From the P-nut Gallery

Been a While...

2011-10-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a whirl wind since the engagement. In case you missed it, Ellery's Part 2 of our Engagement Story is here. We've both been busy planning our wedding and despite feeling incredibly rushed to make decisions for an event that is a year away, we're having fun. The hardest part so far was picking the date, and after changing it three times for various reasons, we've settled on August 18th, 2012. I have a ton of DIY projects planned and we've been debating on blogging about wedding stuff because we don't want to spoil surprises. This is partly why I haven't posted in a while... it feels wrong to discuss and show photos of the wedding things I'm working on.

Aside from wedding stuff, I've been knitting more viking hats. I recently shipped one to Paris and one to Norway which was awesome. Halloween planning has also begun and this year I'm not planning anything epic for myself because, to be honest, I have wedding brain. We're doing a trial run of Nugget's costume tonight so I'm hoping that will spark the Halloween bug.

Somewhere a Pig is Flying...

2011-09-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

So over the Labour Day long weekend we went to Cutesypoo's house warming barbecue, had a Date Day in Whistler and got engaged... yep... ENGAGED. I don't think my mother ever thought this would ever happen. Heh. Read more about our ring on Ellery's blog here.

My freakishly long finger makes this photo look a bit odd.

Crocheting Whatever

2011-08-22T23:47:00.000-07:00

Been making a few more things for my last Artful Sunday on August 28th.

I made a couple more Kokeshi...

Mia is approximately 6" tall.

Keiko is approximately 7" tall.

I also crocheted a bunch of hearts that I'm not sure what to do with yet.

They're about 2.5" in length x 2.5" at the widest part.

They may end up being brooch pins.

And this is my prototype for a Sugar Skull.

This one was pretty fun to make so I'll probably make some more.

Nugget's Gleeky 10th Birthday

2011-08-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

My sweet Baby Nugget turned 10 years old on Saturday. Each year she starts planning her next birthday right after the last birthday party and by the time her birthday comes, she's changed her mind a billion times about what she wants to do. The themes for her 10th birthday went back and forth from 80's to Mad Hatter's Tea Party to Glee several times. A month before her birthday she decided on the Mad Hatter's Tea Party and I made a reservation for high tea at the Urban Tea Merchant and then about two weeks before her birthday the commercials for the 3D Glee Concert came up and she changed her mind and went back to Glee. So the plan was 3D Glee Concert, lunch at Red Robin's and then the beach. I limited what I had to make to the cupcakes that looked like slushees.

Nugget got the idea from this blog and I found the Big Quench labels here. I used a basic vanilla cake recipe for the cupcakes instead of the one from Bake Odyssey, and I made vanilla butter cream frosting that I tinted red. The cupcakes were finished off with a sprinkling of red sanding sugar and a Twizzler for a straw. Nugget's goody bags were Glee pencil cases full of candy and school supplies.

Nugget's cousin Annabelle slept over the night before and gave Nugget a Glee manicure.

The girls coming out of the 3D Glee Concert movie. Rutty and I sat a couple of rows in front of them. We anticipated lots of singing from the girls.

Rutty and the girls perusing and colouring the Red Robin's kids menu.

Our waitress gave Nugget a birthday sundae and made her stand on a chair while she yelled at the entire restaurant announcing it was Nugget's birthday. Then she and a few of the wait staff sang some royalty-free version of Happy Birthday.

My baby's all growd up.

Annabelle, Nugget and Isabelle with their nerd glasses, the 3D glasses with the lenses popped out.

Maya didn't keep hers so she didn't want to be in the photo :(

On our way back from the restaurant we realized it was also the Annual Vancouver Zombie Walk so we stopped at home for our beach gear, cupcakes and the Buffy Scythe... to fend off the zombies on our way to the beach.

To the beach!

We hung out at English Bay, opened presents and then the girls ditched me to go exploring by the water while I watched all their stuff. It was a fun day.

Krazy for Kokeshi

2011-08-07T19:51:00.000-07:00

My Nugget LOVES Kokeshi dolls and she and her cousin, Annabelle, like collecting Momiji, which are like modern kokeshi dolls. There's even one named after her that she got from Annabelle for her birthday last year. Inspired by the cute dolls, I decided to make crocheted versions for Artful Sundays on August 14th and 28th.

I've only made two so far and Nugget named them Yui and Naomi.

Both have crocheted heads and bodies with knitted hair and embroidered felt details. They have safety eyes and are stuffed with polyfill.

Naomi: 8.5" tall.

Yui: 6.5" tall.

Because Sharing is Caring

2011-08-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

I have a tendency to randomly post links to things on my Facebook that I like in hopes that my friends will find them interesting, informative, inspirational or just plain neat. It just recently occurred to me that I could compile my favourites in one handy dandy blog post every once in a while and share with the 20 people following this here blog.

I loved this post at Cup of Jo on how to speak to little girls. Do you think you'd be a different person if more importance or attention was given to your thoughts, interests and talents as a little girl, rather than appearance?

I have Craft fairs on the brain lately and have been thinking about the pricing of things I make. The timing of this post on the Craftzine blog was perfect and very helpful. Pricing has always been a difficult thing for me especially since I have a day job I love and what I make and sell is a hobby.

I wish I heard about dog duvets from Molly Mutt before I dropped $50 on a new bed for Boomer. She destroyed the orthopedic foam within days of getting it. I've recently stuffed the bed casing with old towels which is pretty much the concept behind the dog duvet, only the ones at Molly Mutt have cooler prints. Next time...

Photos from Where Children Sleep from documentary photographer James Mollison... will give you a dose of perspective.

Knit James! Thought it was cool since he's one of the characters from the show I work on.

Font! From Fluids!.. cause I love font.

(Balisong) Butterfly knife-styled Pen. Sadly, a year too late for my Hit Girl Halloween costume.

And lastly, Rutty's 35th Birthday Re-cap...

An Experiment in Baking: The Making of Rutty's Birthday Cake

2011-07-30T14:23:00.000-07:00

Ellery (AKA Rutty of House of Ten fame) turned 35 a couple of days ago, July 28th to be exact. In celebration of his birthday, we are going to Langley for a birthday barbecue. My contribution to this most special event is a birthday cake... from scratch! But this is no ordinary birthday cake, this one was inspired by the Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookie! The magic began at 7:00 AM this morning.

I started with a chocolate chip cookie dough, the recipe from the back of the Chipits bag.

Then a layer of Oreos which were covered with another layer of chocolate chip cookie dough.

Into the oven until it looked like this...

The next part of this magical cake was the Super Chocolate Cake layers. Recipe from one of the Best of Bridge books I had kicking around. I went with this recipe because it claimed to be super. Let's hope it is.

I poured the batter into two pans to make two thin cake layers and baked it.

Next I made Peanut Butter Buttercream frosting for the layers and the crumb coat. As I am not a baker, my kitchen lacks the appropriate tools such as a proper spatula and rotating cake stand. I used a short little spatula for spreading cream cheese on bagels to apply the crumb coat. In lieu of a cake stand I flipped a cereal bowl upside down and placed a cardboard circle covered with tin foil on top and put my cake layers on that. Very professional.

My rough crumb coat of peanut butter buttercream.
Emphasis on rough.

This is the chocolate buttercream for the final finish.

Ta-da! The finished cake! I hope it's yummy....

I hope.

UPDATE!

Rutty's cake aflame with 35 candles.

The birthday boy blowing out the candles.

Good thing he's not asthmatic.

The cake cut up revealing the layers of goodness.

It was super sweet. The slices had to be really thin.

Robson Square Artisan Market

2011-07-30T09:18:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I participated in my second Craft Sale ever and my first one on my own, the Robson Square Artisan Market. It's a new market that just started in June this year. So far it's had a few things going against its success: the riot in June, construction on Robson Street above, the crappy weather, and a ton of competing events. We did get a good flow of people wandering down the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery curiously following the sounds of the live entertainment on our market day though. We got a lot of smiles, and positive comments but few sales.

My brain was pre-occupied with the all the stuff that's happened in the last few weeks and it kind of ruined the anticipation of the market for me. I honestly wasn't as excited about the market until that morning when Nugget and I were setting up. The night before was a crazy panic trying to get everything together and finish the doll I started a couple of days before. I finished it about an hour before we had to leave for the market.

I was exhausted and not in the mindset I would have liked to be in. I probably could have done more to promote it, like write a blog post BEFORE the market and not after. DUH.

I have a couple of Sundays sharing a table with the lovely and talented Karen Francis and L.A.M Designs (Aimee Illescas and Virginia Turco Greyson) at Artful Sundays on Commercial Drive in August, so I will pimp the hell out of those. Here are some photos of our set up...

Nugget peeking behind the hat stand (borrowed from Durka. Thanks Durka!) holding a couple of zombie hats and a viking hat. That's the doll I finished that morning.

Nugget posing at our table. We had the brightest, most random set up.

I referred to it as a "Zombie Viking Sushi Carnival of Random Curiosities".

This month is kicking my ass.

2011-07-13T03:11:00.000-07:00

This updating my blog once a month thing is getting ridiculous. There have been many events that have transpired that at one point or another, I thought "I should write about that!"... and then didn't. One of those events was the Stanley Cup Riot the day after my birthday. The topic has been blogged to death now and I think it's best that I limit my mention of it to just this and move on from the ugliness. I want to stay positive and I've been trying really hard to stay positive because it's so easy to spiral into that dark place. Lately though, it feels like the Universe has been trying to shove me in that direction with stupid little things, that in the grand scheme of things, are really just annoying (like our parking garage getting broken into last night and eight cars, including ours, getting targeted) and then there's the big heart-wrenching things...

Recent days have been a little rough with Hurley needing surgery to correct his luxating patellas on both hind legs. The diagnosis was upsetting and I was angry at our old vet for giving us bad information when we noticed signs of his issues as a puppy. Figuring out how to pay for his surgery was stressful and we'll be paying for it for a while, but I would've spared no expense to make our baby boy better. It's been almost two weeks since his procedure and Hurley seems to be doing well. The stitches on his legs look horrifying but they don't seem to bother him. He's a trooper. He's gotten more active since he finished his run of Percocet which pretty much kept him sedated and the challenge as of late has been trying to limit his activity so that he doesn't strain his legs. I've been lucky enough to be able to bring him to work with me while he recovers which has been the plus in all of this. I like having him as an office buddy even though he whines a lot and barks at my boss.

This afternoon the Universe threw the worst curve ball yet. My brother called me at work to let me know my dad had a stroke and that he was admitted into Emergency. My heart sank. I haven't spoken to my dad in over a year and our relationship hasn't been the best. When I had Nugget, I was determined for her to have a relationship with her grandfather despite the state of my relationship with my dad. I tried to get past my issues with my dad because it was important to me that Nugget had access to her grandparents. It was in the last year or so that I gave up making an effort and I greeted him on his birthday and Fathers Day on his Facebook wall instead of phoning him. I am an asshole. It took him having a stroke for me to visit him and see how he's doing. I'm a mess of guilt, remorse, anger, sadness... I can't even describe it. When we saw him he seemed okay despite everything. His cholesterol is high and his sugar levels are high, he apparently has diabetes and didn't know it. His blood pressure is concerningly high, so high they are waking him up and checking his blood pressure every hour. It's almost 3AM. They finally found him a bed and moved him out of Emergency. My two younger brothers are at the hospital with him now and I'm getting sporadic updates on my phone. I can't sleep and I can't stop crying. I'm sorry, Dad.

Tweet Tweet

2011-06-24T19:24:00.000-07:00

I am now officially on the Twitter!

Follow me here if you are so inclined.

I don't quite get it yet and the first bit felt overwhelming but we'll see how it goes.

On Turning 34

2011-06-14T23:29:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday. Someone told me once that their 30's were better than their 20's. Back then I just turned 21 and I couldn't fathom why anyone would think that. I get it now. I was an idiot in my 20's. Now that I'm a year away from being in my mid-thirties I can happily say that I like me. There are actually days where I feel like this:

I hope this means that my 40's are going to kick ass.

I'll post a recap of some birthday stuff next post. I want to have some cake now.

Mommy's Day

2011-05-20T22:38:00.000-07:00

Mothers Day this year was pretty low key. Nugget made me pancakes for breakfast and we made the rounds to visit our moms. We kept it simple... brought flowers and just spent some time. We saw my mom at lunch and Rutty's mom for dinner. Since my mom moved out to White Rock, I don't see her as often as I used to when she lived in Vancouver so being able to spend a few hours in the afternoon was really nice.

Nugget gave me this awesome painting of Boomer and Hurley. It's now hanging in my office at work.

My fur babies, the muses for Nugget's masterpiece.

My mom, me, Nugget and Boomer.

