Sunday Tea Wristwarmer Pattern

Sunday Tea Wristwarmers are delicate, elegant and extremely easy to make and would make a perfect match for any lifestyle.

These are made with any worsted weight or medium weight yarn and only use a single crochet and double crochet stitch. For a steampunk look I think they would be really nice done in black too.

Pull them up full length, wear them slouched, wear them under a jacket, the choice is yours, but one thing is for sure, you'll be the envy of all! The pattern will be available this weekend on Etsy.

Storms a comin'....

We are still being bombarded with dreadfully cold temperatures and now we are waiting for a winter storm. The good news is that the temperature will rise, but the bad news....well a storm! This is a quote from the weather office "Snow at times heavy changing through ice pellets and freezing rain to rain overnight. Snow and ice pellet amount 15 cm. Rainfall amount 5 to 10 mm. Local blowing snow late this evening. Fog patches overnight. Wind becoming east 30 km/h gusting to 50 this evening then southwest 20 overnight. Temperature rising to plus 3 by morning." Sigh....only another month of this....hopefully.

Londonderry Hat Pattern

Working on weekends and evenings I am delighted to have finally finished my newest hat pattern! May I present to you The Londonderry Hat.This is me, sipping from my empty mug and contemplating whether or not this was a good idea to try to take my own picture!

Obviously the front view!

Londonderry looks really cute with short hair, but it's roomy enough to tuck longer hair up underneath it, or put your hair in braids. Don't worry though, it looks great with your hair down too.

A nice simple design on the back of the hat just adds that extra something special.

Cover design for the Londonderry Hat Pattern. Don't forget to look for it on Etsy!

And You Thought You Were Having a Bad Day!

As much as I love my bird feeder, the occasional accident happens.This poor little guy hit the picture window and then "fell" into the mouth of my little cat. I rushed out and rescued him from the jaws of Frosty, righted him and let him rest.

When he turns his head you can see where his feathers got messed up in Frosty's mouth. I brought the cats inside and I let him rest and within 45 minutes he was gone. I couldn't resist getting some pictures though. Too bad he has the grumpiest little face I've ever seen on a chickadee!

The Birch Tree

This was by far my biggest felting challenge to date! My mother-in-law asked me to felt a winter scene on a beautiful black wool shawl and this is what I came up with. A birch tree rises from the back of the shawl and branches out along the shoulders,

and wraps around the front.

A few scattered leaves gently fall from from the branches.

Reprieve....but

Finally the cold weather has broken, but instead it was replaced with snow, rain and now freezing rain. I know you must be tired of seeing all my photo's of the weather, but this time of year that is all we Maritimers are talking about. Our lives often revolve around the weather. This is how we plow the snow out here in the country! No fooling around when it comes to snow removal! That's my Dad expertly working the backhoe.There aren't many leaves leaves left on the trees, but I did find these maple leaves covered in ice.This is the main road that runs past my place. You can't tell, but yes, it is a paved road. There is about 2 inches of ice covering it this morning.

These are hips from the wild roses that grow along the main road.

Red pine branches covered in ice and snow. This would make a nice Christmas card for next year!

Happy Weekend!

It's still so cold I can hardly think straight, but I am enjoying sitting by the fire and looking out the window at my bird feeder. Hope everyone is having a good weekend and keeping warm!

I'm Cold!

Last night the temperature dropped so low that the house and deck snapped and popped all night. I don't think I slept a wink worrying where all those snaps and pops were coming from. Look at the ice on the windows! And this is after getting up twice in the middle of the night to keep the wood stove going! The windchill was reported at -42 Celsius and when I got up this morning the temperature read -33 Celsius.
Just look at the size of the beams in my house! I know my house won't fall down, but at 3am listening to them snap and pop is a bit alarming! It's just too cold to do anything but curl up on the couch in front of the fire and read. I don't even want to stick my nose outside the door.

The cats and birds don't seem to mind the cold though. I love this picture! Just look at the bird and cat tracks in the snow. Luckily I don't see any feathers in this mix, just bird seed.

Deep Freeze

Here on the East Coast of Canada we are entering the "deep freeze" of winter. For about a month starting somewhere near the middle of January we have really, really cold weather. The kind of weather that hurts your lungs if you take a deep breath. Last night when I went to bed, the temperature in the bedroom was 18 Celsius and outside was -18 Celsius! That's close to 40 degrees difference. This is just the beginning, soon we will have temperatures somewhere in the -27 to - 35 degree range. Tomorrow in Northern New Brunswick they are calling for a windchill of -42 Celsius! BRRRR!
This little guy doesn't seem to mind the cold weather though! He was soaking up what little sun there was at my bird feeder!

I'm It Again!

At the beginning of the New Year Bea from Bea's Blog gave me an award. In return I'm to list five things I'm addicted to. Here it goes:

1. I'm well and truly addicted to my home and native land, Canada! This is a little bear I made a few years ago from red wool and I embroidered a maple leaf on his chest.


2. We just got a new refrigerator and it has an ice maker in it, and, well, now I'm addicted to ice in my water!






3. Obviously I'm addicted to crocheting and creating new patterns. I have so many ideas floating around in my head that I just don't have time! Every time I think I'm caught up, another new set of ideas appear!

4. This is an easy one....PINK!!! I have always loved the colour pink. I had a pink bedroom when I was little and now I wear pink, have pink note books, a pink mouse, etc! It just makes me feel so good and it always makes me smile!

