Hauntingly Beautiful : The Royal Conservatory of Music Building

c="http://www.loulou.to/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/from-of-royal-conservatory-of-music-building-toronto-bloor-street.jpg" alt="from-of-royal-conservatory-of-music-building-toronto-bloor-street" width="640" height="480" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-30613 blk-brdr">In mid October, my Facebook feed indicated that a friend was planning to attend an upcoming tour of a haunted building in Toronto. Intrigued, I clicked on the link and saw that the place was the home of The Royal Conservatory of Music, at 273 Bloor Street West.By coincidence, I happened to be in the midst of researching this building for a post I was planning. I'd been there briefly during the summer with my friend Isabel, who works there. She and I had been in the adjoining building, at Koerner Hall (which I've written about and photographed recently - here, here and here) and after the concert, she had to pop into her office to get some things before heading home, so I went with her.I really wanted a look inside that building, so we slipped through an arched doorway connecting the modern hall to the historic part. This was well after business hours, so things were very quiet, and very much looked like a place I'd only ever seen before in movies. To be honest, horror movies immediately came to mind, and at that point I knew nothing about this building's reputation for being haunted.Originally called McMaster Hall and opened in 1881, it was financed by Senator William McMaster as a Baptiste Divinity School. McMaster University later moved to the city of Hamilton, and the University of Toronto took it over in 1936.In 1963, The Royal Conservatory of Music moved into the building and have been there ever since. It was restored in the mid 2000s, at a cost of $5 million donated by former alumni of the conservatory, Mr and Mrs. Ian Ihnatowycz. Today, the historic portion of the whole property (this old part, as opposed to the newer one that houses Koerner Hall), is called Ihnatowycz Hall.

Friends, Food and Films : Halloween Style

Both keen and talented bakers, these two lovely friends of mine, Andrea and Leslie, voiced interest in getting to know one another, so the three of us got together at our place on Saturday evening, to eat some delicious food and watch some Halloween themed films. Nick was out of town, making this was a ladies' night.

Of course, we couldn't have two desserts for dinner, so Andrea brought a savory baked dish and Leslie brought the sweet.

To start, I made an appropriately themed appetizer : These are deviled eggs, made with mayonnaise, onion powder and garlic powder, a little salt, and decorated with black olive spiders.

A Crocheted Autumn Decoration : Maple Leaf Garland

I found “this free pattern” for a crocheted maple leaf, created by Michelle over at "The Painted Hinge".  UPDATE June 2024 - I just went to make one of these garlands for a friend and noticed that the blog that offered the pattern has been taken down so the original pattern is no longer there.  I’ve deactivated the link I had here and am in the process of figuring out the pattern. I’ll publish it here once I do.On with the original blogpost :I had some cotton yarn in autumnal colours in my stash so I got busy, making 15 of the leaves -- three each of five different colours. Then I strung them on some brown yarn and created a garland to decorate the wall in our kitchen. I love how the piece turned out, looking so bright and cheerful.The leaves are pretty easy to make, with only three rounds of stitches each. I did have a bit of trouble with the counting at first, and I found the trick was making sure that, on the third row, your slip-stitches always line up directly into the slip-stitches in the previous row.Changes I made to the original pattern :I used a relatively small hook (4.0) for the yarn because I wanted the stitching to be tight. Also, I made the slight modification of replacing the triple-crochet stitches in the top point with doubles, and replacing the doubles on either side of the top point with half-doubles, again because I prefer a tighter more dense look.

Thrift Store Finds

As anyone who likes thrift store shopping knows, there are some days when you find lots of things you like and there are those times when only one or two things appeal. And there are times that you walk in, look around and leave without taking anything with you. In today's Thrift Store Finds post, you have the treasures found during a couple of trips to Value Village last month.We'll start with the item of clothing, considering I so rarely find something in that category at VV. Yes, there are racks and racks of clothing there, however I don't usually have the patients or time to go through it all and pick out the gems. In this case, the dress popped right out at me, as it was right along the lines of something I'd been looking for during the hot summer months. I didn't find it until it was too late to wear it this year, but I look forward to having it fresh and ready next summer.It's a 100% cotton loose fitting house dress that was made in India. It's a layer of floaty fabric that I'll surely love to wear when it's hot out. Right now, I'm thinking that it will be something that I use around the house or at the beach.

A Little Tip That Might Save Your Favourite T-Shirt

I know this is just a small thing to write a post about, however it has helped us make the chore of laundry a little easier and it might help you too.Nick and I tend to like a few of the same wardrobe basics : Black t-shirts, undershirts (aka tank tops, vests in the UK) and socks.As for the t-shirts, I like men's cotton v-necks, which I mostly wear around the house, but will also put on under cardigans and button down shirts that I leave open. I like them loose and long so they skim over my hips, more like tunics than shirts. And my tunics become his workout t-shirts very easily.For undershirts, which we wear around the house as tops in the warmer months and under our clothes during frosty times, we both like the Jockey brand ones. These are exactly the same for men and women, except that the men's ones have larger armholes than do the women's, so while he can wear (and stretch out) mine, I can't really wear his without showing more than I want to through those big armholes.In socks, I prefer plain black ones, and while I have pairs specifically made for women, I like the fit of men's better. Even though my feet aren't particularly large (size 8 1/2 - 9), I find the one-size-fits all sizing in women's socks can feel too tight, especially the cotton ones that shrink after washing. So instead I look for the smaller size in men's -- Why do men's generally come in two sizing options while women's come in only one? Anyway, this leaves us with lots of socks that look the same.