Stone Soup Festival

2011-05-20T22:06:00.000-07:00

Nearly a month after my last post and two weeks after the Stone Soup Festival, I finally update this blog thing. I'm not sure what was going on with our weather here but the morning of the festival felt more like the first week of October rather than the first week of May. It rained, it hailed and the sun took a peek behind the clouds for a brief moment. Nugget and I arrived at 10:30 am to set up.

This was our view for most of the day.

It wasn't a total bust though. A few friends stopped by and I managed to sell a few items in the five hours we were there. My mom took transit all the way from White Rock to show support and was my first sale of the day, a California Roll pin. My mom's the best.

We decided to quit a couple of hours early because of the downpour. Our feet were soaked and we were freezing cold but it was still a lot of fun. I enjoyed hanging out with Aimee and Virginia and seeing how strangers reacted to my work. It was a great first time experience and it inspired us to sign up for Artful Sundays in August on Commercial Drive. Hopefully the weather will be nicer then.

Posting Extravaganza to make up for the lack of posts in the last month... brought to you by the letter "B"

2011-04-25T17:37:00.000-07:00

B is for Buddy...

He came, he saw, he conquered... or something like that. We took him around the city and took photos of him at several locations like...

the Olympic torch with the 2010 Olympic mascots.

The main library and the site of New Caprica.

Prospect Point at Stanley Park with us, his loving hosts.

In Kevin's Delorean. He didn't go back to the future. He went to Korea.

This photo segues to the next B... for Baking!

I've been trying to do more of that lately because Nugget likes baking and no, I'm not subconsciously sabotaging Rutty's weight loss goals. This was my first attempt at Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies. The first batch I baked I used the chocolate chip cookie recipe on the back of the Chipits bag. They turned out awesome! The second batch, I followed this recipe. The second batch was easier to form but I kind of liked the first batch better even though the dough was gooier. My next attempt I will split the difference in the amount of flour called for in both recipes. The goal is to have this recipe down by the time I do my Christmas baking.

These are the Easter sugar cookies Nugget and I baked with Caleb and Jacob.

This is a mini chocolate cupcake with a mini Cadbury Cream Egg inside. I used Jake Gandolfo's Chocolate Lover's Cupcake recipe in the Master Chef cookbook and iced it with Nutella because I was too lazy to make butter cream frosting. I don't know if it's an issue with the mini Cream Eggs because they're small, but the cream filling was hard. This was a total bummer. The cupcakes still tasted good but I think next time I'll make regular sized cupcakes with full sized Cream Eggs.

B is for Blanket for a baby boy who's name happens to start with B....

I followed the Modern Log Cabin blanket pattern on Ravelry and in the Mason Dixon Knitting Book.

I changed it up part way when I realized I was running out of brown yarn. I also crocheted the border.

And the final B is for Boomer...

because she's so darn cute.

End of April Already?

2011-04-25T16:53:00.000-07:00

Crap, where have I been?

Knitting my freaking heart out, that's where!

I've been prepping for the Stone Soup Festival on Commercial Drive on May 7th 12pm-5pm (shameless plug)

This will be my first craft sale event. I'm sharing a table with my friend Aimee who makes really sweet bags out of repurposed fabrics like this:

And I will be selling more of my sushi pins, barrettes and these guys:

I will be donating 20% of my sales from the Stone Soup Festival to the Canadian Red Cross for Japan Relief. If you're in Vancouver, come by! I hear there's also free soup.

Thanks for the Invite... I made you a Penis!

2011-03-22T22:58:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we got a really cute wedding invitation in the mail from Lisa and Mike in London. A few others received their invites around the same time and this came up on Facebook:

Then I made this guy:

Our RSVP most definitely came with a penis... Mr. Penis to be exact. And he arrived with a perfectly groomed mustache and a bow tie... because he's all class. And no other couple could appreciate the classy Mr.Penis more than Mike and Lisa.

Days of Highs and Lows

2011-03-22T22:41:00.000-07:00

Let's start with the "Lows"...

Last week started with Nugget being sick with the flu from Monday to Wednesday and getting a new puppy settled into our home... which meant cleaning up accidents in the house. It was a rough start to the week but it wasn't terrible. I stayed home with my little sicky baby on Monday and half the day on Tuesday until Nana could take over for me and I could go to work. It was kind of nice having some extra time to spend with Boomer and Hurley to get them acquainted. We did a lot of walking when Nugget felt well enough to get some fresh air. Wednesday was Papa's turn to play nurse and dog sitter. Thursday was St.Patrick's Day and we thought we'd try leaving Hurley and Boomer home alone together with Boomer in her pen. Nugget stopped at home after school with her dad to take the dogs out for a bit and then she went to Nana's. All was well. When we got home after work we found our place had been broken into. The jerks had jimied our sliding glass door open, freaked out our dogs, rifled through our stuff and stole Rutty's laptop and our cameras. It definitely could have been worse. Stuff can be replaced but if anything happened to our dogs, I don't know what I would've done. Thankfully Hurley and Boomer weren't hurt or stolen. As angering and upsetting as the whole thing was, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan really put things in perspective. Our stuff got stolen. It was really shitty. It shook our sense of security. We've implimented overdue security measures. Moving on...

I think I mentioned "Highs" in the title of this entry...

St.Patrick's Day we had a pancake breakfast at work with real Irish coffee with Irish whiskey made by our Irish boss. Very authentic. And yummy.

Rutty and I also placed top four in the Limerick contest. I don't quite remember Rutty's but here's mine about my (almost) bi-weekly rant about people not making coffee after they finish the pot.

There once was a girl named Arlyn*.

Who needed her dose of caffeine.

When she found the pot dry

On to Spark** she would cry

"Learn to make a fresh pot, you fiend!"

*pronounced Arleeeeeen

** Spark is our internal IM system at work

Sadly, Rutty and I didn't win the coveted bottle of Irish Whiskey.

A while ago Rutty entered the Buddy Abroad contest with Monster Factory and we got selected to be Buddy's host family in Vancouver. We are Buddy's second stop on his trip around the world. Somewhere along his travels he will also be visiting with Jenn and Teen in Singapore which is super awesome. On Friday Buddy arrived at work which was the highlight to a bummer of a week. His timing was good and bad. Good in that he was spared the trauma of witnessing our apartment being robbed. Bad in that we don't have our cameras now and we have to borrow Uncle Kevin's in order to document Buddy's visit.

Nonetheless, our monsters were very excited and welcomed Buddy to our home.

Then we took Buddy to a hockey game. No, not the Canucks. This is Vancouver, we can't afford to watch those hockey games. We went to see the Vancouver Giants. Sadly, the Giants lost. But look how happy Buddy looks! Rutty will have to update the folks at Monster Factory soon. He's been busy dealing with our insurance stuff.

Our New Baby Girl

2011-03-15T22:20:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday we picked up our new baby girl. This is Boomer (2.0). She is Hurley's niece and she needed a home... and how can you turn away family this cute? We decided to give her the name we gave the Beagle-Bulldog we were fostering back in October. Boomer (1.0), the Beagle-Bulldog, was renamed Brooklyn by her new owners and we didn't want a cool name to go to waste.

She's a little sweetie that loves to cuddle and give kisses.

Boomer is five months old and very wee. She weighs less than 8 lbs.

This is her wearing the sweater I made her because she gets cold easily.

Hurley and Boomer sit nicely together when there are treats being offered. Hurley is still getting used to her. She keeps trying to lick his face and he's not into it so much. So far they've been pretty good though. I think she'll totally win him over in no time.

Starting to Look Like Spring

2011-03-13T00:04:00.000-08:00

Just some photos I took this morning while taking Hurley for a walk.

When all the cherry blossom trees in the West End are in full bloom the falling petals look like snow. It's one of my most favourite things about my neighbourhood.

Crocuses and little daffodils.

This is the Nelson Gnome tree on the corner of Nelson and Jervis.

This door leads to Og. Bonus points if you get that reference.

Yet Another...

2011-03-02T22:25:00.000-08:00

Do a Google search for "Cupcake hat" or "Jayne Cobb Cunning Hat" and you'll get a ton of images. I just added to the mix.

I made this cupcake hat as a gift for our Character Supervisor's newborn daughter.

This Jayne Cobb hat was a commission for our Compositing Supervisor (modeled by Rutty).

One day everyone in the studio will have one of my knitted items.

Hmmm... 68 more to go.

Muhahahaha! Nitrogen Knitting Domination!!!

As if. Like I'm that insane.

Peanut-

(Production Manager and unofficial supplier of knitted goods to the crew of Thomas and Friends.)

Zombie Hat Give-Away

2011-02-28T20:06:00.000-08:00

I'm not a zombie fan. It's mostly because I don't like horror movies due to me being very prone to nightmares. I already have a troubled relationship with sleep without scary movie enduced visions haunting my thoughts. I did like the Walking Dead series on AMC though, it was pretty awesome. But I'm still not a zombie fan.

Steven, our CG Supervisor at work is a zombie fan and he runs a zombie website called ZombiesDrule. His website will be celebrating its one year anniversay so to commemorate this glorious event, I said I would make a Zombie Hat for a giveaway on the site. I asked Steven what he had in mind and he drew this on a post-it note:

Steven's mad drawing skills.

I took that and made my own sketch... check out the peg bar holes on the old school animation paper.

This is the finished proto-type.

A shot of the patch of brain poking out the back of the hat.

Nugget playing dead... I mean modeling the hat.

Check out www.zombiesdrule.com and sign up for the newsletter to receive a discount code for 10% off your Custom Zombie Hat order during the month of March and get info for a chance to win a free Custom Zombie Hat through ZombiesDrule.

Snow People of the West End

2011-02-28T19:40:00.000-08:00

We got snow on Saturday!!! It didn't take long for the rain to come and turn everything into a slushy mess but a few folks in the neighbourhood were able to get out and build some Snow People. Here's a bunch we saw while taking Hurley for a walk.

A mix of feminine and masculine and weird...

It had a lumpy headed side kick so it wouldn't be lonely.

These guys looked like trouble.

This dude clearly worked out a lot. Check out those abs.

This lovely snow person was taking his snow dog for a walk.

Pay It Forward 2011: A Peanut for a Peanut

2011-02-27T22:34:00.000-08:00

I have a distant cousin (?) named Brian that found me on the internet a few years ago. I got an email asking if we were related and I think we figured out that our grandparents were cousins, or something like that. Brian is an artist (check out his insane drawings here), and my third Pay It Forward recipient. His nickname also happens to be Peanut because he's allergic to peanuts. I figured I would send him a peanut that wouldn't send him into anaphylactic shock.

This was my original sketch.

I liked how this little guy turned out so much I decided to put him in my Etsy shop for custom order.

Pay It Forward 2011: Ginger Cat Pen Cozy for Laura

2011-02-23T22:59:00.000-08:00

Laura, our Lighting Supervisor at work and one of the people behind the Tap 'n Cap iPhone App, was next on my list for Pay It Forward 2011. When I asked her what she wanted she said a Ginger Cat Pen Cozy.

A what? You ask?

I shall explain! Flashback to a few months ago at work, Laura started using those new Sharpie pens for taking notes. She said they work great. Her only complaint was the silver coating on the pen left glitter on her hands. I told her I would make her a pen cozy. The next day I gave her this:

It's a bear pen cozy wearing a scarf.

I decided that this time I would knit the entire thing, not like the bear which had a crocheted head sewn on top of a knitted tube body. I figured this would be a good opportunity to practice decreases and increases.

This was my sketch.

This is the finished Ginger Cat Pen Cozy...completely knitted with an embroidered face. The tail was a last minute addition.

Pay It Forward gifts #3 and #4 are in progress. Stay tuned...

More Love In the Mail

2011-02-23T22:31:00.000-08:00

Valentine Swap Conclusion

When the mailbox bears treasures beyond the mundane bills and flyers, I get very excited. Like to the point where it comes across as annoying bragging. So this is my last post about all the good stuff I got in the mail last week, I swear. My fifth and final Valentine from the swap arrived on Thursday. This cute felt heart and hand written card came from Donna at Unraveling.

This Valentine Swap was definitely a good first swap to cut my teeth on. On the suggestion of Meeka, I joined Craftster so I guess we'll see what my Swapping future holds.

Happy Surprises

The package that was waiting for me at the Post Office wasn't my fifth Valentine. It was actually a beautiful print from my friend Meagan's talented mom, Wendy Browne. The print she sent me is of her piece called "Remembering Home" from her recent art show called Slice. You can see it on her website along with her other pieces here. It was a very unexpected and happy surprise. I took the piece to get framed immediately. I'll take photos of it when I get it back from the frame shop. I've been a fan of Wendy's art since the first time I set foot in Meagan's family home in Salmon Arm. Wendy makes the most amazing quilts and she's passed her talents to Meagan, who is also a wonderful artist. Meagan makes adorable quilts for purchase on her Twig + Ivy site.

