treasures in springtime

I'm in quite a guid mood this morning, as I finished knitting April Showers last evening!


Now, has anyone figured out yet which pattern this stitch sequence comes from? Come on, I know a couple of you at least have knitted it.

ED. NOTE: Soo won the prize! The answer: the Hanami by Melanie Gibbons. I had posted: "I'll sweeten the deal - whoever can tell me the name of the original pattern will get a little prize of two skeins of Noro Silk Garden and one of Noro Kureyon (perfect for whipping up a little felted hangbag or two for that special someone!). Post a comment here or Email me with the answer. A hint: the name of the pattern has less than seven letters."

Anyway, last night was a good night all around, even though it was Laundry Night in Canada. Why? Because I found these two beauties for JJ in the laundry room in the swap pile:

Won't he look preppy! And... Eddie Bauer to boot!

(I do hope, however, that JJ doesnae decide that the April showers shawl would match one of these two beauties perfectly. Sigh.)

I also picked up a copy of this book on the way home from work:



Holly put me onto this little gem. It's a book that someone came up with for the sole purpose of trashing, doodling on, spilling coffee on, etc. - with instructions! Perfect for those long drawn out staff meetings.

Too bad I can't take projects to block during the staff meetings, though:

Since I took up lace, it has never ceased to amaze me how much blocking improves the look of the finished piece. Look at the photo above, and then at this one:

Ooh ahh!

So, what is on the agenda for the weekend, you ask? Well, this, for starters:

As well as a project incorporating this in some way:

(I have been obsessed with this image ever since yesterday morning's shower. I know... I'm very strange.)

I also hope for fair weather so that I can take April Showers here for a photo shoot:



And who knows? Maybe finally it is springtime! And if you think I'm strange, check out this example of spring fever:

Some farmer in Devon UK got the sheep to hang out in formation for this photo. Too much, eh?

Luckily I wasn't looking at this photo AFTER tonight's debriefing session at the pub with the Tenant Advocates: I would probably have just assumed that I was hallucinating.

Happy Friday!

what the well-dressed Barrister and Solicitor wears to work...

I know... the photo is a bit blurry. It was taken by JJ, who is not used to the new camera yet. It's a photo of me wearing barrister robes (which a colleague of mine left behind at our training day... of course I had to prance around in the apartment wearing them. I don't have my own).

And here is the Loch Ness Lawyer!


(I can't blame the blurriness on JJ this time. And I don't think I'll convince him to pose for another photo wearing the robes and a See Ya Jimmy Wig. Sigh.)

This is actually what I wore to the legal conference today:

Everyone loved the dress. And a couple of people actually tried to steal the River Rock scarf right off me. These lawyers have no shame, I can tell you!

The training, as these things go, was very productive indeed.

See the little orange marker? I knitted all the amount above that today while at the conference. (My boss was very impressed, by the way).

Should finish it tonight (the SOTSii must wait... I've been having beverages with the colleagues and I believe in the adage "don't drink and knit lace", frankly).

I bought this little tote bag at the conference:

The plan is to put freeform pieces on it around the circle - so that I will actually use it! Stay tuned...

And - I decided to drop by the laundry room when I got home this evening - look what I found!

A Misty Mountain all-weather jacket, and:
A black fleece! Both in my size! hee hee.

The legal seminar was surprisingly good. I learned that my ancestors still have a lot of influence in the legal process in Ontario:
(This is the guy who was "a bugger for the bottle", according to the Three Bruces.

Obviously I'm a direct descendant...!)

And - the best part of the training was seeing Eugene Meehan, a litigator from Ottawa who is into plain writing. His goal is to banish legalese. Gotta like that. I like the plain writing myself, as you might have gathered - but you may well see improvements on the writing style in this blog after his presentation!

Eugene happens to be Scottish, like JJ (although they don't know one another - I checked with JJ). I never, ever thought I would go to a legal training and see footnotes like:

* or, as my grandfather would say when I tried to reply to my mother with any sentence beginning with "But" - "Save yeer breath tae blaw on yeer pooridge".

Very, very educational.

So, it's been a guid couple of days... but back to the grind today. And they're calling for a storm. Just this past Sunday, they called for lovely balmy (8 celsius) weather today. I don't know why I bother watching the weather, actually...

