Listen and leap, forward and back

I'm somewhat enamored with the idea of leap year. A bonus day that only comes every four years is so ripe with possibility. What will happen this leap year day that will remain extra special simply because it can't be commemorated for four more years? It's like a little fold in the fabric of time that you can tuck happenings or ideas or thoughts. I wasn't joking, I'm really quite taken with it.

We were driving home in our new-to-us car today and I discovered CBC radio on Sirius (the previous owner's subscription hasn't run out yet). I was both thrilled to have access to my beloved CBC and a little sad that I have been away from Canada for more than a decade now. There were so many shows that I used to listen to without fail: Quirks and Quarks and Basic Black being my all-time Saturday morning favorites. Alas, Arthur Black has retired to live on Salt Spring Island, a place that is pure earthy-crunchy west coast paradise (yes, I am jealous). I haven't listened to him in many years, but when I read his blog I heard his voice in every word. Love that.

Earlier today Tory pointed me towards the Craftsanity contest to win some of Anna Maria's new fabrics and while I was there I remembered that there were a couple of other crafty podcasts that I wanted to download. Which led to me wandering all over iTunes to subscribe to free podcasts and discovering that I can get lots of my beloved CBC shows too. Why did this never occur to me before? So now I have plenty of listening material to keep me company while I am sequestered in my sewing room in denial of the snowstorm scheduled to begin an hour or two from now.

And I am so participating in this. I can't tell you how much I like the idea of people across Canada settling down every evening with the same book of home grown fiction and listening to the radio. A whole lot.

Amy + Joel

In my opinion Amy and Joel are gifts from the sewing gods. They take such good care of this new generation of sewers with fabulous patterns and line after line of amazing fabric. So it was only natural that they would one day meet in my projects.

My first Amy and Joel pairing resulted in a Frenchy handbag for my sister at Christmas. It was hard to give this one up. Hearing her exclamation of delight on Christmas morning was worth it though. Then you know you've really made an impression with the next question. "Do you think you could make me a lunch bag too?" I love a design challenge.

Then in January it was the Frenchy shoulder bag made at my mom's request. It seems mom was showing off some of my work one day on flickr and her friend fell for my Frenchy shoulder bag. Flattered, of course, I agreed to whip one up for mom to give her friend on an upcoming birthday. In a word her friend LOVED the bag. In fact, my mom is beginning to regret giving it to her. Everyday she gushes over the perfect, professional stitching. This causes my heart to do little flip-flops being the perfectionist crafter I am.

I think it would be hard to disagree that Amy and Joel aren't perfect partners. Although I'm biased so feel free to disagree....quietly...in your head.

February blues

Only five more days until we start marching our way towards spring. I'm a little sick of winter at the moment (well, at least of dealing with the winter) but have decided to make the best of it. Here's my recipe for beating the mid-winter blues:


A delicious chocolate cupcake or two with almond-peppermint frosting. I prescribe one for breakfast and one before bed plus as many in between as necessary. Accompany with plenty of hot tea (try the Blue Flower Earl Grey).


There's nothing like working towards a nice achievable goal to lift the spirits. How about an easy lap quilt from my favorite sewing book. I have to use up all that fabric before Joel's new line is released.


And plenty of cozy time on the sofa with a quiet project and some more tea. I'd skip the cupcake though, the crumbs get everywhere.

I get it, it's winter

This winter is the one I'll be referring to when I tell my hypothetical future children about what life was like before them:

Remember our first house, the one with the really steep driveway? One winter, before you were even a glimmer in our eyes, we got about a thousand feet of snow. It seemed like it snowed every day. Your dad and I would drive home from work and pray that the plow had been by so we could make it up the hill. We'd park at the bottom of the driveway and walk up. It was impossible to park in that Everest of a driveway without shoveling. If we were lucky we'd be able to pull in after we cleared every molecule of snow and then salted and sanded it. Can you believe that by the end of February we'd used nearly 50 pounds of both salt and sand?