Valentine's Day Extenda-Mix

2011-02-16T23:49:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day came a day early and decided to stay at our house longer. We're just oozing love, it's gross. This was a late Valentine's gift from Nugget to Rutty... a hand painted clay donut. It wasn't even really late because it was still technically Valentine's Day when she gave it to him. It just took a while because she was waiting for the paint to dry.

More Valentines came in the mail from the Valentine's Swap. There's also a package waiting for me at the Post Office that I suspect is my fifth Valentine. Unfortunately, it was sent to the Post Office that closes before I finish work. That means I probably won't be able to pick it up till Saturday. Boo.

The lovely card on the left is from Emily and the cute little bird is from Jamie.

Another package arrived too and it was filled with Pay It Forward love from the awesome Meeka Stuart. The tattooed sock monkey on the right is for Rutty, Nugget claimed the little red monster and the adorable little gnome is mine.

Still no sign of my Valentine's gift for Rutty in the mail. I take my title of "Worst Girlfriend Ever" very seriously.

Nibbler!

2011-02-14T23:33:00.000-08:00

My friend Tyler and his girlfriend, Leslie, are huge Futurama fans. They have a vast collection of Futurama toys and the one character they had trouble finding a toy of was Nibbler. Last August, they asked me if I could make them a Nibbler and I eagerly accepted the challenge. Since they didn't give me a due date, I forgot about it. Then in December Tyler asked if I could make it for Christmas but I was too busy to fit it in the schedule. Feeling like I let him down, I told him I could make it for Valentine's Day. So in mid January I started working on this guy and found myself overwhelmed trying to get his face on model. The last thing I wanted was a wonk-faced Nibbler and I really thought I bit off more than I could chew taking this on. I frogged and re-started his head a few times and I was ready to give up despite Nugget and Rutty's encouragement. I set it aside for a couple of days and dreaded having to go back to it. Making a three-dimensional object from limited two-dimensional reference is a pain in the ass. With the Valentine's deadline looming, I finally sucked it up and just did it and he turned out better than I thought. He's actually one of my favourites now and one of the most satisfying projects to finish.

His diaper is made of white felt and his cape is repurposed red cotton fabric from one of Nugget's old shirts.

And at the last minute I made him a lump of dark matter poop.

Love Day Stuff

2011-02-14T21:09:00.000-08:00

Valentines Cookies

Yesterday Nugget and I spent the afternoon with my good friend Aimee and her two boys, Caleb and Jacob, baking Valentine sugar cookies. The kids had a great time cutting out the cookies and decorating them.

Here are some of the finished cookies. The kids ate most of them, their reward for doing such a great job.

<3

This came in a text message from Rutty last night while he was out for dinner with the boys. Cute.

Valentine's Gifts

This morning I gave Nugget her Valentine's gift: a sock monkey named Mika for Mika made by Meeka.

And Nugget gave me this: a hand-painted hamburger sculpture she made from no-bake clay and a handmade card that said "You're the key to my heart". Best kid ever.

Then after work, Rutty gave me this: Wayne from Monster Factory and four roses... one for every year since we started officially going out... it's tradition. He's the romantic one :) What did he get from me? One part of his gift is sitting in Seattle with Dan until we can head down there to pick it up and the other part hasn't arrived yet. I'm the worst girlfriend ever.

Valentine Swap Snail Mail

The last time I received a handmade Valentine in the mail was quite a few years ago when I received a Valentine from Molly Goatwax. I still have it, framed and hanging in our front entrance. I was happy to find these two Valentine cards from the Valentine's Swap in our mailbox today. Snail mail of the non-bill variety is the best.

The King and Queen of Hearts card came from Camie in San Francisco and the heart card came from Peggy in Amsterdam.

Hope you all had a happy Valentine's Day!

End of January Update

2011-01-31T23:20:00.000-08:00

It's the last day of January and while I haven't finished reading "Eat Pray Love" I did finish the first story about Italy. Woohoo! So now the goal for February will be to finish the second story about India. Reading is fun.

Rutty and I attended another Dr.Sketchy's tonight. What?! Life drawing twice in one month?!!! Insane! I'll post pictures of my horrible drawings later... maybe. I discovered that not eating dinner + one alcoholic beverage + life drawing a woman wearing clown makeup = bad. Friends should not let friends drink and draw.

Callio-Peacock. Photo by the lovely Heather Renney.

More photos from past Dr.Sketchy's events on her site.

I've lost 3 lbs since I started tracking my food/calorie intake, not that I'm on a mission to lose weight or anything. I just want to eat crap less often and be a healthier version of myself. Next month I will add exercise to the mix. I'm organizing a Sun Run team at work so we have until April to train.

That's it... need to get back to the knitting of the viking hats.

Valentine Swap!

2011-01-29T23:13:00.000-08:00

I'm discovering that preparing for Valentine's Day brings about the same level of anxiety as Christmas does and demands nearly the same amount of organization. There are Etsy orders and Valentine's commissions to finish and Valentine's cards to make for Nugget's class. Nugget is making the actual cards herself but I'm helping with one of the elements. Because Nugget's Valentine's project can be done at the last minute, her stuff, unfortunately, gets bumped down to the bottom of the list.

Sorry baby.

The projects that have to travel the furthest get first priority so I spent the afternoon putting my handmade Valentines together for the Valentine Swap I signed up for. They need to be mailed next week in order to arrive to their designated recipients by February 14th.

I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do. Last week I found this free pattern for crocheted hearts on Planet June, made a donation (because it's good to support fellow artists) and started crocheting some hearts. I made three red ones and three in a dusty rose, embellished them with some buttons and sewed on a brooch pin backing on each one. I knew I wanted to incorporate these in the Valentines but the rest of the card was up in the air.

I have to admit, as much as I love paper and the idea of paper crafts, it's not one of my strong suits. I wanted the cards to be colourful and aside from the heart brooches, I wanted to avoid the typical Valentine colours of pink and red. And I wanted to avoid using glue. I carried the button theme on the hearts to the cards with some button print ribbon and button shaped brads, put the Martha Stewart border punch that I bought at Christmas to use, warmed up my old ink jet printer and came up with this:

The small type says : ... For you to keep and wear or give and share...

The mailing labels are ready, I just need to get some envelopes and then I'll be sending these babies off to some ladies in the States and one in the Netherlands.

Chasing Amy in 60 Seconds: UPDATE!

2011-01-27T21:29:00.000-08:00

It would appear it's update day on my blog.

Virgin Radio posted the Top 20 for the Fake Film Festival and... drum roll.... we didn't even place. Not that we were expecting to, the fact that we made it in a weekend was very apparent. I'm just stoked the guys on NewsAskew mentioned us on their site. Read Rutty's post on the 'Making Of' and see a really good shot of my freakishly long middle finger. You can also read his views on Community Voting. He pretty much summed up how I felt about the whole rating/voting process for this contest. I mean, come on... when a contest is determined by a vote, you only get one vote and there's no down-rating the other entries to improve the standing of another. I hope they re-think the whole process for next time.

Pay It Forward 2011: Carrots for Maggie... UPDATE!

2011-01-27T20:42:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to report that my first Pay It Forward gift arrived safely. Success! And then it was paid forward to someone else which is very very cool. Here`s why...

Back when I first posted the carrots on Facebook, this thread of comments happened:

February 21, 2009 at 8:12pm

Mags: ‎..how big are they? I think my grandmother would LOVE them.

Me: They're about 6.5" to 7". Will that satisfy your grandmother?
The one on the left is wearing a stupid party hat.

Mags: ..I think they are fantastic. Whatever size they are! (usually I am far more picky)

Me: If you want them, they're yours, Maggie.

Mags: You are a saint. You'll make an old lady very happy..

I seriously thought she was joking. So I was pleasantly surprised to find this posted on my Facebook wall with the note below:

Gramma loved your carrots. She says you are a beautiful and even knitter, she's very impressed with your technique in adding the pirate patch and party hat. She's got a commission for you.

I heart this so much.

Happy Birthday, Ranyl!

2011-01-25T23:22:00.000-08:00

Today is my older brother's birthday. We missed his birthday dinner tonight because of our Strata AGM. Bummer. Anyway, I mentioned Ranyl back in August in this post when he was getting a lot of press for his XBox game, Codex. Well now, Codex is being nominated for several Canadian Video Game Awards up against some pretty big titles. They're currently working on an iPhone version of the game which I'm really excited about.
This is his company site: Good Guy Robots
This is an interview he just did with Tailgate 365.
This is my bro, computer nerd and awesome dad.

Pay It Forward 2011: Carrots for Maggie

2011-01-25T22:59:00.000-08:00

I'm a little late posting this. This was my first Handmade Pay It Forward gift that I mailed out last week. Remember these guys? They were one of my first amigurumi projects and at the time I wasn't totally happy with them but they've since grown on me. After I made them I posted them on Facebook and my friend Maggie said she wanted them. The intent was to give them to her the next time I saw her but it didn't happen. Fast forward almost two years later and Maggie was the first person to comment on my Handmade Pay It Forward status so it only made sense to finally send her the carrots. I added a bonus Love brooch that I made from repurposed t-shirt material and grosgrain ribbon that I embroidered. Four more to go!

Chasing Amy in 60 Seconds

2011-01-25T00:08:00.000-08:00

My apologies for the shameless plug but my friends and I entered the Virgin Radio's Fake Film Festival Contest. Our entry is Kevin Smith's classic "Chasing Amy" in 60 seconds. If you have a moment please go to the Virgin Radio site here and give us a rating to help us qualify for the top 20. The rating/voting ends at 5PM Tuesday, January 25th. So please register and give your (awesome) rating ASAP.

We really hate these popularity based voting contests but we did it for fun, sort of as a kick in the butt to get us (mostly Ellery and Kevin) to get some projects going... like old times. If by some miracle we win the top prize, we said we'd pay it forward and donate it to Kevin Smith's favourite charity, The Wayne Foundation. We even got mentioned on News Askew.

Schedules and Some Crap that Fell Out of My Brain.

2011-01-22T22:03:00.000-08:00

I find myself referring back to my "More/Less List" more frequently now which is good, I think, because it means I'm actually trying to accomplish what I want to do. I'm realizing there are a lot of things I'd like to fit into my day to day so I'm trying to organize my time and I've come up with a rough schedule, which now that I think about it, is kind of anal retentive. What can I say, I'm a Production Manager by trade, schedules are kind of my thing.

I'm currently reading "Eat Pray Love" which is probably passe now that the movie is out on DVD and everyone and their mother read it like two years ago and OMG "you're just reading it now?!".... Yeah, yeah I am . It's the first book I've read since last May when I read "Into the Wild" during our one week holiday in Mexico. I read it in three days while lying on the beach and wished I had brought another book with me. I've been reading "Eat Pray Love" since the beginning of this month when I declared that I was going to read more this year. It's been weeks and I'm still not through the first section about Italy. I'm really enjoying the book so in order to keep my goal to read more and ensure that I actually finish it, unlike Love in the Time of Cholera, I've decided that my lunch break at work is now reading time... but only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. This is where the whole scheduling thing comes into play. Lunch breaks on Tuesdays and Thursdays is reserved for listening to Italian Language audio recordings.

Yes, I'm listening to Italian lessons on my lunch breaks. But no, not because I'm so inspired by this book I'm reading, though I'm finding many parrallels with myself and the author, maybe I'll elaborate on all that in another post. My fascination with Italian goes way back... all the way back to elementary school, where two of my closest friends were Italian fraternal twins named Nick and Rita. One of the first things they taught me was how to say 'fuck you' in Italian. They had two gorgeous older sisters in high school and they all played soccer and their family grew tomatoes and beans in their backyard. There was so much about the culture I really liked but I think a lot of it was because it had a lot of similarities to my own in terms of family and religion. Food was something else altogether but that's a whole other blog post.
My first crush was on my brother's friend, Franky, when I was in grade 4. He was Italian and he had pretty blue eyes. My friend Samantha and I would take the long way to school in the morning and walk by his backyard. One morning Samantha stole green beans from his garden and his mother saw us. She yelled something to us as we took off running. I remember being surprised that she spoke English without a trace of an Italian accent. We never stalked him again.

But the real fascination with Italian started when I was seven years old and my Tita Tess came to live with us after working in Italy as a nanny. She brought with her a silver souvenir sculpture of the Vatican, a velvet wall hanging that said Firenze (Florence) that ended up hanging on my bedroom wall for years, and she gave me a pair of suede shoes in a chestnut brown that I thought were just amazing. They had heels and were slippery and hurt like hell. They were completely impractical and didn't go with anything a seven year old tomboy would wear but I didn't care, they were Italian shoes. She also gave me 1000 lire that I carried around in my wallet with the intent of one day going to Italy to spend it. But in order to do that, I knew I would have to learn to speak Italian. I still have the 1000 lire even though it's worth nothing now. It's one of my most cherished items.