Happy mid-week!

Treasures - from Trash and otherwise...

Today has been a very good day indeed, if I dare say so.

First, the sun was shining - for a change.

Second, I finished Clue No. 2 on my SOTSii!!

I'm happy to report there has been minimal frogging this time around... the Kurse of Kermit took a week off, I guess. I'm looking forward to Clue No. 3 which comes out tomorrow.

Third, I went exploring in the laundry room in my building to see if there were any Treasures from Trash lying around. Here's what I found: candleholders!!!!

Suitable for a space cadet like me, eh?

(That reminds me of a story. My father, whose first language was not English, had a rather interesting way with English colloquialisms. At one point for about a month he was going around calling everyone who pissed him off or whom he found stupid - and believe me, that was a LOT of people! - a "cadet". As in, "That guy ees suts a CADET." "Thees ledy who came een today? Whhhhat a CADET". Although the meaning was obvious, we could not figure out where the hell he actually picked up this word. So finally I asked him. His response:

THE OLD MAN: (looking at me as though I had suddenly grown another head which was spinning around on my neck) You know... a CADET.

KRISTINA: No, I don't know - that's why I'm asking you!

THE OLD MAN: Well... um... um... a CADET. You know? A CADET from outer space...

And of course although he didn't bother saying it, the last two words of that sentence were clearly "...you cadet". This from the man who believed that washing your "hairs" more than once a week made them fall out, and that eating vinegar on your french fries gave you leukemia. Oh well.)

Where was I? Oh, yeah - candleholders!

The candle came with one. I love dragonflies!

This ball candle is made entirely from wax!

And finally:

Turquoise!!!

So, all in all, worth the trip. There were also three mason jars which have been sitting there for at least a month. I wonder why? Then again, I haven't snatched them either. I don't know why... there is something offputting about used Mason jars coming from someone else. I mean, they're clean and everything... I don't know.

Maybe I have actually internalised some of this food paranoia going around? I mean, the evening news these days seems to be dedicated to warning you against eating - period. This is bad, that is unsafe, there's bacteria everywhere... this is why I stick to potato chips as my main food group, actually. I figure that they must be OK and that the frying process kills off all the bacteria, bugs and other threats.

But I digress...

Fourth, I did acquire something else (wouldn't it be great if I found some of this stuff in the laundry room!! Maybe next week...)

Handmaiden Lace Silk in pewter!!!! It glows like fine jewellery. I couldn't resist.

Fifth, I got a lovely handmaiden gift from Sequana, one of my visitors here!!!

It's a fabric mosaic? Isn't it gorgeous? What a genius. I practically had booby trap it at work today to keep the coworkers' grubby hands off it...

And finally, something a bit more banal but almost as bright:

This is the swatch for my new design project (top secret!) which will be knitted in Svale by Danegarn which I have had in the stash for a while (a cotton/viscose/silk blend). I'm very excited about the project, and this particular shade seemed ideal to banish the winter blahs/cold madness.

Colour me happy!!!

Cheers,

Kristina

PS. Oh - I forgot, today is FRIDAY! Yet another reason to rejoice! Life is good... (touch wood, cross fingers, etc. Yes, I'm superstitious - I'm Greek, so that's my birthright!)

Inner workings of the mind of a so-called genius

...although you will surely question the above statement (aside from the "so-called" bit) after reading this. It will, however, give you a snapshot into how my brain works and my actions follow.

I'm probably just still mourning the passing of Hallowe'en fun...

On Tuesday night, I was sorting through old photos when I found these:




Anyone from Toronto will surely remember the Moose in the City project from the summer of 2000. 326 moose sculptured were scattered throughout the city. This was rather comical for some of us living here at the time... at least, it was for me.

My close friend Mr. Treasures from Trash has a side interest in photography, and at the time made it his ambition to photograph every one of the mooses (meece??). The day these were taken, I accompanied him on the downtown leg of the trek. I bailed on him three or so hours later after number 49 or so that day and headed to the pub.

As harmonious convergences go, on Wednesday when I was at the LYS for the Payday ritual (I was surprisingly abstemious, buying only a copy of Crochet Me), I came across a flyer for the upcoming Moose Show Festival of Fine Craft. I had never heard of this before, and took it as a sign that I should post my very own personal moose photos here.