Off to shovel and then curl up on the sofa with some hot tea and my Quilting Bee Stitchette which just arrived in the mail.

Spring Forward!

I was originally working on a different post. As often happens, though, I found myself surfing from here to there and everywhere to get all the links I wanted to include. That's when I saw it.....the preview for Joel Dewberry's next line, Ginseng. My jaw dropped, my pulse quickened, and there may have been drooling. It is gorgeous! Sign me up for one of everying. Yet another reason to wish spring would hurry up and get here already.

A girly bag

Yes, the great pillow/bag debate finally has a victor and my little Stitchette finally has a home. I had such trouble deciding what to do with this project. Tory finally gave me a nudge in the bag direction and I'm really pleased with the results. I appliquéd the embroidery onto the outside fabric with a layer of flannel in between. The flannel provides some thickness and prevents the flowered fabric from showing through the cream fabric. This was my first "real" appliqué - no glue or double-sided interfacing involved. I basted the fabric/flannel patch on with a straight stitch very close to the edge of the fabric and then went over it with a very tight zig-zag. I love that it looks like those souvenir badges you get when you're a kid.

The single strap was inspired by one of my new favorite bags. I used flannel as the lining and it gives it a nice feeling of firmness that is almost pillow-like. I cut out pieces of the pink fabric and the flannel that were each 2.5 inches wide. I ironed them both in half and folded under a 1/4 inch hem. Edge stitched both sides and it was done.


My flower fairy is also finished. It's basically the Peppermint Fairy Stitchette design but I turned the candy cane into a flower wand and chose spring colours instead of the original Christmas palette. She is going to be the center panel for a patchwork pillow, I already have a stack of fabrics picked out and ready to cut. I am going crazy for Hilary's embroidery patterns these days; I have the quilting bee girls on order and an embroidery hoop ready for their arrival. I'm a little obsessed, I admit, but they are just so quick and easy compared to some of the other projects on my horizon. Ah-ha, now I get it. I am craft-procrastinating with embroidery. I wonder if there is a support group for that?

Done like dinner

It feels like we have been working on the kitchen forever. In reality, it's only been five weekends and none of them started before noon on Saturday. But it feels like forever and a day. Especially yesterday when we reinstalled the freshly painted cabinet doors. There was some swearing, mostly at doors which no longer seemed to fit properly and lost screws. One or two unkind remarks of a more personal nature were made, but the doors are on.

We spent a large part of the time literally watching paint dry. Lots and lots of paint. An entire gallon of Kilz primer (two coats on the cabinets, doors and the brick). Half a gallon of semi-gloss for the cabinets and brick (two coats on every visible surface). A quart of turquoise satin for the feature wall in the kitchen. We were fueled by numerous trips for Chai lattes (me) and mochas (him) plus several dinners at our favorite Mexican restaurant.

And finally, it is done:

Remember how it used to look with the red brick and brown wood? It turned out exactly how I imagined it would and I absolutely love it. It was so dark before and now it practically radiates light. Hopefully there is a prospective buyer out there who feels the same.


The poster was a birthday gift from Tory and belongs in my craft room but it's doing double duty while we show the condo. There are a couple of minor finishing touches remaining: replacing the 1970s chandelier with a modern pendant light and swapping out the outlet covers with larger ones, but the bulk of it is complete. And that is a very good thing.

Sunday Morning Baking

On Sunday mornings I typically find myself puttering in the kitchen. The world outside my windows is still quiet and so is the one inside. So I find myself pulling out a selection of cookbooks to browse for the perfect thing to fill a long, lazy Sunday morning.


With the sun actually, finally, streaming through my kitchen window I wanted a taste of warmer days. For me that means blueberries and its perfect partner lemon. To get that I combined the best of two recipes to make one perfect baked good, Blueberry Corn Mini-Loaves with Lemon. With the loaves in the oven and a hot mug of Earl Grey in hand I set about reading my Sunday morning newspapers. Well, that's how I think of them anyway...my long list of must read design blogs.