I remember Tita Tess' sister and niece came to visit from Italy. They only spoke Italian and Tagalog, no English. I was fascinated by how they spoke mixing Italian and Tagalog words in sentences like how my parents mixed English words into their sentences when they spoke Tagalog. I thought it was cool.

This...I don't even know what to call it... love? too strong... obsession? way too strong... desire? kind of....itch? hmm... sure, let's go with that. This itch for Italian lay dormant for years and then a few years ago when I was working on Viva Pinata, my friend Rob started taking Italian lessons at UBC. When he finished his class and decided he was going to seek adventure in foreign lands he gave me his old binder of notes and lessons. I still have the binder but I've barely skimmed through it. Then after Viva Pinata, someone on my Edgar and Ellen crew gave me a copy of Italian lessons by Michel Thomas. I think the Universe was telling me I should learn this language but I only half-assed listened to the Universe, like in the annoying way my kid listens to me now. I ripped the CD into my iTunes at work and let the lesson clips play at random mixed in with my regular music so I could listen to the lessons without fully committing to them. This probably wasn't the best way to learn. It became this weird musical Russian Roulette where the empty barrel clicks were random songs and the bullet was an old guy schooling two English people in Italian. The lessons would come up so unexpectedly sometimes it woud startle me. I found it hilarious. Then it got annoying. Then it stopped.

Now, nearly five years later, Italian lessons come up again in this book that I'm reading, in conversation with Dan and Marc at work because Marc's taking Italian lessons and Dan is half Italian and likes talking about soccer and anything Italian, and then last Monday, Dan put the same Italian audio lessons by Michel Thomas in my Personal Folder at work. This time I'll actually listen to the lessons in the order they were meant to be heard and see if anything sinks in. It's not much but it's enough to satisfy my need to learn this language for now. There are other creative needs to be met.

Back to me trying to schedule All Of The Things. Ideally in this control freak schedule in my head, the hours between coming home from work and Nugget going to bed will consist of making dinner, eating dinner, helping with homework and catching up with Nugget on how her day went. Knitting is now reserved for later in the evening while watching my crime drama-murder stories and snuggling with my doggy until Rutty gets back from the gym... he too, has goals to meet.

This is as far as I got with my schedule. I wanted to fit in some time to draw or paint or practice guitar but my brain hit its maximum capacity for crazy and I gave up trying to divide the hours in a day like a pie. Mmmm... schedule pie. There's a reason why I've been feeling so tired. I like being busy but sometimes it's good to do nothing and sleep. I should probably schedule that.

Sketchy

2011-01-17T22:24:00.000-08:00

Two blog posts in a row... Huzzah!

Here's my Dr.Sketchy's update. Last night was our (mine and Rutty's) first time at a Dr.Sketchy's Art Class and our first time doing life drawing in a very long time. The most recent life drawing sketchbook I found was dated July 1998. We were both incredibly rusty. I was afraid of how badly I was going to suck and very much intimidated by the other artists partaking in the class, especially since Camilla D'Errico herself was going to be there. I thought a few more of our friends would be there drawing but aside from the friends (Heddy, Pikey and Jenn Strom) who helped organize Dr.Sketchy's, we really didn't know anyone else there. It was all good though. The models were great. They had on wigs and costumes and carried props that you would see in a Camilla D'Errico painting. I was more accustomed to the fully naked life drawing we did back in Animation school where the figure isn't obstructed by clothing and you see EVERYTHING. Drawing the clothing took a bit of getting used to. The round of one minute poses, what Shary Contrary (the hostess of the event), called the "Cardio Round", was a bit stressful. Here are a few of my sketches from the evening. We definitely need to do this again.

1 Minute Poses....

5 Minute Pose...

15 Minute Poses...

And since Nugget was sad she couldn't come meet Camilla, we picked up a print and Camilla signed it just for her.

What's the Happs?

2011-01-16T16:59:00.000-08:00

Swap!

I joined my first swap! Lyndsey over at The Stationary Place is hosting a Valentine's Card Swap. I thought I'd give it a shot. I have some ideas floating around in my head that I'm excited to try out but first I have a few commissions and orders from my Etsy shop I need to finish up.

Knitty Gritty

It's been a busy week as usual. I finished one hockey helmet hat last week and I'm tying up the loose ends on one to ship to Ottawa tomorrow. Then I have one more and I think I'm done. I am so over making the hockey helmet hat... at least for now. I had no idea they would be this popular.

Last week I got commissioned to make a newborn baby nest and hat by Crystal, one of our animators at work. It's for a photo shoot she's doing with a little one named Sebastian. It looks like a giant hat with a wee little hat... but stick a baby in it and it makes a lot more sense.

Handmade Pay It Forward

Pay It Forward 2011 popped up on Facebook a few days ago. I first spotted it on Steve's status. He's a fellow artist I used to work with back in the old school traditional animation days. He now resides in Budapest with his wife and son. It was his commission for the baby Habs Hockey Helmet Hat that sparked all the other hockey hat commissions.

Anyway, the point of Pay It Forward 2011 is to send something handmade to the first five people to comment on your status and in turn they are to post the same Pay It Forward blurb on their status so that they send something handmade to five more people and so on. And you have the whole year to send the handmade items to the five recipients. Pretty cool idea. I'll probably post each item before I send them out. I'm prepping the first one tonight!

Health and Stuff

I've been making a concious effort to follow my list and so far I think I'm doing well. We'll see how long the mojo lasts though. I've been drinking a lot more water during the day which means more trips to the can at work, and since the women's washroom is downstairs, in turn I'm getting more exercise. Going up and down stairs constitutes exercise, I'm sure. Win Win! I also downloaded the My Fitness Pal app that Rutty's been using for the last couple of weeks. He's already lost five pounds and he hasn't been working out! I had to try it.

So what you do with this app is you put in your stats: age, height, weight, activity level, then you put in what your goal weight is and it calculates how many calories you should have a day in order to reach this goal weight. It also tells you how much cholesterol, fat, sugar and nutrients you've consumed and gives you an over/under based on what your ideal amount should be. You can also track how much water you drink a day... All helpful things to know.

Things I've learned so far:

I eat way too many snacks for the sake of putting something yummy in my mouth. Now that I have to keep track of what I'm eating I'm finding myself looking at tempting treats and asking myself "do I really need this?". Most of the time the answer is No.

Unless I take a multivitamin, I don't get nearly as much Vitamin A, C, iron and calcium in my diet.

Walking for 40 minutes with the dog doesn't burn nearly as many calories as I thought it would. I'm going to have to start running again.

Drawrrings...

Tonight is the Camilla D'Errico edition of Dr.Sketchy's. This will be my first time at Dr. Sketchy's and my first time Life Drawing in YEARS. Daunting? Just a little. Rutty, Nugget and I are big fans of Camilla D'Errico and we have several of her pieces in our place. Nugget actually wanted to go but I think a nine year old is still a little young for drawing naked people. In order for Rutty and I to attend, I texted Nana to arrange babysitting. This was the convo:

Me: Can you babysit Mika tomorrow night from 6-10pm please? We want to go to life drawing class.

Nana: Sure but what does it do 4 you? Draw the life outta you?

Me: It's a class where we draw naked people... That's the 'life' part.

Nana: Omgomgomg can Mika and I observe? M or F?

Me: No kids. Female model.

Nana: Female: Nah. Hehheh.

This afternoon I went digging around for my old art supplies and sketchbook that I bought two years ago when Rutty and I had this overly ambitious idea to do monthly sketchbook assignments. The first month assignment was 'hands'. That's as far as we got. Here's a sample of some of my sketches. They are mostly of my left hand:

My left hand holding an empty glass. I suspect I got bored and gave up on all the detail of the reflections on the glass. It sounds like something I would do.

A close up of my left hand intertwined with Rutty's hand. How romantical.

This is the full page of the intertwined hand sketch with another sketch of my left hand. This page got smudged to hell which makes the hands look diseased.

This was the Shocker page... two variations of the shocker, the Hawaiian Shocka below and the... umm...other one. I must have run out of hand poses.

Other poses of my left hand. I think I like this page the best.

I'm kind of afraid of what my sketches tonight will look like. Will post those later. Wish me luck with the drawing of the naked ladies with things on their heads.

The More / Less List

2011-01-05T21:12:00.000-08:00

Here's my list for 2011. Now with more 'more' and less 'less'.

Drink more water.

Get more excercise.

Get more sleep.

Oh Hi, 2011!

2011-01-01T23:29:00.000-08:00

Good grief, where did December go? You'll have to read my partner in crime's blog to get an idea.

But here's a round up of some stuff I made during the holidays...

I made some hats...

A Boob Hat. This was a special request from Ellery's dad. He said it's for work.

A Jets Hockey Helmet hat commissioned by a former co-worker, a Christmas present for his nephew.

A Sens Hockey Helmet Hat commissioned by a friend in Ottawa.

I made a couple of dolls...

Baby Snake Eyes. This was a special request from Ellery as a gift for a childhood friend who was a GI Joe fan.

A doll for Jordan, Ellery's niece, for Christmas.

I made some things to keep necks cozy...

I made some things to keep fingers warm...

I baked cookies! This is probably the first Christmas that I've actually done this.

And we decorated Gingerbread Houses at 3AM on Christmas Eve.

We had a great Christmas break. New Year's was a little more subdued with pizza, watching Labyrinth and Scott Pilgrim at home with Nugget, Rutty, Uncle Kevin and Mossy. It was the perfect end to 2010.

Back to the grind on Monday... and more knitting... and hopefully more sewing.

2011... Bring it!

Yay Snow!

2010-11-21T22:53:00.000-08:00

It snowed a bit the other night...

... and we're supposed to get more!

I Heart Autumn...

2010-11-05T21:12:00.000-07:00

Autumn brings so many great things. I've had to take a short hiatus from my knitting orders to enjoy it without stressing out. I love the leaves changing colour and the sound of the fallen leaves crunching under my feet before they get damp from the rain.

I love the return of Pumpkin Spice Lattes and bringing out the cozy sweaters. Mostly I love Halloween and everything it entails... Like the pumpkin patch! Rutty, Nugget and I took a while to pick the most perfect pumpkins to be massacred.

These were the chosen victims we carved. They were rotten before Halloween but they were still really cool. We ended up carving a few more closer to Halloween. Rutty documented it in detail here.

We went on the Stanley Park Ghost Train. This year's theme was Alice in Nightmare Land. It was so much better than the Pirate theme one from a couple of years ago. This was one of my favourite displays.

This year Nugget had the best costume. She was a Dia de los Muertos Catrina doll. The dress we found at Winners and the head dress was a decorative piece for a mantle we found at HomeSense, we just shaped it to fit her head. I did the makeup.

Rutty went as Dr.McNinja and I went as HitGirl from the movie Kick Ass. Rutty elaborates more on the Halloween festivities at work and so on here. Good times.

This was our Halloween Family photo with Nugget's friend Maya.

We accessorized her and did her makeup so she could be Catrina doll twins with Nugget. She was more the rock star version, like Lady GaGa meets Day of the Dead.

Hurley was a shark. A big scary shark.

Did I mention that in Autumn, pumpkin pie is totally acceptable breakfast fare? I've had pumpkin pie for breakfast the last couple of days.

So tomorrow we pack up the Tickle Trunk of costumes to put in storage. We need to make room for Christmas afterall. Oh my god... Christmas. I need to get started on my Christmas orders.

Sports Related Head Gear and Gnomes... No Relation.

2010-10-12T22:17:00.000-07:00

I meant to post a picture of this a while ago but forgot. This was my first Alchemy request on Etsy from a lovely woman in Chicago. This was also my first attempt at recreating a sports team logo. I had major concerns about getting the Chicago Bears logo on model but I think it turned out pretty well. It's not perfect but I think that's part of the charm of hand-made.

This hockey helmet hat was a commission from a friend in Prague for his toddler son. Again, I had my concerns about getting the Habs logo on model but I think it worked okay. Posting this on Facebook triggered three more hockey helmet hat orders. I think the Viking Hat has some competition now.

Between the sports related head gear and the viking hats I made this:

This was another commission from my friend Karen (brown bear hat). Her original request was for just a Gnome Hat that she can wear on Halloween, and if I had time, maybe throw in a moustache. I really wanted to throw in a beard. So I devised a cowl/neckwarmer that she can pull up on her face for a moustache-beard combo or she can wear it under a coat with the moustache tucked in for a cozy neckwarmer. I think I'll put this up in my Etsy shop after Christmas. I bet it would look cool with the Viking hat too.

Boomer

2010-09-29T21:31:00.000-07:00

Last week my brother brought over this adorable little girl to our home. Someone at his work couldn't keep her so he decided he was going to adopt her only to find that he couldn't have a dog at his apartment. We kept her at our place and immediately named her Boomer. She's a Beagle-Bulldog mix...a Beabull. We share the same birthday.