This led, of course, to thinking about crafts (quelle surprise!)... which led to ruminating about an apartment I had lived in some ten years ago and more. This photo directly followed the moose shots:



A cozy (very cozy indeed) basement apartment. This photo represents about 1/2 the square footage in the place. Seriously. The ceiling was 5'6" high. This didn't bother me, but my then boyfriend was six feet tall and couldn't walk upright in the apartment. Good thing he lived out of town. In other words, rather "bijou"... but the rent was the right price and the landlords were nice.

I lived in this apartment for most of my law school career. While living there,
I made a table with some old tiles my father had gotten as leftovers from a construction job a buddy of his had done (or so he said... but it is entirely possible that they came off the back of some truck. Of course, being in law school I didn't really want to hear the whole story. I got the table (an IKEA special) for five bucks at a yard sale.

However, the table quite literally did not fit in my apartment, so I couldn't display it until I moved to Parkdale:



With the cigarettes, popcorn and general detritus of life removed, it looked somewhat better:


I used this as my main living room table (once I climbed high enough in the world to actually afford a living room) for about eight years. Then, having gotten tired of looking at it and having climbed that little bit further, I bought a living room set. The table lost its legs to another project (a standing chess board, which sadly got broken when someone fell on top of it at a party). Accordingly, its new home is here:



What would I do without a storage room in the building? I'm sure I would have wrecked my back by now taking out all this junk. And junk it is. Whenever I have to make a visit down there (for the odd seasonal item which actually still has utility and value), I wonder what on earth would possess me to hold on to (inter alia) the following:

- two old phones
- an ancient power drill
- some pillows
- cassette tapes (I haven't had a cassette player for approximately three years)
- a broken dehumidifier

I then think about tossing it all... for about a minute. Then some long lost treasure (such as a metal Player's cigarette box) catches my eye and I lose all impulse to clean it out, "just in case..." (quotation marks intentional).

The long lost treasure discovery for 30 October 2007 was this:



My father, who was an upholsterer, gave me this some time back. It was a remnant from a job and he noticed the perfect little picture in the centre. So, he mounted it on particleboard and gave it to me.

I had it hanging in my apartment for quite some time. However, it wasn't really "me" and so it got banished to the storage locker when I moved into this building three years ago.

Now, I'm going to try to jazz up the border and see if that improves my liking of it. Stay tuned.

On my way back up from the storage locker, I had to stop into the laundry room to see if there were any offerings from the Other People's Junk Goddess. Bonanza!!



Unfortunately, no craftables. However, some excellent books. Four cookbooks!!! (just as I started a cookbook exchange at work in part to rid myself of cookbooks. I guess I can always stick some more in the storage locker.

I also found this Gap fake suede bomber jacket, size medium!

Look at the fancy lining!!


I shall have to figure out what I can do with that. JJ doesn't want it, although I think it would look fab on him. He pointed to a rip on the elbow.



You can hardly see it! And now I finally know why I felt compelled to buy that bag of leather scraps last month... which is lost somewhere in the stash room at present. Maybe I can replicate this, for example:


(A fab 70s leather jacket which I scored on Roncesvalles some years back for $10.00! The lable says "Aegean Leather - Styled in Paris" - does this actually mean "Made in Taiwan?" Hmm...) I guess this is why I bought that bag of leather scraps last month from Perfect Leather, which at present resides under the computer desk! Everything happens for a reason...

(I can hear JJ sighing loudly next to me. He must know what I'm writing about...
JJ is not a big fan of the Treasures from Trash school of thought [although he did enjoy the picture book of London and the "Wok With Yan" book I scored in this haul]. This is perhaps understandable as he grew up during war time with older siblings and perhaps did not own anything new until he started to work. Good thing he hasn't figured out where all those Eddie Bauer sweaters I have so lovingly gifted him actually come from!)

So, all in all, a good and creative day was had by me the night before Hallowe'en. I leave you with this pretty picture of broken tiles and electric blue grout:


And, just in case you thought I gave up knitting:

This is one of the works in progress - a blanket made out of a long-abandoned sweater back (entrelac seed stitch argyle - what the hell was I thinking!). Using up worsted/aranweight wools from the scrap pile.