Feb 27/20

My motivation for crafting and making took quite a dip since moving to Ottawa and going back to work. Fortunately, my drive for making stuff has kicked back in with a vengeance! There has been baking, knitting embroidery and soap making going on in this house this past few weeks and I could not be more content.

First of all, my best friend flew in from New Brunswick to spend a long and cold February weekend with us here in Ottawa. Despite the -20C with a windchill of -30C, we had lots of fun! I even managed to smile while sitting amongst a horde of Leafs fans who turned out to watch their beloved team play the Ottawa Senators. Shelly is an avid knitter and maker of things as well. She has a green thumb like no other and can grown anything. We enjoyed many a great meal, took in some of the Ottawa Winterlude festival and even skated for a few feet on the historic Rideau Canal!

My zenbroidery piece is close to completion and yet, not. Filling in all of the last details is taking longer than doing the bulk of the piece. The piece has allowed me to explore embroidery once again,  play with colour and repurpose so many of the leftover floss that I have accumulated through the years. I was also fortunate enough to be gifted several wonderful designs on linen this week. The bag is sitting on my dining room table as I mull over what to do with them and how to best honour the person who gifted them to me.

My soapmaking urge kicked in again. I have been searching Michaels and Amazon for fun molds. I was over the moon to find the unicorn mold as a little friend of mine loves horses and unicorns. Her mom told me that the soap that I had gifted her last summer was the only soap that has not irritated her so I whipped up this batch of goats' milk soap with her in mind. The round soap in the forefront has a pair of hockey sticks on them. My photography skills and lack of lighting means you have to squint to see it.

I made a batch of castille soap (olive oil, lye and water) today. There are no photos because one of my neighbours called as I was setting up my work space and he popped over to watch the process as he loves to make stuff, too. The castille soap is for future batches of laundry soap as my current supply should run out around the same time that the current batch in the mold has finished curing.

Last, but not least, I am working on some projects to improve my health. My doctor gently pointed out in a recent appointment  that my BMI was way too high and my blood pressure is starting to creep up. I am trying to eat less processed food, get more and adequate sleep, doing yoga a few times a week and get out more for a breath of fresh air. Even if I don't thrill my doctor with my efforts at my next appointment, I am at least trying. My weight has been pretty stable for the past 10-15 years so I am happy with that even though a lower number would be so much better in the long run.

Happy stitching!

Nov 5/19

So, apparently my last blog post was in August, a week or so before I started back to work after taking some time to move and to find a job. My new job is challenging and, at times, draining both mentally and physically. I have been struggling to find a balance between work and home, life and things I love to do and settling into a new city. My previous job was 8am to 6pm from Wednesday to Friday so I had these wonderful four day weekends every week which allowed me time to decompress from work and to do all kinds of fun stuff like stitching and hanging with my dogs. I was so spoiled with the time to recharge and to explore things that caught my interest. It was lovely to make enough money to live comfortably and have the time to putter away at all of my projects.

Two months into the new job and I am finally finding time to stitch and craft again. A batch of castille soap is curing in my kitchen, the back stitching is being done on the baby quilt and I have done some knitting during my recent travels to Toronto and New Brunswick. My university aged seatmate from Ottawa to Toronto did a double take when I pulled out my knitting on the train. What a low tech way to pass the time during a 4 hour train ride! To meet more people, a friend and I are considering starting a stitch and bitch club in our neighbourhood. We founded a book club this summer and we recently organized a haunted house for the neighbourhood on Halloween so we are looking for other ways to meet people because we so want to feel connected to our neighbours during the time that we find ourselves living in Uplands, the military housing in Ottawa.

The fella' just never knows what he will find happening in the house when he comes home from work. Last week, he found himself in the backyard testing fog machines for the haunted house. Another time, he tripped over a bag of yarn for a poncho that I hope to start knitting soon. Yet another time, he found my hand mixer in the freezer after I had burnt out the motor blending olive oil and a lye and water mixture for soap. The motor did not revive and I had to stir the mixture by hand to get it to set. I flew home to New Brunswick on Sunday so of course, I was chunking up jack o'lanterns for dog treats and pumpkin soup on Saturday night instead of packing. Do not tell him that I have been recently intrigued by a thing called zenbroidery which is essentially colouring for stitchers or that I have been browsing through online yarn companies. Creating and working on projects is relaxing and nourishing to me, even if it means having a dining room full of strobe lights and fog machines.

I flew home to NB this week to help my mom with some things around her house which she has up for sale so that she can downsize to a seniors apartment complex that is being built at the end of her street. She sent a table top loom back to Ontario with my brother on Thanksgiving weekend, yet another craft. The fella' just shook his head as he carried the loom into the house after we picked it up from my brother. I get my crafting abilities from my mom so the fella' is doomed to being surrounded by yarn and fabric and materials for as long as he is with me!

Happy stitching!

Oct 2/18

So, this happened this weekend:

Yes indeedy, 25 years since this chick graduated from pharmacy school. Can someone please help me find out where those 25 years have gone? I could have sworn that it was only a couple of years since we put away our text books, donned the robes to accept our diplomas and headed out into the world. It was so cool to catch up with my classmates and to learn about some very interesting careers. My classmates have gone on to do cool things like movies about pharmacists, a dean of pharmacy in the US and a corporate executive. I kind of fall into the cool category with the medical missions to the Dominican Republic. Everyone has an interesting story to tell about where they ended up and why.

The fella' and I were tiffing on Sunday and Monday so I ignored him last night *(Monday) and did the last of the back stitching on these ornaments for his children before sewing on the red beads. My plan to finish them is to attach red or green felt to the back with a blanket stitch instead of glue and make ribbon hangers. Hopefully, the love, and not the bickering, was stitched into these Christmas gifts.

The fella' and I called a truce when I sent him this meme this morning:

He laughed and we moved on. I went on to make this gorgeous pan of soap this morning. I took a class on soapmaking this morning from a wonderful soap maker at the Happy Hippie Soap Company. It was so cool to be measuring and stirring the ingredients while looking out the window to see the source of the goats' milk grazing in the pasture behind the house. The fella' mistook this pan for supper and was sorely disappointed when he licked the finger that he had stuck into this mix. NEVER A DULL MOMENT IN THIS HOUSE!

Happy stitching!