She stayed with us on and off for about a week while we tried to find her a forever home. We went back and forth deciding on whether we should keep her ourselves. I mean come on, look at this face.

We fell in love with her immediately but Hurley wasn't much of a fan. I think if we had introduced her to our home differently, they probably would've been the best of friends. If they had got along it would've been even more difficult to make a decision but in the end, Rutty and I mustered all the strength we had and made the practical decision to say no. It wasn't the right time for us to have a puppy... time and expense-wise. If you ever want to feel like the most horrible person in the world, take a look at those puppy dog eyes and say "I'm sorry, we can't keep you". It was so incredibly heart breaking. Dammit, dog. Why do you have to be so damn adorable?!

We had several people interested in adopting her based on some pictures I posted on Facebook.... because come on... cutest puppy ever...next to Hurley of course.

We chose to give her to Dave, a guy who went to my old high school. He and his girlfriend have an 11 year old Beagle and were prepared to give Boomer the time and attention she needed. He said they'd give us updates, photos, videos and visits. I plan on Facebook stalking them. Just kidding. Sort of.

As confident as I was that we found her a great forever home, I was sad to see her go. We all were. Nugget cried this morning. I had my moment yesterday... so pathetic. You'd think we had Boomer for years and she died or something. We grew so attached to her in just a matter of days. I have no idea how people can be foster parents. You gotta' be so tough... I don't know that I could do this again.

My first update from Dave: "So cute. She farts and snores."

I think that's all she got from her bulldog side.

Bye-bye Boomer, baby. Looking forward to seeing you grow from afar.

I'll be thinking of you on our birthday.

Robot Party In My Tummy

2010-09-27T20:15:00.000-07:00

It's totally last minute but Rutty's Threadless submission is still open for rating even though it says 0 days left. If you a have a moment please register and score his design. Thanks!

Titanium Hip is a Winner!

2010-09-27T20:02:00.000-07:00

I've been so behind on updating and blog reading. I discovered this a few days ago. Meeka from Titanium Hip received her Sushi Goody Bag in the mail and she's looking rad in the sushi hair barrette. Meeka makes some kick-ass sock monsters and sells them on her Etsy page here. You can read about the cool stuff she makes on her craft blog here.

This was one of her sock monsters named Arlyn. But it sold before I even saw it. This one's Rutty, he sold too.

A Few Commissions... in Brown

2010-09-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

My Etsy shop has been a little slow the last couple of weeks which is kind of nice. I haven't actually been doing anything to promote the shop lately but so far I'm getting about one viking hat order a week, a pace I'm quite happy with. I'm not feeling panicked and I have time to take on a few commissions from friends between viking hat orders. I love doing commissions especially when they pose a creative challenge. This one came from my friend Karen (who I've been bugging to get an Etsy shop set up. She makes amazing felt robots). A month or so ago she sent me this photo requesting this hat:

This is my version of it.

Completed September 8, 2010

Then last week I got a message from sweet Angela requesting a hat and mittens for her beautiful baby girl, Penny, based on this sketch she sent. It's a really tiny image:

This is my work in progress...

I learned how to chain stitch in order to embroider the snowflake on the hat and mittens.

I'm just finishing up the mitten strings on these babies and I'm done.

UPDATE:
Here is the finished hat and mittens.

Completed Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Hurley Turns 2

2010-09-14T19:55:00.000-07:00

Our little baby boy turned 2 last Tuesday.

To celebrate Nugget wanted to have a doggy birthday party for him in Langley with the other family dogs Indy, Daisy.....

and Chelsea.

Nugget took it on as her special mission to plan the party. She made party hats for the birthday boy and his doggy guests...

as well as Goody Bags...

and we got him a liver flavoured birthday cake from the Big Dog Little Dog Bakery on Denman Street.

Nugget even had doggy games planned but everything kind of fell apart after the cake was served.

And just so the humans wouldn't feel left out, she made us cupcakes.

She did a great job! And that concludes the birthdays for our little family until next Summer.

Everyone's A Winner, Babe.

2010-08-31T21:20:00.000-07:00

Whoops. I'm a few days late posting the winner of the Goody Bag Give-away. Nugget, the sushi-loving Mika, chose titaniumhip, the sushi-loving Meeka. Confusing? Maybe. Meeka, your goody bag will be mailed out on Saturday!

My big brother, Ranyl, was in the Vancouver Sun today. He's like the poster boy for the BCIT Bachelor of Technology's games development option, because he made an Xbox game. You can read about him here and here . He was also interviewed on CBC Radio this afternoon. Yep, we're pretty proud. You should buy his game here!

Today is the last day for WipeOut Canada phone calls. Sadly, Rutty did not make the cut. There's always next year, right? Right?

Nugget's back to school next week. It will be her first day at the Main School. Woohoo!

Got some really positive feedback on my Etsy shop for some of the viking hat orders I sent out a few weeks ago. This is going to sound super lame but I have to say, it's really quite gratifying to know everyone is so happy with their viking hats. I'm finishing off one viking hat this week and my Alchemy request which I will post a photo of when it's totally finished. I made a pair of mitts for my Etsy shop but Nugget claimed it as her birthday mitts. This is them...

Nugget's 9th Bday Party And A Giveaway!

2010-08-23T01:40:00.000-07:00

The last week flew by so quickly that Nugget's birthday party snuck up on me. As much as I tried planning everything ahead of time, there were still a few details that got left to the last minute. One of the details was the cake. I knew I wanted to make a sushi-themed cake to go with her Sushi/Japanese theme party and I had a few ideas that I researched and thought about. Most of the cake ideas were so grand and beyond the baking abilities of a non-baker like myself, that it didn't go further than me thinking about it. I thought I had time last week to do a test run but didn't. Things were running so smoothly at work I wasn't anticipating such a draining week. Her party was fast approaching and I thought about just picking up cupcakes from the Cupcake shop on Denman. But Nugget loved the idea of a sushi cake. She kept throwing out ideas for how to make it that I felt I HAD to at least try. So the night before the party, after spending the morning at our Misty Island movie premiere, the afternoon at my nephew's birthday party and the evening cleaning the apartment, I hauled my butt down to Safeway and picked up some supplies. I baked the cake just before Nugget and her cousin went to bed (again, thank you Duncan Hines) and I set to work decorating it this morning after I fed the dog. It was so very last minute, it showed. I have much appreciation for the organized moms, like my sister-in-law, who plan, cook, bake and pull off such awesome parties for their kids without a hitch. Despite all my efforts, I seem to always fall short. Here is my attempt at a sushi cake.

I used coconut for the rice which was a total pain to get on the sides. Surely there is a better technique than trying to press shaved coconut onto the iced sides with a spatula. The coconut just kept falling leaving little piles around the bottom. I opted to use strawberries, honeydew melon and cantaloupe to represent the contents of the sushi roll instead of Nugget's suggestion of gummy candies because I wanted to limit the amount of sugar. The cake kind of worked. If you look at the photo from far away it almost looks like a California roll. Kind of, right?

The snack spread for the party consisted of veggies and dip, fruit, nuts, crackers and cheese... yes, very Japanese. The edamame never made it out of the freezer. I wanted to keep the food selection healthy partly because Nugget turns into a scary beast when she has too much sugar. Being stuck in an 850sf apartment with five little girls hopped up on sugar was a nightmare I wanted to avoid, hence veggies and dip. Yeah party food! Maybe for 30 year- olds. Whatever, they liked it.

I also wanted to avoid giving them pop to drink. Again, sugar is bad. I made them virgin Bellinis, which were basically orange slushies with grenadine. I know, totally Japanese.

The original plan for the party was to order take out sushi and have lunch on the back deck on the custom picnic table Rutty ordered from a lady on Craigslist. The picnic table would also be the setting for origami folding. But the Craigslist custom picnic table that was supposed to be delivered last Thursday was now going to be delivered four days AFTER the party. Huge fail. My back up plan for bad weather and lack of picnic table was to take the girls upstairs to Jenn's empty apartment which would only work if the weather was crappy because Jenn's apartment during sunny weather is an oven. Today was sunny and very warm. I opted to take the girls to a restaurant instead which worked out well. We walked up to Oysi Oysi and the girls ordered what they wanted to eat and even got icecream for dessert. The best part was I didn't have to clean it up.

The other detail that ended up falling by the wayside was decorations. A few weeks ago I had this totally wacked out idea that I could fold 1000 paper cranes and string them together to make the best origami garland ever and I would hang those somewhere to decorate for the party. That was about a month ago and I calculated that I would have to fold thirty paper cranes a day in order to make them in time. I think I made one. This orange silk parasol was the extent of my decorating for the party and I didn't even think of it. Nana had given it to Nugget a while back and Nugget pulled it out of her room this morning and said "Can we put this somewhere?"

After we got back from sushi we arrived to find Hurley peed all around the apartment. I don't think I've ever seen so much pee on my floor. There was a stream down the hall, around the living room and into the kitchen, like he tried to write "Happy Birthday" in piss but realized he didn't know how to spell because he's a dog. Apparently he went to the door and sat there waiting to be taken outside to relieve himself but Rutty misread his signal for him waiting for us to come back. So much pee to mop up...

When all that was cleand up the girls voted on opening presents first and then origami. I printed some instructions that I found online and gave them to the girls. This didn't work out so well. Most of the instructions were so difficult to follow the girls gave up. This was as far as Maya got with the owl.

The party was to end at 4PM but the girls wanted to stay longer so I said 5PM was fine but I had no other activities planned. The girls decided to play Hide and Seek which probably was not the best choice of games in a small apartment with very limited hiding options. Isabelle had the best hiding spot. She piled a bunch of cushions on top of herself, behind the cofee table while Maya lay on top of the cushions looking as casual as one does when they're awkwardly balanced on a precarious heap of cushions and their sister.

Then it was cake time. After the very subdued (probably from the lack of sugar) singing of "Happy Birthday", Nugget blew out her candles, nine plus one for good luck.

After the girls had cake, their dads came to pick them up. The goody bags were distributed and the party came to an end. Success?

So to share in the celebration of the day I popped out my darling daughter, I am doing my first Giveaway.

The prize is a goody bag, just like the girls got at Nugget's party. A canvas bag containing the following:

*A pair of chopsticks

*A pack of hand-cut sushi stickers

*A sushi eraser

*Origami paper

*A cherry blossom notebook

*A handmade sushi barrette, like the ones I sell in my Etsy shop.

To enter write a birthday Haiku in the comments section and I'll get Nugget to select her favourite.

The Giveaway closes Thursday, August 26th (when our picnic table is supposed to be delivered) and the winner will be announced on Friday, August, 27th. Please also include your email address with your Haiku so I can contact you for shipping info if you win. Thanks! I look forward to reading your Haikus.

Nine Year Old Nugget

2010-08-20T01:35:00.000-07:00

Today my baby turns 9 years old. Just one more year then she hits the double digits. Already she's as tall as my shoulders. It won't be long before we're the same height and then she surpasses me, which really won't take much since I'm only 5 ft tall.

When Nugget first started talking she had a little scratchy voice that sounded odd for such a little girl and I used to call her Froggy. She used to have eczema so bad it covered nearly 70% of her body and the ritual of putting lotions and ointments on her would be so painful it broke my heart.

Nugget has since grown into her voice and grew out of the eczema and is growing into a pretty young lady and a really cool kid. She has a great sense of humour and has pretty good comedic timing. She likes school and brings home good report cards. At parent-teacher meetings I always get nervous that I'm going to hear that my kid is a jerk because she can be that way at home, but it's always the opposite. Nugget is great at school. She's helpful, responsible, she takes care of the younger kids and helps with the special needs kids. She enjoys taking on leadership roles (Playground Leader, Library Helper, Junior Leader) and voluntarily checks the other kids lunches and bitches them out if they brought anything with nuts in it. When she told me she did this, I said "Jeez. Do you have any friends?". Her response to me was a glare and a punch in the arm. I bug her about being nerdy in a Lisa Simpson kind of way but only because I was the same way. I'm very proud of her being so conscientious. She takes nut allergies very seriously because there are kids in the school and at daycare that could die if they even saw a peanut. She jokes that I'm not allowed at her school. Get it? Because my name is Peanut.

My Nugget has gone through a lot. She's watched her dad and I split up, she's been passed back and forth as per custody agreements. Through it all I've worried about how she would handle it and how much it would screw her up but she's tough and well adjusted. Sometimes I think moreso than I am. She's very open and honest about what she's thinking and feeling, an ability I envy and hope she never loses.

Every night when I tuck her in for bed, we sing the "Good Night Miss Mika" song then we talk about her day. It's the part of the day I look forward to the most. Partly because it means she's finally going to bed but mostly because that's our special time together. Now that she's nine, I have to wonder how much longer she's going to want to do that before she thinks it's super lame. How much longer before she thinks I'm super lame? Judging from some of the looks she gives me, she already thinks it but she loves me anyway. She always says she loves me more than I love her and we argue about it and Rutty gags because it's annoying. It really is annoying. But whatever, I love her more. Shut up.

