Testing

I've been playing around with the layout and fonts and colours of the blog, and I think a white background is the best. It might be the white couch and endless white trim surrounding me, and a bit of research that proved that the majority of the best blogs out there also sport white background. It's simple. It's chic. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am.


The new banner was cropped from a picture I took this summer on a rainy day in Port Stanley. My little family likes to travel to the beach only on the most dismal of days. I thought the Port would be a ghost town, but it was still packed with shoppers and diners. The geraniums caught my eye and begged me to photograph them.

I am a bona fide killer of geraniums otherwise I would have these surrounding my adobe!

It's my Friday off, and I am up at 7a.m. pushing the 'Publish Post' button. GOOD MORNING!

N

The Collegiate Establishment

Please feast your eyes on the Peking Blue. Isn’t it rich! It’s just the right amount of daring, and I daresay it should encourage creativity. Who could be bored surrounded by that blue? It better not be El. Not after all this.
Julia and El sewed this fantastic hanging pocket board for her wall when I left El in Newmarket. I can’t even begin to explain how cool these pockets are. The colours are perfect. I am not supposed to know this – but there are secret pockets on the back for her secret notes and devious plans against whom I can only imagine is me. I hope that Julia realizes that gads of pre-teens traipse through this room on a regular basis, and they will be sure to want one for themselves! She may be able to start up her own little home-based business. I have already hinted at Etsy. Maybe she will be the next Sally Shim!
In my dental-induced drug haze, I nearly messed up my 100th Manos del Uruguay hat. Okay, so it’s not my 100th, but it certainly feels like it could be. This one is in lavender, and it knit up in a couple of hours. I love Kim’s Hats pattern from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. Em was lucky enough to get her own copy for her birthday. How sweet! I dream of whipping up an hourglass sweater one day in a yarn equal to Noro Cash Iroha. I say this because I have actually calculated exactly how much it would cost me in funds alone to make this sweater using the specified yarn including taxes, and your jaw would drop. Well, maybe not yours, but certainly a jaw of a non-knitter.
And I am knitting up my second pair of hand/wrist warmers from the same book. This pattern is also quick to knit, and because it requires only one skein as well, I can be a bit frivolous and buy the good stuff. This pair is a honey-coloured alpaca and merino wool blend. It is so soft and pretty. If you would like, I can research the cost to mail these puppies to Minneapolis in time for apple-picking. Mmmm.

If I am a bit excited about Frankenmuth, imagine how excited I am about the Waterloo County Knitter’s Fair. My Knit Club friends and I have been planning for weeks this mini-roadtrip. It will be like going to 55 yarn stores in one day! This is what glee feels like. I only wish you could be riding shotgun, T.

N

Sweet Nostalgia

So we went to see the Simpsons last night on the big screen. I can’t say that I LOVED the movie, but I did enjoy going to the theatre with my little family. Let’s face it, there’s not a big crossover of activities in which both children can take pleasure. A 5-year old’s idea of a good time differs widely from that of an 11-year old. Up to this point, I have dropped off the eldest and dad at the theatre, and the littlest and I head to the playroom or library or anywhere else really. I think B liked eating the popcorn the best. We made the error of allowing her to hold onto the bag for the duration of the movie.

Next weekend, my parents are treating my family and my sister’s family to a weekend in Michigan. As children, my parents took us to Frankenmuth nearly twice a year. Trips would coincide with back-to-school shopping or Christmas shopping, and we would always take friends or relatives with us, so we were forced to do the tourist thing every single time. There was always the obligatory family-style chicken dinner at Zehnders or the Bavarian Inn, popcorn, Pac-Man, and beer (for the dads) at Tiffany’s, wandering for hours in the Bronners Christmas Store, sucking on fireballs and spending days gazing at the intricate dollhouses on display at Rau's Country Store. Even better were the deals we would get at Birch Run! Oh dear. One summer, we all got fitted with extensive Gitano wardrobes when all the clothes were marked down by 90%! Keep in mind, we’re talking late 80’s here – it was cool. Sort of. I got my first Benetton rugby shirt at Birch Run in bright green. I wore that shirt until it was ratty. I also bought loads of Bass penny loafers! I loved the 80’s.

I went with my little family last summer, and although we did all the same things, it wasn’t the same. For them, it was their first time, and reminiscing was out of the question. They couldn’t imagine in their wildest dreams the rooms of dollhouses upon dollhouses all dressed for every possible occasion. Back in the day, we literally spent an entire afternoon looking at each dollhouse, pointing to every detail in absolute amazement and giving the displays the right amount of admiration they were fully due. The tiniest mother-flippin’ roll of bathroom tissue would send us reeling!! The dollhouses are gone now. They’ve been replaced by signs. Signs? Rooms and rooms of signs. I don’t really get the allure of signs, but apparently they’re more lucrative than dollhouses.

