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!

Feb 4, 2020

This piece has lived up to its billing as being zen. Work has been nutty recently so it is a relief to come home to stitch away my stress and worries. Stitching may have even saved my job because my fingers were busy moving the needle and unable to type a hateful email reply to a dumb message that I received the other night. Stitching.....not just for beautifying the world!

Happy stitching!

Jan 21, 2020

This zenbroidery thing is really fun! I am so excited to play with the colours and to see where the colour combinations take me. What I am finding is that I start each flower with a colour and add in the other colours as the section takes shape. The final bouquet is going to be kaleidoscope of colour and I like it! 

I took a trip to Michaels today to get a fabric marker so that I can trace out a design for a friend who is moving on from Ottawa. That is all that I can say about that project just yet. A unicorn silicone mold was an exciting find for the soap I plan on making for my dear friend, Lilly. There were a few other molds of interest that I may go back for. Amazon has quite a selection of ones that will work well for some gag gifts that I am planning. **wicked grin**

With this return to stitching, there is a return of my ort jar. This zenbroidery pattern is making my ort jar so colourful and lovely as I stitch during these cold winter nights here in Ottawa. The fella' is upstairs in bed with the flu so I am downstairs stitching on my day off today, in between chucking food and medications at him in his germ infested room.

Happy stitching!

Jan 12, 2020

Happiest of New Year wishes to you all from wintry Ottawa. We had freezing rain all night and now we are in a snow flurry so it is a most awesome weekend to stay home and stitch! For me, it was a perfect way to recharge after a hectic month of kids visiting, family events, Christmas, work and life.

With the start of a new year, what is old is new again for me. Embroidery was a love of mine as a child, well before I discovered cross stitch. There are a few pieces stashed away upstairs that I stitched as a 10 or 11 year old from stamped embroidery that somehow made its way into our house. I have not done much embroidery since I was a teenager so it was a surprise to me to see how much my interest was captured by it recently. As part of my trying to continually learn and grow, I joined a facebook group Millenial Needlecrafts so that I can see what the kids are up to, as it were. What an amazing and dynamic group. For years, I have heard that the needle arts were dying out, but let me tell you, there is an amazing group of people who are doing some really neat things. The artistic expression and experimentation that is shared with the group is so inspiring. While I am not a huge fan of the profanity (odd, as I swear like a sailor in real life), I love the new avenues of design and ideas and have been inspired to pick up my non-blunt needles and thread to embroider again.

One idea that captivated me was zenbroidery, a stitching version of the adult colouring book. A quick search of Amazon came up with this kit:

It came with a stamped cloth and a needle as well as an instruction sheet that shows the needleworker how to do stitches like the chain stitch and satin stitch. I pulled out my hoop and this mess of threads that are leftovers from kits that I have completed.

While the freezing rain tapped against the windows all afternoon and evening, I stitched away at this piece and played with colours. Thanks to all of my years of cross stitch, I still have nice and even satin stitches. I love pulling out different colours to start on a section and then changing my mind as I stitch because the piece will speak to me differently by the time I go to add a colour. The beauty of this piece is that there are no rules.

Happy stitching!

December 11, 2019

Smalls are so fun and satisfying to stitch. I love having a finish in a few hours and there is a part of my brain that gets so very excited about using up bits and bobs from my craft room. This pattern also comes from "Christmas Cross Stitch" by Michael Powell. In between stitching, I am pulling together all of the parcels and cards that need to be mailed tomorrow and reading all of the books I have borrowed from the library. My book club decided on books for the next 3-4 months so I put them all on hold at the library, not expecting to get them all so quickly! "The Course of Love" just went back to the library today and "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" is next up on the bedside table to be followed by "Beartown". I should be working on my pharmacy continuing education as well, but I don't wanna so I won't (just yet).

Happy December stitching!

December 9, 2019

My current obsession is with the word "maker". Last weekend, I worked as an assistant for a friend of mine who sells her baking and mittens at a big flea market here in Ottawa. Her mittens are sewn from felted wool sweaters. When people complimented me on the work, I always made sure to point over to my friend who was working the baked goods table and proudly say, "My friend Melissa is the maker!" as I did not want to take any credit for her work. In this day and age of mass production that comes into Canada from all across the world, we have lost so much connection with raw materials and those who build or develop the item in our hand. I give away my handmade ornaments for Christmas and regularly receive comments from friends and family about how they treasure the ornaments each year as they place them on their Christmas trees. My heart is warmed by that connection being made.

I am a maker. I am driven to make things, to deconstruct the every day things in my house and figure how to make them myself and to make things. My urge to create has been suppressed these past few months because of work commitments. There just has not been the time, the energy or the drive to create, leading to a maker's block as it were. The urge to create has hit again and I am feeling so energized by it. This past week has been a flurry of organizing Christmas parcels that need to be mailed out. A batch of bits and bites was baked up the other day, dryer balls have been wound while watching television, ornaments have been stitched during a lazy Sunday yesterday and I mixed up a batch of laundry powder this morning.

The ornaments are being stitched on a scrap piece of 28 count either Lugana or Monaco with scrap threads that I am somewhat matching to the picture of the finished product in the book.

Can you tell which dryer ball might have been pushed off the table by the cat for the dog to unravel and for me to unsuccessfully try to re-wind? I hope that it felts well once I finally get them into the washer and dryer.

Now that the maker urge has hit again, I feel so much more content. There is such joy in watching a handful of raw materials turn into something that is useful or beautiful and to have it enjoyed by loved ones.

Happy stitching and making!

December 2, 2019

Hot off the hoop! "Wild Thing Quilt" designed by Julie Dobson Miner for Dimensions. Next step, washing machine to remove the dog hair, the stamped ink and, hopefully, the coffee that got spilled on the bottom left. If not, my friends love our dogs and we spent many hours chatting over coffee in our livingrooms back in Greenwood so the mess kind of sums up our friendship!

My other "craft" efforts this weekend have involved these boxes:

The boxes are going to collection points around CFSU (Ottawa) as part of a Holiday food drive being organized by the Uplands Community Council. Our two rental housing entities and our family centre have agreed to let us place boxes in their reception areas for collection of non-perishable food for the Ottawa Food Bank. I was very quickly reminded why I prefer gift bags over gift wrap as I was folding the paper around the boxes and getting tape stuck every where. Oddly, there are several cat and dog hairs stuck to the boxes as well. *looks around at the guilty parties sleeping innocently beside me* I did have lots of fun digging out the crayons we keep here for the fella's kids and colouring in the colouring contest picture. Sometimes, indulging in one's inner child is the best medicine!

My next step today is to start finishing cross stitch ornaments. I have missed the international mailing dates as usual and we need to deliver a parcel to family on Saturday as that will be the last time we see them before the New Year. The fella' left this morning for a training course this week so I can putter away without tripping over him or him asking me why I am doing whatever it is that I am muddling away with at that moment. He is not a hobbyist or crafter so he does not understand why I collect so many bits and bobs or how I can find anything in the jumble of boxes in the spare room or where the heck the random little doodad appeared from and magically pulls together whatever is in my hand.

Happy stitching!