A Scattered Mix of Current Events in No Particular Order

2010-08-16T23:48:00.000-07:00

My Nugget's birthday is in four days. She's been reminding us since May. Her little party isn't until Sunday and she's already planning her party for next year. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do about a cake. Here's a preview of one of her goody bag items. I made some hand-cut stickers from the sushi designs that I used on the goody bags and the invites and made little sticker packs.

Saturday is our Friends and Family Screening for our second Thomas movie: Misty Island Rescue. Last year we missed seeing our first Thomas movie on the big screen so I'm kind of excited about this. You know, as excited as one gets for a preschool movie. It'll be fun to see the kids' reactions in the theater if anything.

Then after the screening we're off to my nephew's first birthday. It sounds like it will be a teddy bear picnic in the park if the weather cooperates.

We're making attempt #2 to see Scott Pilgrim tomorrow night. We bought tickets for opening night last Friday. We were in line an hour early and snagged some good seats. But during the wait in line poor Nugget was hit with pee problems. She was needing to go literally every five minutes which made me think UTI. While we sat waiting for the movie to start she had to go to the bathroom a couple more times before it was evident that no one was going to enjoy this movie with a little girl getting up every five minutes to run to the can. We decided to go home so Nugget could be close to a toilet and have some cranberry pills. A trip to Children's Hospital the next day proved it was not a UTI, her pee was perfect. The doctor could only diagnose it as Pediatric Urinary Frequency, which apparently is common in girls Nugget's age and usually lasts a couple of days. Weird. She seems fine now. And she insists she's definitely well enough for Scott Pilgrim tomorrow night. She is very excited.

I believe I am now up to date on my viking hat orders. I shipped the last one today! Woohoo! This is an incredible feat for someone that took nearly eight months to fill an order of seven viking hats last year. I thought about posting some more viking hat photos but at this point, if you've seen one of my viking hats, you've seen them all except some are slightly larger or smaller.

I have my first Etsy Alchemy request that I'm itching to start on but I'm waiting for a package to come in the mail before I can start. My fingers are getting antsy.

The much anticipated meeting of Rutty's parents meeting my parents last Saturday went well. Rutty and I have known each other for over a decade and have been a couple for almost three years and no, this doesn't mean we're making any major announcements. It just means it was about bloody time our folks met. And Rutty's parents even got to meet Nana and Papa, who I pretty much consider my other parents.

Jenn and Teen left for Singapore last Friday. Jenn is starting her glamourous career as a lead animator on Clone Wars for LucasFilm. While I am very proud of my little roundy headed friend for scoring such a gig, I'm sad that they're so far away for such a long time. Our Sunday brunches, Buffy nights and trips to Tofino will not be the same till they come home. I am happy that we have access to their washer/dryer until ours gets fixed.

Another thing I'm kind of sad about...the end of Meat Watch 2010. Why? I'm still trying to figure it out.

And since my mind is about as scattered as this post right now, here are a couple of completely random things that made me go WTF today. It's not as cool as a rotting pile of meat but very few things are.

Baby Ligers from Taiwan.

A giant cat couch. It kind of looks like it's made of chocolate cookie dough. We have cookie dough in the freezer from Jenn and Teen. We baked some last night but I couldn't eat the cookies without crying. Just kidding, I was only sobbing a little. I didn't want my cookie to get soggy... and salty.

Busy With Birthdays

2010-08-08T23:43:00.000-07:00

July and August are busy months for me because that's when my two favourite people celebrate their birthdays. A few weeks ago we celebrated Rutty's birthday by hiking up the Chief and barbecuing in Langley. I'm just a little late to post about it.

At the top of the second peak of the Chief in Squamish.

The view from the top.

This is the cake I baked for Rutty. The original plan was to have a Scott Pilgrim themed party in August to coincide with the release of the movie but things changed partly because Jubbs and Teeners leave for Singapore in a few days, but that's a whole other heartache that I may elaborate on later. Anyway, Rutty was very specific about his Scott Pilgrim cake. I had the image printed on a sheet of icing from Picture Your Cake and I put it on a double chocolate cake a la Duncan Hines. I am not a baker.

Now it's August which means it's prep time for Nugget's birthday. We try to keep her birthday parties small, only five little girls this year, and I try to do something special with her goody bags. This year Nugget wanted a Sushi themed party so I designed some cute sushi characters that I put on her invites and made iron on transfers that I put on little canvas bags.

With all my viking hat orders (I finished two hats and shipped them in the last two weeks!) I wanted to get as much of Nugget's birthday things done ahead of time to avoid panic and disappointment. Most of the planning is done. I will have more photos after her party.

Choo Choo

2010-07-28T00:23:00.000-07:00

We were at Toy Traders (the most awesome toy store EVER) in Langley again last weekend. This time I was excited to see that some of the Thomas toys from our shows were on the racks. I've worked on several different shows throughout my career and I still get a kick out of seeing swag from the shows I've worked on in stores no matter how lame the show or the swag. Not to say the Thomas stuff is lame, some of it is actually pretty cool but alas, my little Nugget is more into Wizards of Waverly Place not talking trains.

...and now I go back to knitting viking hats!

Gratuitous Scab Photo and Other Things.

2010-07-23T00:45:00.000-07:00

My Etsy shop has been open for almost three weeks now. It's been very exciting and nerve-racking. My Viking Hat made it to the front page last week without my knowing and my views went from sixty to over a thousand over night. I was so confused and didn't realize what happened till the Etsy app on Facebook updated my status. By the time I checked the Etsy front page was already different and I completely missed it. I instantly felt naked, exposed, and I was filled with anxiety knowing all those people viewed my stuff. I was overcome with the most uncomfortable mix of excitement and fear I wanted to throw up. Rutty said I was weird. Yes. Probably. I can't even explain it. I've made four sales since I opened, which I'm absolutely thrilled about and I have two custom orders in the works. So far so good... Knit...Breathe...Repeat.

In other news, Rutty tried out for Wipeout Canada and made the short list. He went to the audition today with our boss, Nicole. I guess we'll find out in a couple of weeks if he needs to find some big balls to practice running across.

What the hell is this you ask? This is the lovely landscape of my right shoulder in a flattering shade of green that gives the impression of death. The Hipstamatic filtering on the photo is emphasizing the ugly, it's actually not this bad.

I've been having issues with my jaw for a while and I kept putting off getting it checked because I don't have dental coverage and I'm still paying for Nugget's orthodontic treatments. I bit the bullet a few weeks ago when the pain got too annoying. I saw a specialist who practiced unconventional, naturopathetic treatments. I got fitted with a couple of mouth pieces to wear when I'm not eating and I had some myofascial therapy.

So what does that have to do with the photo above? After the therapy session I was sore where the needles were injected. One of the needle sites developed a water blister, my guess is it developed after the moist heat treatment. The water blister popped and the skin peeled and it was all raw and painful for days. That is my wound finally scabbing up and healing. Too much? I know, you're welcome. Sharing is caring.

Long Overdue

2010-07-05T00:30:00.000-07:00

After months of delay and thousands of excuses for why I haven't done it yet, my Etsy shop is finally live with actual stuff for sale. Visit me here and peruse my wares. So far I have just a sampling of my little sushi items in the shop but I hope to add more things as I go.

Now I just have to get over the anxiety I have from sending my little creations out into the world outside of the 15 people that read my blog and the cozy realm of my Facebook friends. It's probably not a big deal but right now, in my brain it's enough to keep me from sleeping.

MEOW

2010-07-03T21:16:00.000-07:00

By special request from Heather at work. An 'Alot' based on the character/drawing by Allie Brosh at Hyperbole and a Half. We are big fans. Rutty loves her cause she's funny and she kind of looks like Veronica Mars. If you haven't read Allie's blog, you should.

It's a little hard to tell from the pic but the Alot's mouth opens and he has little tiny black toe nails on each foot. I started making this after dinner last night and couldn't go to bed till it was finished...4AM cause I'm hard core like that.

Completed July 3, 2010

Soccer Merlin

2010-06-28T20:59:00.001-07:00

A commission from one of Nugget's friends. A going away gift for a little girl named Merlin who loves soccer. Based on a drawing of Merlin by Isabelle. Nugget says she likes this doll better than the other dolls I've made, even the one I made for her. I'm trying not to feel too insulted. It's still a learning process for me.

Completed June 28, 2010

Pre-Birthday Weekend

2010-06-13T22:40:00.000-07:00

I am a VERY lucky person to have the most awesome people in my life. This morning my darling daughter got up at 7am to bake me a cake all by herself. I woke up to the noise of cupboard doors opening and pans clanging in the kitchen and I went in to check on Nugget.
She turned to me from her mixing bowl and said "Why are you up?" I said I just wanted to make sure she had the oven on properly and she rolled her eyes at me and said "I took care of it already". And she did. She had everything in order and I was very impressed. I think I instructed her on one thing in my sleepy haze and she did the rest. She even fed the dog!
It took all of her might to resist icing the cake while it was still warm. Nugget is not one for patience but she held back and let the cake fully cool. I think taking her out for a long walk down Robson Street helped. This was Nugget icing the cake this afternoon.

My finished birthday cake. Nugget did a wicked job!

Then Rutty took me to the Malkin Bowl at Stanley Park to see Metric in concert.

I LOVE Metric.

Boobie

2010-06-12T14:59:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is indeed a boob. This was a commission for lovely Betty of
New Beginnings. It is a demo prop for showing new moms how to breast feed.

Completed June 11, 2010

Joe's Burning Man Commission: Part 3

2010-06-09T00:39:00.000-07:00

The finished scarf with the hat and wrist warmers. All three pieces...done!

Completed June 8, 2010

Sushi Barrettes

2010-06-08T22:58:00.001-07:00

I made these to sell at my friend Jen's Arts & Crafts show this Friday. My first official Arts & Crafts show as a participating contributor and all I had time to make were three barrettes. It's pretty sad but I did just get back from Mexico last Saturday so I'm cutting myself some slack.

Each piece of sushi is crocheted and knit using 100% mercerized cotton, stuffed with fibre fil and hand stitched and glued on to a green felt garnish. They are then glued and hand stitched to metal alligator hair clips fully covered with grosgrain ribbon.

Completed June 8, 2010

Joe's Burning Man Commission: Part 2

2010-05-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

Joe's finished hat with the finished wrist warmers. On to the scarf!

Completed May 20, 2010

Joe's Burning Man Commission: Part 1

2010-05-17T00:38:00.000-07:00

My friend Joe commissioned a pair of wrist warmers, a hat and a scarf to wear to this year's Burning Man. He asked that it be bright and colourful. It was a bit of a struggle finding yarn that was bright and colourful without being feminine. I thought this was a good choice. I think this was a good balance of colourful and masculine. Even Rutty liked it and he's not a fan of things that go outside of his standards: black, grey, white, brown and red.

Completed May 13, 2010

We Can't Paint

2010-05-14T22:54:00.000-07:00

I can't quite remember how this all got brought up but one day a few weeks ago Jubbs and Teeners were over for Buffy night and we came up with this plan to start a painting group to encourage ourselves to be creative and learn how to paint.

The group would consist of me, Rutty, Nugget, Jubbs and Teeners. For the most part, none of us really draw that much anymore. Rutty and I used to work in traditional animation as clean-up artists (or final line animators depending on what studio you were working for) and we were paid to draw. That was over a decade ago. Now we both work in CG animation, Rutty as an Editor, myself as a Production Manager, both positions that involve a lot of computer monitor staring and no drawing. Jubbs is a CG Animator and that also involves a lot of computer monitor staring and very little to no drawing. Teeners is currently unemployed but her last job was in the Live Action Industry. She read a lot at work but again, no drawing. Nugget is in Grade 3 and probably draws the most out of all of us. She keeps a very impressive visual journal at school where she draws and writes whatever she fancies. She loves art and asked if she could take art classes. I suggested joining our painting group instead and she found this to be a satisfactory alternative.

As you can see, we are somewhat of a varied bunch with different skill levels and abilities. It will definitely be interesting to see what everyone comes up with.

The plan was to compile a list of words consisting of objects, emotions and actions, and put them in a container. Each month one word of each type would be pulled from the container and that would be our theme for that month's painting. Then we would meet once a month to paint as a group.

We created the list of words during our trip to Tofino and I typed them out into an excel document, printed it and had Nugget cut them out. Then last Wednesday we all met and drew our first theme: Jealous - Jumping - Pinata. How very fitting for Cinco de Mayo. Shortly after we created a blog to document our progress.

This is We Can't Paint.

Oh Baby!

2010-05-14T22:44:00.000-07:00

This giraffe was a commision by a former co-worker, Kathy Lea Moyou, for her new baby niece. It was based on a design she made for her sister's baby shower. I made this in April but didn't want to post it till after the baby shower.

