Holiday Wrap-Up Including Eddie’s Portrait – 2016

Happy New Year! Hope the first four days of 2017 have been good for you.Here's what we've been up to these past couple of weeks ...I'll start with Eddie's annual holiday portrait. He was cute and co-operative for his photo shoot, however, try as I might, I can never get him to smile for the camera!(If you'd like to see his portraits from previous years, here they are : 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011).(Follow-up : Sadly this ended up being the last of our dear Eddie’s Christmas portraits, as he passed the following June.  We miss him every day.)I had some hard copies printed up at West Camera and made some greeting cards ...

The Winter Solstice Parade in Kensington Market

Being a Freelance Web Developer, Nick recently joined a co-working community called The Foundery, who offer a shared working environment for art, design, technology & entrepreneurship, at 376 Bathurst Street, just north of Dundas. [FOLLOW-UP: The Foundery Shared Workspace in Toronto has closed.]So far, he's been really happy there so when they announced they were hosting a holiday party, he invited me along to meet his new friends.I was particularly excited to go when I heard the party was a Winter Solstice celebration, during which we'd be making lanterns and then heading out to join the Winter Solstice Parade in Kensington Market. 2016 marked the 27th year that this independently organized festival will have drawn enthusiastic crowds. For one reason or another, I'd never been before, but have always wanted to go.We left our place at 5pm on December 21st, warmly dressed on what was the shortest day of the year. The skies were clear, the air crisp, and complete darkness had already set in.We arrived to meet a group of friendly people gathered around a table covered in crafting supplies, creating lantern masterpieces that would light their way on this special night.

Celebrating Two Birthdays and a Look at our Christmas Decorations – 2016

Greetings! If you're celebrating I hope you're enjoying the holiday season.Today, I'm going to go back up a week, to the joint birthday celebration we hosted at our place the weekend before Christmas. The dinner party for ten was held in honour of two awesome people whose birthdays are so near to Christmas that they rarely get a separate party -- my darling man Nick and our dear friend Julie.

Christmas Crocheting : The Renewable-Scent Sachet

This crocheted project is a redo of this sachet I made, which has a removable cover over a cotton insert cushion. Whatever essential oil you prefer is sprinkled on the cushion, and the cover put back on. Presto, you have a sachet that you can renew whenever you'd like, with your own customized scent! I've really enjoyed the one I made last year, so decided to make another one -- a holiday version to use in our guest washroom.

As for the motif I used to make the front, once again I used the free pattern for Dada's Primavera Flower Granny Square, following the premise, "if it works, don't change it". I specifically point that out because I did search around for a different crocheted granny square pattern to use for this, but ended up coming back to Dada's pattern because it's so cute and it's fun to make. That said, feel free to use whatever granny square you'd like for the front, or even make one out of fabric if you're not a crocheter.

This project is a perfect stash buster, in that while it uses a combination of three (for this one) or four (for the original one) colours, it only uses a small amount of each.

I used an assortment of vintage tapestry wool that I lucked into when I helped my friend Leslie (who is a professional organizer) decide what to do with her client's unused collection of crafting goods. This elderly lady had been an avid maker, however was no longer able to create due to her failing eyesight, so Leslie, knowing I was a keener for yarns and crafting supplies, got me in there to help sort things out. It turned out that three boxes, filled with a rainbow of colours of tapestry wool, were going to go to Goodwill, so with permission from her client, Leslie suggested I take it. While I can't see myself making an actual tapestry, now I have about fifty different shades of small amounts of yarn to crochet with, using a small hook.

Artists’ Market on Bloor Street West

I mentioned in my previous post, that my friend Meghan and I explored an unfamiliar-to-us neighbourhood in Toronto last weekend -- Bloordale, Bloor Street West between Dufferin and Landsdowne. While we were there we visited an Artists' Market that was on at Orchard Bar at www Bloor (just west of Dufferin), details of which I promised to show you in a separate post.

These artists will be there again today, Saturday, December 17th between 11am and 4pm, so if you see something in these photos that interests you, pop on over to pick it up!

The market was organized by a representative of the Aangen Community Centre and all proceeds that she raised in putting it together, will benefit them.