Thursday 30 April 2015

Selfie

Today I did something I've never done before, I took a selfie!  Obviously I have taken photos of myself in the past but that was when it wasn't a phenomenon and there wasn't a made up word for it.  I'm afraid it isn't anything particularly exciting so I didn't fall off a cliff or get attacked by lions or even photo bombed by the queen although I was quite close to a small flight of stairs, does that make me edgy and modern do you think?

So anyway, recently I've been trying to do new stuff with old stuff, here's the upcycled (another made up word) cushions I made.


And the backs...


They are supposed to be for sale in a brand new etsy shop but I'm busy/lazy and they seem to have been amalgamated into our furnishings instead.  Yesterday I turned a man's dress shirt into a stylish summer shirt for me so here at last is the selfie, sans face.




Wednesday 29 April 2015

Last Sign of Spring

Sorry about the long gap, both children went down with horrid coughs for a week   and they don't look nice when they're ill.

Last week it was freezing again and I felt very resentful to the weather for teasing us with T-shirt temperatures and then snowing again.  Now things are warming up many of us have switched back to our light jackets and Rose has taken things one step further than the rest of us as usual.  What will she be wearing in the summer? I dread to think.


And to my final sign of spring, some of our seeds germinated, remember we planted them at the library on PA day about a month ago.  We have a bean plant and 2 carrots, no sign of the squash yet.




Friday 17 April 2015

Some More Signs of Spring #whatever

Sorry, I've lost count and anyway I'm thinking it should be called 'Signs of Summer' now it's so warm, 23 on the car thermometer when I took Jacob out at 5 pm today.  The weather has been really lovely all week but it's so sudden that neither my head or my wardrobe has caught up, I keep putting on a coat because I can't believe I don't need one then have to carry it around.

Today I went for a little walk by the edge of the ravine and saw my first flower of the season.  An escapee from someone's garden I think.


This tree looked lovely as all the little lambs tails were dancing in the breeze.


Here's another little flower pointing out some shoots coming up by next door's porch.  She's not very enthusiastic but I've put her in because she's wearing a very fine dress I made from a thrift store shirt.  I love the way she's accessorized it, the tattoo is a particularly nice touch.



Monday 13 April 2015

A Tale of Two Temperatures

On Saturday we visited Gary's new condo and this is the rather magnificent view from his balcony, note the skinny train going by, it was so long it took about 15 minutes to go past.



The sky's pretty with all those fluffy white clouds but don't let that fool you, the wind was very fresh (absolutely freezing, good job there were no brass monkeys out and about) and Jacob's outfit was more apt than Gary's.

Sunday, on the other hand was glorious, officially the first outdoor drinking day of 2015.  We went for a trip downtown and took in the playground,


And the art gallery,


Where the kids 'chillaxed' in the conservatory and Rose and I indulged in some yarn bombing.  How modern and urban!




Wednesday 8 April 2015

Signs of Spring #4

The kids had Easter Monday off school and my cheapskate mum activity was changing our library books (they really are hard done to aren't they).  As luck would have it when we arrived at the library there were some free spring activities on, I could have told the them that I knew all along and it was part of my plan but they know better by now so I didn't bother.

Activity number 1 was seed planting, I am counting this as a sign of spring despite the fact that if I put the diddy little pots outside they wouldn't last 5 minutes.  Here we have the activity in action.
I managed to get the pots home intact by wedging them in the bottom of the cooler with a handy 'How to do something technical with Android' library book and now they are residing on the kitchen window sill where hopefully I won't forget to water them.

Our other activity was making this rather fine artwork from screwed up tissue paper.  I say 'our' as it took all 3 of us to complete (or we might have been there til closing) but Rose was in charge and made all the important design decisions.
I'm not counting this as a sign of spring as we haven't even got grass growing yet, it'll be a long time before we have flowers.

Sunday 5 April 2015

I'm dreaming of a white Easter

We popped up to Grand Bend for a last trip to Gary's place before he moves and I've got to say that he didn't do a very good job of arranging the weather.

Yesterday the sky was blue.
But we weren't going to be doing any swimming, or even any walking along the beach with the wind chill at -6.  He didn't even bother to get the lake defrosted in time for Easter.
And this is how it looked this morning when we woke up.
I'm not sure if Rose looked out of the window before she chose her outfit.
I foresee a 'discussion' about leg wear in my immediate future.

Wednesday 1 April 2015

Two Quilts

Recently I sent a quilt to a good friend of ours called Grace who is 5 but has to have some hip surgery.  I haven't put up a picture yet so here it is and Good Luck Grace!

Her mum, my friend Jayne, inspired me to try to develop some stuff to sell so over the past couple of months I've been working on a few prototype bits and pieces trying to figure out what I can make that uses cheap fabric and is time efficient, easier said than done!

I've gone down the up cycling route and mostly using old shirts and bed linen.  This is my first go at a quilt, what do you think?

Just a few dozen more things to organize and here I come Etsy.