Completed April 14, 2010

Tofino

2010-05-07T20:30:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we finally made it out to Tofino for some much needed chill time. This was Nugget and Hurley's first trip there so the first thing we did when we arrived at the house was put on our rain boots and head for Chesterman Beach. Our first day there it rained but Nugget and Hurley toughed it out and Nugget managed to complete her mission of finding a fully intact sand dollar. Jubbs and Teen made fajitas for dinner and we spent the evening playing Loteria! and Werewolves. I swear you think you know your friends until you play Werewolves.

Nugget and I were up early Saturday morning making pancakes, bacon and eggs for the gang. The weather was gorgeous but the wind was intense. Walking on the beach was difficult for Nugget and Hurley with the sand blowing full force but it was too nice out to leave. Durka and Indy made some yummy chili for lunch and for dinner Uncle Kevin made his kick-ass lasagne and some insane chocolate pecan turtles for dessert. Oh man. After dins we went back to the beach for a bonfire and smores. Sunday was home day so I wanted to take Nugget and Hurley to the beach for one more romp before the long drive home. Nugget declined the offer and chose to stay with everyone at the house to feast on the giant chocolate chip breakfast cookie that we cut into wedges like a pizza and the breakfast nachos Teeners and I assembled. We eat like champions when we're in Tofino. Very healthy champions. I dragged Hurley down to the beach. Literally dragged him to the beach. My dog loves his creature comforts and despises the rain. It was so cool to see him running around, free to run the full expanse of the beach the day before that I wanted him to experience that one more time before we left. I thought he wanted that too. When we got to the beach and I took him off his leash he bolted for the entrance and made a mad dash for home. I guess he didn't think it was that awesome.

All in all, it was a good trip. I wasn't sure how well Nugget would do on a trip with only adults but I think she did just fine. She said she had fun and the level of whining didn't exceed what I feared. It sounds like Tofino is her new favourite place and this is probably one of the most boring posts I've ever written. Blah.

So speaking of boring...I also got in some knitting! My friends go to Tofino to surf, I go to knit. I sure know how to party like an octogenarian! I finally finished the toque I started in February for Uncle Kevin and started on a pouch for my new waterproof camera that I finished on Wednesday! If I add more exclamation marks will that make this thing more exciting?! Nope! Okay here are some pics.

Nugget and Hurley in rain gear on the beach. Hurley was already halfway back to the beach entrance and embarrassed to be the only dog on the beach wearing a raincoat. What? He's a short-haired dog. He gets cold easily. There's Nugget with her serious 'searching for a sand dollar' face on.

Uncle Kevin's Tofino hat. Ooohh...brown stripes.
Completed May 1, 2010

The super exciting camera pouch.
Completed May 5, 2010

Canucks just lost the game. Boo.

Lemon

2010-04-10T14:21:00.001-07:00

Today is Nugget's best friend's birthday. She was a fan of Nugget's doll, Honey, and asked if I could make her a similar doll. So this is Lemon, Maya's doll based on her drawing. I started her on Sunday and finished her last night while watching Whip It! Just in time for Maya's birthday sleepover. So with the Nugget away for the night, we're off to watch some Roller Derby!

Completed April 9, 2010

Sickies and Hats, Not Necesarrily in that Order.

2010-04-03T17:16:00.000-07:00

A plague hit our home last week and everyone was sick as a dog...except for our dog. After days of gross things coming out of both ends, hacking coughs and fevers that took forever to break, things are starting to feel normal again. Sort of. Rutty went to the clinic this morning to get his horrible cough checked out and the doctor told him it was a virus that lasts 3 weeks. No meds. So basically, suck it up. I think we both lost about ten pounds each just in the last few days. The worst for Nugget was the fever but once that broke, she was fine. She has the occassional cough but not as bad as Rutty and none of the stomach issues I got. Lucky girl. I spent most of yesterday disinfecting the entire house and today was more cleaning and laundry. Exciting.

In other news, JP our Comp Supervisor at work, and his family, welcomed the arrival of their son. I started knitting this hockey helmet hat for him last week but stopped during the sickies and then finished it the other day. After watching House last night, I made sure to wash it before wrapping it up.

Completed April 1, 2010

WIP....the "ugly" blanket.

2010-03-14T20:58:00.000-07:00

Inspired by all the colourful cotton yarn I inherited from my step-grandmother, I started on this baby blanket. It's all kind of random but I did have a creative vision for it. I wanted both sides to be different which means more work but so far it's been fun. Up until today, Nugget was referring to it as the "ugly" blanket. Today she actually said she liked it and that it was "nice" now. This is the work in progress.

Finished Objects: Photo Catch Up

2010-03-14T20:30:00.000-07:00

Finally got a chance to get some of the photos off of Rutty's camera onto my computer to post some of the projects I finished just before, during and after the move. It's been a blurr. I have no idea what the exact finished dates are anymore.

Caleb's Rasta Hat.

Isaac's Rasta Hat.

Annabelle's Rasta Hat.

Angus' Viking Hat that he rocked during the Switzerland vs. Norway Olympic men's hockey game.

A pair of arm warmers intended for my Etsy site. Was sold yesterday to one of Nugget's friends as a gift for her cousin.

What. What.

2010-03-06T23:59:00.000-08:00

Technical Difficulties
It's been a month since my last post. We are still unpacking and settling in, trying to find homes for all our stuff... Oh our stuff... So much stuff.
I was without my home computer since we moved in, relying on Rutty's laptop to check email and Facebook occasionally in the evenings. But his laptop, isn't my computer and I missed my bookmarks and my programs dearly. I bought my cute little Acer last year and she started crashing more than my old one so I sent her off to Uncle Kevin for some treatment. He did a full factory re-set and she was still crashing. So I brought her home, hooked her up and contacted Costco concierge for some tech support. They were the most condescending asshats. Needless to say the phone call ended with me completely disatisfied and annoyed. I did another factory re-set and waited. It's been over a week and my little Acer hasn't crashed yet. I hope it means that it's now safe to put all my programs back.

Oh Canada
The Olympics came and left our fair city. Canada won a record breaking fourteen gold medals. Nice work, Canada! (High five) We watched the nail biting Gold Medal hockey game against the US and ventured out onto Robson Street to celebrate our win. The crowds were insane, in a good way. And you couldn't help but be swept up in our Nation's pride. Before all of this I was really dreading the arrival of the Olympics. We discussed leaving town to get away from the chaos. Traffic was going to be ridiculous. I don't even watch sports. But we stayed in town. We watched the torch relay near work. We watched the opening ceremony at home. We lined up for hours to get into the Bay for Canada hoodies. Traffic was awesome. And when the TV was on, it was set to some sort of Olympic event. We were sucked in, hook line and sinker... and we loved it.

Delayed
Many factors have contributed to the delay of opening my Etsy shop. The move, settling in, computer issues, my missing camera battery, the Olympics... I'm aiming for April now. I have a couple of projects currently on the go, Uncle Kevin's hat which I've kind of lost interest in at the moment (Sorry Kev!) and a baby blanket that I was inspired to crochet out of the cotton yarn that I inherited from my step-grandmother. Nugget calls it the "Ugly Blanket" and I keep saying "Stop calling it that, it's not done yet!" I'll have pictures of it as soon as I get my computer back to normal.

Settling In

2010-02-06T10:22:00.000-08:00

We finally finished moving last weekend, at least Nugget and I finished moving. Rutty still has to move about 95% of his belongings in. There are boxes and big plastic bins full of random stuff in the middle of the living room waiting to be unpacked. This new place is awesome but lacks storage space. What to do with the bikes? And the linens? And all of our shoes? And my yarn stash? Grace at work told me about a guy at Cam's work who's daughter was knitting a scarf a day to give to the homeless. Grace donated a bunch of yarn from her stash before they moved and I figured I should do the same. The task of sorting and deciding which yarn to part with was more difficult than I thought but space is limited here. I ended up donating a big bag of yarn to make space for Rutty's DVD Collection. During the packing and moving and settling in I finished the requested Rasta hats for my niece Annabelle and my nephews Isaac and Caleb and started on a hat for Uncle Kevin. I just got a commission for a viking hat for a 2 year old that I have to finish by Tuesday. No pressure. Will post pictures once I find my camera and get my computer set up. Internet, phone and cable are finally hooked up. Hello modern civilization...it's been a while.

Little Singh

2010-01-03T18:52:00.000-08:00

I took a break from Etsy inventory making and packing procrastination to make this little guy. It's an amigurumi commissioned by one of the Shot Prep guys at work, Singh. It's based on his character design of himself when he was a kid. I had some issues trying to keep the proportions, particularly with the thinness of the arms and legs, true to the original design with the limitations of crocheting yarn. But I think he turned out okay overall. And I'm pretty happy with his rosy cheeks.

Completed January 2, 2009

Dear Santa...

2009-12-29T23:16:00.001-08:00

Things were crazy insane just before Christmas and between finishing all my knitting projects, finishing the Christmas shopping and rushing to the hospital because of a kidney infection going to buy groceries fell by the wayside. I figured we'd be stuffing our faces with Christmas meals everywhere else but home and have a fridge full of yummy leftovers from all the relatives soon enough. If Rutty hadn't picked up some milk at the gas station on the way home from Langley on Christmas Eve poor Santa would've been eating dry Cookie Crisp.

Parade of Presents: Christmas 2009

2009-12-29T22:25:00.000-08:00

Sushi Training Kit 1.0

Rutty's brother, Troy, lives in Ontario. For Christmas they fill a box with weird things they think the other would like. This year I wanted to throw in a few things for his fiancee, Caryn and her 4 year old daughter, Jordan, who we met on our visit this summer. Troy is big into sushi and Caryn was starting to warm up to the raw stuff while we were there. Jordan on the other hand claimed she loved sushi though she had never tried it before. I decided that for Christmas, I would make her a Sushi Training kit to foster that love for sushi.

The full platter of knit and crocheted sushi with a pair of chopsticks.

Tamago Nigiri, Salmon Nigiri and Ebi Nigiri with wasabi and ginger.

Two inside out California rolls with hand sewn beads for sesame seeds, two Salmon Maki, one Kappa Maki and one Oshinko Maki.

Other Things in the Box

To add to the Sushi Training Kit but with no relevance to it, I also made Jordan a pair of Piggy Mittens.

I made Caryn a pair of arm warmers using the "Fetching" pattern from Knitty.

And Troy got a striped toque.

Sushi Training Kit 2.0

My best friend from high school, Kayce, is also a big sushi fan. So I made another Sushi Training Kit for her 2 year old daughter, Riley.

Tamago Nigiri, Salmon Nigiri, Ebi Nigiri, two Salmon Maki and two Kappa Maki.

For Kayce's one-month old daughter, Naiya, I made a pair of soft merino wool baby mittens.

Cozy Things

A pair of soft alpaca arm warmers for my niece, Annabelle.

And by special request, a hat for my mom.

Stuff and Nonsense

2009-12-15T17:35:00.000-08:00

I've noticed that in the last bit Rutty has had a string of blog updates for December to compensate for the lack of blog updates in November. Not that I'm trying to compete or anything, but I figured I should post something since it looks like I've done nothing for a month when in actual fact, I have been making stuff... lots of stuff... Christmas presenty-stuff that can't be posted till after Christmas. You'll have to take my word for it.
I signed up on Etsy and created a shop with the hope of having something to sell in January. I already have a couple of commissions lined up for after the holidays that I'm excited about. And also we're moving. The big purge to prepare for co-habitation with Rutty has sort of begun and panic and stress has set in. Normally we go all out on Christmas with the decorating but this year, it's been very busy and crazy and so the big Christmas tree is not going up and the excessive Christmas vomit all over the apartment will just be random Christmas loogeys.
I'm looking forward to the holiday break. My kidneys are sore. That's not an analogy for anything. My kidneys are just sore.

Round 'Em Up.

2009-11-16T21:29:00.000-08:00

I've been busy. Since finishing all those viking hats for Tessa I've felt more inspired. I don't know if it's a knitter's high, is that even such a thing? I would equate it to a runner's high but on a creative level. Instead of feeling like I could run another 10K or fight a bear, I just want to make stuff. So the last few days that's what I've been doing. Making stuff. And not posting them on this here blog until now.

With the viking hat order out of the way I was able to get going on a bunch of requests from friends. One of the most persistent was Lucky Fatso. I started on a hat combining two kinds of yarn, one was camouflage and one was a pale green. I had just enough of the camouflage yarn for the main part of the hat but it was still too small. I ended up crocheting a band around the bottom with just the green. In the end the hat turned out way to girly so I kept it for myself. Back to the drawing board for Lucky Fatso's hat.

Completed November 7, 2009.