Tuesday morning craft report

Embroidery continues around here with a fairy that hopefully will become an Easter present for my niece. It's still a month away, I think I might actually get this one done on time.
I thought I had enough fabric, but it turns out I was wrong. I needed some pink to complete my first stitchette project. I was thinking pillow but now am leaning towards a bag. Hmm, I just don't know.
And some turquoise and browns for the room makeover I have planned once we are done with the condo renovations. An ottoman, some pillows and a lap quilt are going to emerge from this lovely stack of Joel Dewberry. And for once I measured before buying so I might actually have enough for the entire project. Imagine that.

Handmade Goodness: Paper

Handmade paper goods that came my way via SOWA holiday market, Craftland, and Etsy visits.

Three perfectly purse-sized notepads from Enriching Presence

Bicycle flat notes with envelopes and Queen Anne's Lace screenprint from things are better with a parrot

Got Gossip? blank card from Sinnickel Press

Thank You card set from Sugar Lily Designs

You Deserve Cake blank cards from Pepperina Press

Ready for the weekend

Not much crafting has been going on chez moi this week. Lots of planning, some organizing of materials and on-line fabric shopping but no actual completed project. Well, that's not entirely true; I did finish up a Stitchette that I started embroidering over a year ago. I had grand plans to make a Stitchette quilt a la Don't Call Me Becky for my niece but at the rate I'm going she's likely to receive it for her high school graduation. I'm sure it will look great in her dorm room.

I recently bought a new table for my sewing machine from IKEA. Technically it's a dining room table, but it doesn't take up much space and, when expanded, it has quite a large working area. Versatile and much more stylish than many of the "sewing tables" I've seen around. The bench is from my vintage Singer cabinet. It used to have a hideous brown vinyl seat that would stick to my legs in the summer but I recently recovered it with fabric. It's very comfortable, I hope I have it forever.

Our weekend plans involve lots of sandpaper, paint and a little sewing. Hopefully we're getting closer to an "after" photo of the condo kitchen. Enjoy your weekends!

Making progress

It was gorgeous here yesterday. Sadly I enjoyed it only from the couch with a cup of hot lemon and a giant pile of Kleenex. The demon cold that has been raging through my workplace finally caught me.

I did get some work done Saturday before I really started to feel sick. Remember those kitchen cabinets? My dear husband has nearly finished sanding them and I got a first coat of primer on about half of them. I'm pretty excited about how the kitchen is turning out. We're hoping to be done in two more weekends - I can't wait to take the "after" photos.

We had to buy a new sheet sander as the ancient one that I inherited from my Dad has gone all wonky and won't keep a piece of sandpaper on it. Tory lent us hers as well so we had two going at certain points over the past week.


H's beverage of choice. Drives me crazy, I'm a water drinking girl myself. At least it's sugar-free?

Hope everyone else had a good weekend.

Things I learned from my Dad

My father was a builder. Of houses, including this one, the first of two he built for our family. A chain of Dog & Suds restaurants. My first elementary school. Twice, he built the radio station in town (it burned down when I was in high school). An alcohol treatment center with soaring beams carved by the local First Nations band (there is irony here). He constructed all manner of furniture: tables, beds, cabinets, a wooden play stove with an oven and knobs that turned. A hope chest with my name carved on it for my twelfth birthday. A sled when I was two.


See that house at the bottom of the hill, the one that he was building? My mom would pack me in the sled with his lunch and I would sail down the hill to eat with my Dad and his crew. There were oranges, I can still smell them, and the sawdust into which we dropped the peels. I remember this; sitting on a sawhorse and eating oranges with my Dad. Waiting for the moment that lunch was over and we would get back to work. My Dad had the trowel ready and I went to town taping and caulking the hall closet. After I went home he would tear down the results of my labours so the closet was ready for me the next day. I never caught on.


My Dad could figure out how to build anything, and he made my brothers and I believe we could do the same. It's been seven years since he died; seven years today.