, and then it goes back in the apron stash.

So this morning I put on my new apron and headed out in the garden to take some pictures of what is newly sprouting in this part of the world, and of course the kitties came out.....

My Noodles in the Hosta patch. The hosta's are now starting to unfurl their vibrant green leaves. Noodles seems to be doing well considering she has renal failure. We changed her to a special diet food, and she seems to be maintaining her weight. She sleeps a lot, but when she's up she has her fitzy moments running around thinking she's a young filly.

Anna on the other hand....wants her privacy. Which we give her, but she's just so soft, and grey, and well she only allows so much cuddling............More Hosta's, Day Lilies, and ferns in the background.

We stopped at our local Rona last night after our visit to see Uncle Otto, and they had pond plants...so we bought this Zebra Rush.
Scirpus tabernac-montani 'Zebrinus.' Hardy to -30Celsius. So I'll do more investigating and see if I can leave this one in the pond over winter.



So on the knitting front I've started a sweater pattern from one of my new favourite knitting magazines Sandra The Knitting Magazine. Printed in Austria. January 2008 issue.

It's the Fluffy Ajoure Sweater, Model #2. I'm taking a leap here, but I'm pretty sure that Ajoure is french for perforate. So I'm assuming that they're referencing that it's lacey. I'm using my handspun from 100% alpaca. By my estimation I'm going to need 12 hanks of 123m each. So I'm spinning and plying as I go along...I just about have 4 hanks right now. I never thought I'd get this much satisfaction, and enjoyment knitting my own handspun yarn. I was having too much fun just spinning the stuff.

Progress so far........I'm using Addi Turbo Lace 4.0mm/120cm. Very nice circular needles I purchased from The Yarn and Fiber Company. Free delivery within the U.S. and Canada. I've had very prompt and reliable service from them.

Coming up in projects to do....I'm waiting for my Serger to come in hopefully by Friday. The sewing bug is biting, and I'm getting inspired by some of these gals blogs.... All things Heather
and Nova Made. Very talented people.