Jubbs and Teeners had a house warming a couple of weeks ago and I had planned to paint something for them as a gift. I'm not really sure why, but I didn't actually start the painting till the night before the party and of course I didn't finish it in time. They received it two days after and they seemed to like it despite the crappy hands. I am clearly not a painter. I have bumped up painting lessons to the top five things I'd like to take. I have recently put a check mark beside guitar lessons on this list. The viking hat order paid for my guitar lessons that I just recently started taking at work. Yes!

Completed November 8, 2009.

Last Wednesday was Remembrance Day, no work, no school. Nugget spent Tuesday night at my mom's and Rutty and I picked her up on the way to Caleb's 4th birthday party.
My mom and stepdad have been packing and purging in preparation for their move to White Rock in January. Each visit we've been asked several variations of "Do you need/want a (insert name of object to pawn off)" and we either go home with this item or we promise to pick it up in January before they move. Previous visits scored me a printer and a bunch of knitting and crocheting books. This particular visit we acquired an old ceramic piggy bank in the shape of a dinosaur and a ceramic pot in the shape of the Hotel Europe in Gastown (both made by me in high school art class), a bag of potting soil and a mother load of yarn and cotton crochet thread from my step-grandmother. The latter inspired this lovely dish cloth. The pattern was taken from the Stitch N' Bitch Happy Hooker Crochet book.

Completed November 11, 2009.

After the completion of this dish cloth which apparently resembles Tweety more than a skull I made another attempt at a hat for Lucky Fatso. I went with a simple cable knit hat from the Stitch N'Bitch Nation book.

Completed November 14, 2009.

Then after finishing this hat, I was on a roll you see, I started on a pair of knuckle gloves for myself because the pair I have was one of the first pairs I had ever made and they looked it. I was wired from an Americano and a Cappuccino from brunch at the Epicurean and I finished the gloves last night because I couldn't sleep. They're made from soft self-patterning Alpaca sock yarn.

Completed November 15, 2009.

So this morning, Nugget woke up with a fever and a head ache and it was way too short notice to get a hold of the grandparents for emergency babysitting. I stayed home from work to tend to my sick monkey and feed her chicken soup. We watched the remaining episodes of Season Four of the Gilmore Girls, Coraline and High School Musical. Coraline inspired me to start on these gloves with some yarn from the stash I inherited from my step-grandmother. (High School Musical made me want to stick my knitting needles in my ear. I checked my work email a lot during this movie.) I found a free pattern for Coraline gloves online but I have this problem with knitting patterns, I have trouble following the majority of them with their abbreviations and terms that I'm not familiar with. So I took the pattern for the knuckle gloves that I knew well and I modified it for closed fingers then I followed an image of the original tiny gloves from the movie for the striping pattern. The plan was to make these gloves for Nugget but I have this problem with gauge, I don't like doing test swatches to figure out the gauge and adjust the pattern. The fingers ended up being freakishly long which meant they were perfect for me. I have one finished glove that I'm pretty happy with though it looks like it belongs to ET or Arsenio Hall. I think it looks of normal proportion when its worn. Now for the matching glove...
You see, I have this problem with gloves, you have to make two and they have to look the same. So when modifying a pattern, one should really be writing that stuff down for reference for the matching glove. I apparently have a problem writing stuff down. Anyway, here's the finished glove with the image of the original gloves for reference.

Last Minute

2009-11-07T02:57:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday Nugget came home with a birthday party invite from one of her friends at school. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Kids have birthday parties. I assumed the party wasn't for a few days, we could pick up a gift on the weekend. No worries. Well you know what happens when you assume? I don't know. Something about a donkey. It's a stupid American phrase.

Then on Wednesday Nugget said I should call the birthday girl's mom to confirm pick up after school for the party on Friday. After school on Friday... what? Right... I probably should've looked at that invite a little closer. In my mind's eye I did a quick mental scan of my calendar from that moment, Wednesday 7:30 PM to Friday 3PM. So between sleeping, working till 6PM if all goes well in the day, making dinner and Buffy night (not necessarily in that order) there was no freaking way to squeeze in a trip to the mall. What can we get an 8 year old girl at the 24 hour SuperValue? How evil would it be to send Nugget to the party with a loaf of bread, a quart of a milk and a stick of butter?

Then I heard myself say "I'll make her a hat."
Nugget looked at me with what I call the "Duh" face and said, "Uh, the party's on Friday. Are you going to have time?"
I love how she has so much faith in me.
"Sure. I'll start now." And by now I meant after dinner.

So Nugget picked out some yarn from my stash and I started the hat just before Jubbs arrived for our weekly Buffy night. We actually watched an episode of Angel instead of Buffy. It was an episode about a magic stick that made people overly sensitive and made a bunch of cops cry. Then Angel fought some bad guys. It was awesome stuff. I should totally get a job writing the episode synopses for the DVD liners.

After Jubbs left, Rutty and I watched an episode of Six Feet Under and by the time I was ready to go to sleep the majority of the hat was done, I even managed to sew the flower and the ladybug on. Thursday morning I had Nugget try it on and it needed more length so I started crocheting the trim at the bottom. I brought it with me to work and finished it off during my lunch break.

Today when I got home from work I asked Nugget how the party was.
"It was okay."
I asked her if she had fun.
"Yeah."
I asked her if her friend liked her gift.
"I don't know."

Maybe we should've gone with a loaf of bread, a quart of a milk and a stick of butter.

Here's the finished hat. I love the texture of this yarn, I think it's called "Pooch". Kind of feels like those nubby bath mats when it's knitted.
Completed November 5, 2009.

Trick Or Treat

2009-11-04T00:13:00.001-08:00

We're pretty big on Halloween at our house. This year's festivities started with pumpkin carving at Jubb's.

This was Nugget's vampire pumpkin with a broken fang. The big toothy ones were carved by me and Rutty.

The one on the left was supposedly the first pumpkin Rutty carved on his own.

Nugget was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz this year. My mom made her dress so that I'd have time to make this...

I went as Max from Where the Wild Things Are and won first place in the costume contest at work. Booyah.

Rutty and Jubbs went as Captain Hammer and Doctor Horrible. Despite the nerdiness of our co-workers and friends, very few knew who they were supposed to be.

Hurley was dressed as a skeleton version of himself. He was so upset with me for putting him in full doggy PJ's, he wouldn't even look at me. He has no idea how close he came to being dressed as a pumpkin.

And Seven....All Done!

2009-11-03T23:52:00.000-08:00

Finally finished the order of seven viking hats for the Philippines. Yay!

Completed November 3, 2009

Here they are in a lovely little pile :)

Number 6 !!!

2009-10-29T21:43:00.001-07:00

Alrighty....one more to finish in two days.... Gah.

Completed October 29, 2009.

Five Down...Two More to Go

2009-10-24T09:41:00.000-07:00

Finished the fifth viking hat of the big order at 2:30AM last night. Two more to finish in 7 days. I have all the horns and all the rivets done for the remaining two hats. Just need to get going on the actual hat parts. Oh the hat parts....

Completed October 23, 2009

Four Out of Seven

2009-10-15T21:57:00.000-07:00

I've been working on this viking hat between Halloween costume making. I have three more to make in sixteen days. Yikes. I had my mom make Nugget's Dorothy costume this year out of fear that I wouldn't have time to make it. She finished it in an afternoon and it looks a billion times better than the ones we've seen off the rack in the stores. So with Nugget's costume all done and out of the way and the majority of mine completed, I can now concentrate my efforts on finishing this viking hat order. Costume pics coming soon.

Completed Thursday, October 15, 2009
while watching 30 Rock. Thanks, Meat Cat!

Three out of Seven...

2009-09-22T01:46:00.000-07:00

Slowly chipping away at the viking hat order... Here's number three of seven.

Maybe by the time I finish the last of this order I'll be able to knit these in my sleep. Finished this one late last night. Gonna' start on another one tomorrow...
Completed September 20, 2009

And Another...

2009-09-14T22:26:00.001-07:00

I started this viking hat a few days before Rutty and I left for Ontario. Knitting is banned on airplanes so I worked on it a couple of nights in Vineland at Troy and Caryn's, then a couple of nights at Amanda and Owen's in Cambridge and then one night at the hotel in Toronto. I took it as far as I could on the trip. I didn't pack any fiberfil with me so the assembling of the hat was done at home. I did manage to start on another viking hat during the trip though.
Five more to go....

Completed September 13, 2009

Baby Baby Baby

2009-08-28T23:08:00.000-07:00

A lot of people seem to be popping out babies lately so I've been busy making baby hats.
This one I started last Saturday after I finished Caleb's blanket.

It's a fluffy white bear hat with a blue felted flower. A gift for Woojung, one of our animators at work. She's expecting a baby girl in a few weeks.

Completed August 25, 2009.

Then I started this hockey helmet hat on Sunday, Rutty's idea. He wanted me to add hockey hair to the back though. I opted not to out of fear it would irritate the baby's neck. This was a gift for Jeff, our Animation Supervisor at work. Jeff and his wife, Kari, were expecting a hockey player on Monday but the little one doesn't want to come out to meet the world just yet.

It's a little bit difficult to see the shape without it being on an actual baby head but you get the idea.

Completed August 25, 2009.

Blankie

2009-08-27T03:05:00.000-07:00

I finished the baby blanket I started on the trip back from Saskatchewan just in time for the birth of my brand new nephew, Caleb. While I can appreciate a challenge, I totally love the instant gratification when it comes to knitting. Being able to see something take shape is awesome and it takes so long to feel this awesomeness when knitting blankets. Hence, I am not a big fan of knitting blankets. The little munchkin was worth it though.

One of the first finished objects to be adorned with the new P-Nut Gallery tags I ordered.

The blanket is four squares x four squares with a crocheted border. Each of the blue and brown squares was knit with a different pattern for texture and to prevent boredom for me. Three of the white squares have bobbles, which I just learned how to do. One of the white squares has a letter 'C'. The brown squares are garter stitch.

Completed August 20, 2009

Birthday Pressies and Other Stuff

2009-08-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

Another Viking Hat...
with chin straps so it doesn't fly off her head while snowboarding.
I actually finished this back in July but didn't post it because it was a birthday present for Teeners and I wanted to wait to give it to her. I've spoiled enough birthday surprises by posting it first. Her birthday was at the end of July, we went to Saskatchewan, life's events held up giving this to her sooner and I just finally gave it to her last night.

Completed July 27, 2009.

Balls!

This is Palomino's Blue Ball Birthday Scarf. I designed this scarf specifically to cater to Samanta's love of balls. There are varying sizes of fiber-filled crocheted balls sewn onto this scarf with a few strategically placed so that when worn, balls hit her chin.

Completed August 4, 2009

Saskatchewan Road Trip

I started Sam's scarf the morning we left on our road trip to Saskatchewan. It was a 12 hour drive to Calgary which was our first overnight stop. I finished the main part of the scarf before it got dark during the drive. Before we even got to Saskatchewan I finished making all the balls and couldn't continue because I didn't bring any fiber fill with me. That was day 2 of the trip. Not expecting to finish the scarf so quickly, I hadn't packed any other projects with me and I was sad and sort of bored. Day 4 of our trip we stopped at a Walmart in Saskatoon before heading back home and I bought 3 skeins of yarn that was a mix of blue, beige and brown and started on a baby blanket for my new nephew that's due in September. This was me for most of the drive back home.

Scott Pilgrim

2009-07-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

To say Rutty is a Scott Pilgrim fan is a bit of an understatement. Last year he got me to ask Toady to bring him back a Scott Pilgrim shirt from Comic Con. He got me to read the books... I'm on book three...what? I've been busy. He also persuaded me to take this picture and enter the Not In New York Contest. We didn't win:( When he heard that Scott Pilgrim was being made into a movie, I think he just about peed himself he was so excited. And all the places we're going to visit in Toronto in September... are all the places from the comic book. Maybe we'll fit Sam's wedding in there somewhere between visiting Honest Ed's and Sneaky Dee's.

So for Rutty's birthday this year it only made sense to make him his very own Scott Pilgrim doll...uh...action figure.

I've been thinking of making him since May but only started on it last Sunday. I asked Rutty to send me reference for what outfit he wanted him in. There's a surprisingly short supply of colour reference online so I made up his shoes and gave him white tube socks with red stripes. His grey jeans roll up for when it gets hot out.

I followed the instructions in Beth Doherty's book: Amigurumi! Super Happy Crochet Cute for the basic shape, like I did with Penelope and Honey.

Completed Saturday, July 25, 2009 (3AM...hardcore)
Happy Birthday, Rutty! <3

Next on my list is Ramona...then Kim Pine...then Stephen Stills... then the evil boyfriends, umm... so they can fight... apparently...

MOO

2009-07-17T00:45:00.000-07:00

My orders from Moo finally arrived! And just like the little pink sleeve on the packaging says, how very exciting! Minicards and stickers...I'm anxious to stick them to stuff.