It’s fascinating how experiences are completely different from when you are a child to when you are an adult. I guess it’s all perspective. As a child, it wasn’t my hard-earned money we were burning. That’s harsh, but that was one new perspective I was handed when I took my own family. How did my parents afford the family-style chicken dinner for all of us a couple times a year? This continues to be perplexing. The Bavarian style was colourful and musical and nearly like an amusement ride – even as a teenager, but as an adult, my artistic senses were assaulted. But in a good way – I mean, I giggled and stayed up nights wondering who had to design this nightmare of wood and bright paint. What made people flock to this cheese? In my case, I must return time and again because of the tradition and the fondness of my memories. It will continue to be tacky, and I might be a little embarrassed when people ask me where we’re heading, but I will still suggest it as a weekend getaway or a roadtrip just because.

So if you're wondering where I am on Labour Day weekend, I will proudly answer that I will be joining the throngs of insane consumers in Michigan while re-immersing myself in some over-the-top Bavarian/German culture. It's a bit white bread, but it's what we Reeves's do.

N

Dear N,

I knew I shouldn't have eaten that fifth White Castle burger. I can feel the grease just sitting in my stomach. It was good going down though!

Although my nephew has been born and is the cutest little baby, by the way, I did finish his blanket and was able to give it to his mother, my sister, when I saw them in LA. I was quite pleased with how it turned out although it doesn't really look anything like how it's supposed to. It's soft and cuddly and perfect for my very first nephew.The cabled panel in the middle is Bernat Denim in cream and the green is Bernat Bamboo in Dill. Both really soft semi-natural yarns that are machine washable.

Also finished are those clogs that I was so obsessed with. This is them before felting:
And this is them post-felting, drying on a bath mat:One slipper ended up bigger than the other. I did take them out of the machine during the felting process to check on them but I just couldn't get them the same size. That's fine since they're only for me. I'm thinking about embroidering some flowers on them or something to make them look a little prettier because as of right now they look a little cloggy for my liking. You were right all along, I'm not a clog person. That's not to say that they're not cute, I do like them but I think I'll try the felted ballet slippers next, also by Bev Galeskas. One thing that I do have to say about the clog pattern is that it was really fun to knit up. At first I wasn't sure exactly how they would knit up but I just followed the pattern very closely and very quickly, a huge slipper knit up right before my eyes!

So now I'm working on the Anthropologie Inspired capelet and the baby sweater pattern that you sent to me. It's nice having time to knit again, now that the weddings are over and the immigration documents have been sent. I'll also try to blog more too! Hope you had a good long weekend. You've inspired me to be "sick" from work, maybe this Friday....

T

Assembly Line

While the kidlets sat and stood around bored stiff , the mummies whipped up totes and table runners.
Note to Mama Bakker: Julia IS in fact using the sewing machine.

We giggled, nibbled on junk, dropped pizza and credit cards, ran in the rain, scraped knees, watched foreign movies, scoured the Goodwill, screamed in delight, drank blue tequila, and behaved horribly overall. Needless to say, a blast was had indeed.

But am also glad to back at home in my bed with my alarm set for too bloody early.

N

Dear N,

What a cool and rainy weekend it has been. I didn't get to do as much cleaning around the house as I had wanted but I did get to reorganizing the back pantry and now it fits our Cosco supply of toilet paper and tissue boxes--hooray!

I am dreaming of being back in California, lounging by the pool and working on my tan. Palm trees still amaze me. They're so pretty and very tropical looking. This picture was taken from the window of the car as we drove down Beverly Hills, totally looking like tourists.I felt bad because I dragged my sister and her boyfriend who were visiting from Vancouver all the way to LA, we were staying in Anaheim which is about 45 minutes away on a good day, because I wanted to go to Knit Cafe on Melrose. We did find it though and it looked exactly like it does in the book, it was amazing! All of the knitted projects from the book was in the shop to look at and touch, even that beautiful teak credenza that I would kill to have in my craft room. Anyway, I bought $70 worth of yarn and ribbon in order to knit myself the lacy skirt that is shown on the cover of the book. You can see a picture of it here in black and as a cute top. I felt kind of bad spending that much money on yarn for one item but then told myself that I was on vacation, I wasn't buying anything else and that I was at the Knit Cafe---come on! So after I was helped by the nice ladies there (unfortunately Susan Mischer was not there that day), they let me take a picture in the store.It was exactly like stepping right into the book!Anyway, I have to go back an hour to just before we were looking for Knit Cafe and wondering what we should do for lunch when we spotted Pink's. I had heard about Pink's on the Food Network lots of times and always wanted to go there. So, into the fairly long line up we went to get our famous hotdogs and perhaps a celebrity sighting. We didn't see any stars but we did make a friend. He was the guy standing in front of us named Trent and he was in the US Air Force. Super nice guy who ended up saving us a table on the back patio and telling us about his travels as an army man. I know what you're thinking, he wasn't trying to be all creepy, he was a genuinely nice guy and plus, my sister's boyfriend was with us (he's a fairly large guy who was drafted by the Pittsburg Penguins in his younger years). Here is my sister and I in front of Pink's.Here is a very spicy, half eaten Polish sausage. I had their signature chili and cheese dog---yum!We had a great time at my sister's wedding too!Happily ever after!

Rockin' Toucans

E was sleeping this morning when I left the house, so I snuck out wearing her Keds! Oh, how I love them. I am really going to enjoy having the same shoe size.

N