Month: May 2013

hope

Posted on by trish

hope is like a country road

 

“Hope is like a road in the coun­try; there was nev­er a road, but when many peo­ple walk on it, the road comes into existence.”
– Lin Yutang

(Acrylic on raw can­vas with oil pastels)

 

In the past years I’ve been work­ing / intern­ing / vol­un­teer­ing in var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty agen­cies, run­ning groups that use expres­sive arts to sup­port women in deal­ing with dif­fer­ent chal­lenges. Time and again I wit­ness hope grow­ing like wild­flow­ers amongst and with­in peo­ple as they work togeth­er and share expe­ri­ences, wis­dom, joy, and pain; each per­son a light that bright­ens the path for oth­ers. I think this is true in many oth­er com­mu­ni­ties and groups too.

And I’m grate­ful for you. I don’t think I say this enough, but I so appre­ci­ate the time that you take to vis­it, your inter­est in the things I make, your kind and encour­ag­ing com­ments. Whether we’ve spo­ken or writ­ten to each oth­er or not, I cher­ish all of the con­nec­tions that we’ve made through this space. 

Thank you so much! And I hope you have a won­der­ful weekend!

 

monster pops

Posted on by trish

monster pop 1

 Was won­der­ing what to do with left­over coconut milk that we bought to make cur­ry with, then I came across this post on how to make fruity striped ice cubes!

We hap­pened to have a can of frozen man­go juice as well, it was per­fect :D 

Aren’t these mon­ster pop molds just awe­some? Mike bought them last sum­mer :D It looks like the mon­sters have glow­ing brains under the kitchen light…

monster pop 2

 I added sug­ar to the coconut milk before pour­ing it into the mold, but I thought it tast­ed a bit bit­ter after it was frozen… does coconut milk taste bit­ter? Or did we leave it in the fridge for too long and it went bad…? Nei­ther Mike and I felt unwell after eat­ing two each, though. Hmm…

It’s going to hit 30℃ tomor­row — here comes summer!

Have a beau­ti­ful rest of the week!

 

this week’s levitations

Posted on by trish

levitate25

 This was from ear­li­er in the spring. My par­ents’ gar­den just start­ed growing.

 

levitate29

 Bloom­ing trees in the neigh­bour­hood :D

 

levitate30

 A real­ly warm week­end by Lake Huron.

 

levitate26

 This is one of my very favourite so far. At the Toron­to Pub­lic Labyrinth, with a bit of his­to­ry:

“As many labyrinths are found near the water, this labyrinth is locat­ed on the for­mer course of Tad­dle Creek, a stream that has been buried for more than one hun­dred and fifty years. The gran­ite blocks that have been set into the paving at the entrance to the labyrinth and the near­by water fea­ture in the square serve as reminders of this buried creek.”

 

Have a great week, everyone!

 

happily crocheting along :D

Posted on by trish

crochet along

So grate­ful that my blog­ging friend Amy has invit­ed to the cro­chet-along at the yarn shop she works at! :D I don’t think I’ve had that much fun for a long time, chat­ting about every­thing from bacon to sweet gum trees and the struc­ture and weight of yarn… laugh­ing and learn­ing (I’ve nev­er heard of sweet gum trees, and have been mak­ing sweaters that look odd nev­er real­iz­ing that the odd­ness is caused by a mis­matched fiber sub­sti­tu­tion!) while get­ting lots done on my project :D Such a won­der­ful, warm, friend­ly and fun­ny group of peo­ple! And as some­one whose main line of work at the moment is to run expres­sive arts groups, it’s just REALLY nice to be a par­tic­i­pant once in a while rather than a facilitator. 

And I even got a tour of the yarn shop, it’s real­ly an AMAZING yarn shop! I wish I live right next to it. I’d just go and hang out there. Amongst the yarn. And feel­ing bliss­ful. It’s not just the rows and rows of colour-coor­di­nat­ed yarn of all sorts of weight and fiber and brands, but there’s so much love poured into tak­ing care of the yarn and mak­ing it a wel­com­ing, cre­ative place for vis­i­tors. The staff are so knowl­edge­able! They even have but­tons! But­tons! SO! If you’re ever in St. Louis, be sure to check out Kni­to­ri­ous! :D And if you can’t get to St. Louis for a while, check out Amy’s blog instead, it’s hilar­i­ous with lots of crafty good­ness, always makes me smile :D

Oh yes, this is what we’re work­ing on…

 

The swing jack­et from the 2013 issue of Vogue cro­chet! :D 

I think I want to pair it with a green dress and wear­ing it to a wed­ding in August. Maybe I’ll have a sewing project com­ing up next…

Will keep you post­ed! :D Wish­ing you a won­der­ful week­end full of cre­ative goodness! 