5. This is a new found love...Canadian literature. A few years back I decided that I couldn't call myself a true Canadian without being familiar with some of our greatest writers. So a quest began, and an addiction formed! Some favourites? Rockbound by Frank Parker Day, The Birth House by Amy McKay, Clara Callan by Richard B. Wright, The Nymph and the Lamp by Thomas H. Raddall.


Thanks Bea! That was fun!

It's Hard...

It's hard to stay mad at the world when you look out your window and see this.

"May you have warm words on a cold evening,

A full moon on a dark night and

A smooth road all the way to your door."
Irish Blessing

Sigh....

Do you ever have one of those days when the world seems to be conspiring against you? Of course you have, who hasn't? Well, today I'm having one of those days. I feel like this poor little bird....but I don't look that cute.

Life Lessons from Books

"I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense." Harold Kushner

Thomas Raddall, a great Nova Scotian historian and writer is a new favourite of mine. "Matters that count in this world don't come about, they're brought about."~ Pride's Fancy

I found this copy of Anne of Green Gables in a local antique shop. Isn't it lovely and how could you resist such prose as "Marilla, isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?".

A Return to Normal?

Things are starting to return to normal in my house. My DH has gone back to work after his lovely long vacation and I'm starting to get back to work myself. Today I got to play with my new cupboard/pantry!

I got to rearrange and put out some of my Christmas presents. These are a little set of conks (a hard, shelf like, spore-bearing structure wood-decaying fungi, found on stumps, logs, or trees) that my Mom drew on for me. Aren't they lovely?

Today I finally finished my prototype for my newest hat and matching neckwarmer! Now I just need to write the pattern and test it.

And finally, I got to dust mop our new basement floor! Actually it was a pleasure to do it after all the hard work to lay it. I wonder what will tomorrow bring?

Back to Work!

I imagine that the week between Christmas and the New Year should be an almost magical time of year. It should be spent in front of the fire with a good book, a hot drink and a cat curled up at your feet. It should be a time to reflect, and relax and plan the upcoming year. You should be able to walk about the house and admire the sparkly delights hanging from you tree, eat any food you want and just enjoy this quiet week. Screech!!! What on earth was I thinking! I have never had such a busy week as I did this past week! My DH planned a weeks vacation for this week, and vacation it wasn't! Everyday involved a new project. One day it was making a new cupboard/pantry for the kitchen, the next two days involved tearing up the old carpet in the basement and laying down new hardwood floors, there were at least two days spent going to town to buy supplies to finish said projects and another day getting groceries. Then there was company, and cooking, and taking down Christmas, oh and then yesterday was DH's birthday, so that involved a day of cooking! Ahhh, but today DH went back to work and I got to play with my new stash of yarn!

Just look what I got for a Christmas present from my mother-in-law! An entire box full of yarn! I squealed with delight when I took the top of of the box and saw all these lovelies!

Then imagine my delight when I noticed there was another layer! Lots of Briggs and Little, some lovely soy yarn (I have a flapper hat planned for those), some pink variegated yarn, and some gorgeous roving! Oh the joy, the joy!

So today, bright and early I started working on a pattern that I started before the week of ...."bliss". I'm using this "denim heather mist" by Bernat to create a pattern for a matching neckwarmer and hat .... hopefully, but you never know where the crochet hook will take you!

I'm It!

The fabulous Maggie from Magpie's Collectables has tagged me! This is a first for me, so I will give it a shot! I am supposed to list eight random facts about myself. Hmmm....well here it goes!

1. I studied botany in University and worked in that field for many years.

2. Everybody knows that I LOVE pink and wear it to make myself feel better, well, on the other side of that coin is that I HATE purple! I've grown to like lavender, mauve's and such, but not purple!

3. I have never drunk a cup of coffee in my life. I did taste it once, but yuck!

4. I don't like chocolate. I only tolerate it to get to the yummy goodness that it wraps itself around. Sometimes I even cut off the chocolate on a chocolate bar just so I can have the wafers, or caramel inside.

5. I grow daylilies. I really want to propagate them and come up with my own breed!

6. If there could only be one bird in the world I would want it to be chickadees.

7. I cry every time I watch the part in the Little Princess where Sara cries "Papa, don't you remember me?".

8. I like to visit old cemeteries and take pictures of headstones. I then like to come home and look the names up in old newspapers and learn more about these people.

I'm not going to tag anybody (I'm really shy) but I will leave it open and hope that anybody who reads this and wants to be tagged, will go ahead!

Happy New Year!!!

Looking back over the past year, I can't believe how much can change in such a short amount of time. Living in a very rural part of New Brunswick, Canada, I never thought that after only nine months of selling my crochet patterns on Etsy I would meet so many fantastic people from so many parts of the world! I've sold my patterns to most of the provinces in Canada and to all the states, except 4, of the United States of America. I've also, much to my excitement sold to England, Australia, Norway, Singapore, New Zealand, Israel, Mexico, Sweden, Spain, Ireland, Cyprus, Italy, Belgium, Paris and Switzerland! Imagine! I've never even visited half the provinces in my own country and I've met all these people from all over the world!



I also love the coincidences in sales trends. For example, I will often get two sales at the same time, and the buyers will share their first name. Within the last few days, however, I had two sales together. The first sale was from a woman from California who's first name was Summer. The second sale was from a woman in Oregon, who's name was Autumn! No kidding! And then last night, I received a sale from a woman who's last name was Winters! Amazing! It reminds me of the quote “Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” (Max Ehrmann) Now I need a sale from somebody named Spring...or April would suffice!

So as the snow is swirling outside today, and I'm tucked away safely in my house, I'm thinking of all those people across the world that have touched my life in little tiny ways and huge significant ways, and I wish each and every one of them all the best in the New Year. Happy New Year!