 

remembering

Posted on by trish

67534_4246653858222_618680104_n

 

Remem­ber­ing Kathreen Rick­et­son, whose blog, Whipup, was one of the first blogs I fol­lowed, whose cre­ative ener­gy inspired and moti­vat­ed me to cre­ate, whose gen­eros­i­ty and desire to increase expo­sure for fel­low crafters con­tributed so much to growth of indi­vid­ual arti­sans and the craft­ing com­mu­ni­ty as a whole. I’ve had the priv­i­lege of exchang­ing a few emails with Kathreen, when I timid­ly sent her one of my first tuto­ri­als, and she agreed to share it on her wide­ly pop­u­lar blog. I was so excit­ed, so encour­aged by her kind words. My heart weeps over the trag­ic acci­dent that took the lives of Kathreen and her part­ner, Rob. An account has been set up for their chil­dren, Otil­i­ja and Orlan­do. Details are post­ed here for those who’d like to contribute.

 

 

this week’s awesome finds

Posted on by trish

Sweet! Lus­cious chif­fon cake tis­sue cozy free pat­tern by the awe­some Twinkie Chan!

 

A very styl­ish­ly cro­cheted chevron sweater, on my to-make list :D From Make My Day Cre­ative.

 

Trea­sure! A myr­i­ad of mush­room knit­ting pat­terns, gen­er­ous­ly shared on Kathryn Ivy.

 

The most love­ly cake box­es, by Rav­el­ry design­er CGW Joani­ta Theron.

 

Sweet twine-wrapped wash­er neck­laces, on Design Mom.

 

*squeal* A nee­dle-felt­ed Totoro! Video tuto­r­i­al by fiber artist Jack­ie Huang on Make.

 

I was think­ing maybe mak­ing a col­lar like this and sew it to a plain top — would­n’t it be sweet? Pat­tern can be adjust­ed to fit child or adult. From Lulu Loves.

 

Such neat idea, wine cork pen­dants! From Fiskars.

 

Looks like a knit­ting project I can han­dle :D Love its sim­ple design. From Kol­lab­o­ra.

 

Wish­ing you a love­ly week!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

cherry blossom festival! :D

Posted on by trish

I must say, this is the time of the year that I look for­ward to the most. It’s not real­ly an offi­cial fes­ti­val, but to me it’s always excit­ing like a fes­ti­val :D

The weath­er is espe­cial­ly gor­geous this year over the few days of peak bloom, which attract­ed a large and mer­ry gath­er­ing of peo­ple at High Park even on a Mon­day night when we went.

high park

 

My sis­ter brought along Wish Bun­ny, a rab­bit with wings from a Japan­ese com­ic called Card­cap­tor Saku­ra, I think. I made Wish Bun­ny in my high school days, near­ly 15 years ago. Still in good shape and fit to climb trees :D

wish bunny 1

wish bunny 2

 

I wore my bloom­ing dress for the occasion…

petals

 

We packed a pic­nic of oni­giri and imi­ta­tion crab meat salad.

onigiri

 

Then we took a stroll by the lake, and a swan came to join the mer­ry gathering! 

swan

 

And of course we took lev­i­tat­ing pho­tos amongst the bloom­ing trees! Will post them in the next few days :D

Hap­py spring!

 

 

summer sewing begins :D

Posted on by trish

Sum­mer sewing begins with a ban­dana dress :D

bandana dress 3

 

It actu­al­ly start­ed as a ban­dana top last sum­mer, made with two ban­danas, each cut in half, then sewed togeth­er in the mid­dle-front, mid­dle-back, and side seams, leav­ing space for arm­holes and a v‑neck.

But it did­n’t look right when I tried it on. It was pouf­ing out in all sorts of strange places. I got dis­cour­aged and left it in the clos­et for the entire fall and win­ter. Then recent­ly I thought maybe if I extend it into a dress it might drape more nice­ly. So I went back to Hon­est Ed’s where I found the ban­danas, and was able to find two more in the exact same colour and pat­tern! Almost could­n’t believe it.

I sewed the two ban­danas into a tube to make a skirt, then sewed them to the top at waist line.

This is the back of it…

bandana dress 1

It clear­ly need­ed some waist shap­ing, so I used the same trick as I did with this top, with but­tons and but­ton loops. I real­ly like the blue but­tons on the brown/white/orange pat­tern :D

bandana dress 2

 

(Please excuse the out of focus pho­tos :S)

Can’t wait for the weath­er to be warm enough to wear it out­side :D

 

Hap­py May!Â