Crafty Niece

Check out the awesome Christmas ornament that my niece made us,

with a little help from her Crafty Mum (a.k.a. my Crafty Sis).

Sunshine Coast

We took a road trip to the Sunshine Coast last weekend.  

We stumbled upon the Seafare festival in Gibson's Landing.  Gibson's is famous for being the location where they filmed Beachcombers tv series.  

There was a lumberjack demonstration:

And an awesome aerial display:

It's inspired me for a new quilt...but don't worry, I'll try to finish the limb before starting this one:

And, I couldn't resist posting a photo of the "loo with a view":

Crafty Road Trip - Seattle

I had a very inspirational crafty road trip with my friend Jessica (a knitter) to check out the Urban Craft Uprising show in Seattle.  It was fabulous!  So much crafty inspiration.   

I’m guessing that there were about 80 vendors there selling everything from hand spun yarn, to funky clothing, to jewelery, to home made ice cream, to shower art, and much, much more.  It was great!

I left with a few little purchases, and lots of crafty ideas for future projects.   

Here are my purchases for the day:

- A few silk screen fabric swatches which I will use to embellish future sewing projects.

- A fun summer necklace. 

- And a new knitting pattern for some fun fingerless gloves. 

I was in Crafty Heaven! 

A place of zen

I have a place of zen near my office.  The Chiba Garden.

(That's the Vancouver skyline in the distance.)

North Vancouver became the sister city of Chiba, Japan in 1969.  In 1986, North Vancouver redeveloped some of the waterfront area and decided to build a Japanese garden to commemorate the friendship between the two cities.  The City of Chiba presented North Vancouver with two carved stone lantern that are featured in the garden.  

It's a lovely little garden, only 2 blocks from my work.  When you enter the garden (at the bottom left of the map below) there is a waterfall and stream that starts at your left next to one of the lanterns.  The stream then splits and flows along two pathways.  The pathways join up again at the opposite end of the garden (top right on the map below).  

It is so calming and peaceful to stroll through the garden.  

There are even a couple of benches - one in a sunny spot and one in a shady spot.  

I had a little zen time at lunch today.  I sat and knit on the shady bench (because it makes sense to knit when it's 24C outside).  I'm knitting with hemp, so I figured it was ok.  

What a lovely spot to relax at lunchtime.  

Getting Crafty Inspiration in Portland

After climbing Mount St Helens (and then glissading down!) we continued to Portland for a couple of nights.  While we were there, we checked out the Portland Weekend Market.  It was a craft market - no fresh fruits and veggies.   There was lots of great stuff.  Some of my favourites were:

• Funky necklaces made from upcycled vintage buttons.  Very cool buttons – some even from the 1800’s; 
• Beautify wire-wrapped stone jewelry – the settings were lovely; and
• Some fun creations from old cutlery.

I couldn’t resist all of the crafty creations.  I bought myself a funky upcycled hat from Flood Clothing.  

It’s made from an old maroon golf shirt. It's a little to hot to wear it in N.Vancouver this week!

Crafty Coworkers

It was cake day at the office yesterday to celebrate June birthdays.  

Check out the crafty cupcakes that my coworker made (we take turns making cakes for the celebrations).  

They are so adorable!

Quilt Show

I went to Victoria this past weekend to go to a quilt show with my mum.  My dad’s cousin (or my 1^st –cousin once removed) had a couple of quilts in the show (one of a lighthouse).  She is also the same person who made us our beautiful wedding quilt.  

(African Village - wedding quilt)

The show was very inspirational.  Here is a sampler of some of my favourites. 

Crafty Inspiration

My crafty sister sent out a picture a while back with my new niece in a moss bag.  The moss bag was a gift to my sister, after the birth of her third daughter.  I was made by the mother of one of my sister's friends.  Doesn't my wee niece look cozy?

This piqued my interest.  I decided to do a bit of internet research to find out more about this First Nation handicraft.  This is what I found out: 

The moss bag was used as a child-rearing device by most North American indigenous societies.  A moss bag was made of hide and filled with dry moss, cattail down and sometimes buffalo chips were added. Babies were wrapped in a moss bag and the soiled moss was emptied and replaced when needed.  The moss bag was tied to a cradle board and the mother would tie the cradle board to her back and go about her work, or she could lean the board against something. 

The moss bag also played an important spiritual aspect in the Metis and First Nations culture with the mother being the symbol of creation and the child being the symbol of spirit.  It is believed that due to the restrictive function of the moss bag that the children developed a natural disciplined and secure character.

What a beautiful gift.

Spring in my step

I love the spring.

I couldn't help but take a few snaps on my walk to work the other day.

Spring has sprung!  How inspiring.

Crafty Inspiration

So, I just got back from a whirl-wind 10-day trip to Oz for my sis-in-laws wedding.  


While were were there, I managed to convince the 'Crafting Widower' to check out some crafty shops.  Oh, so many nice fabrics, softies, and other fun stuff.  I managed to exercise A LOT of restraint and only purchased one bit of fuzzy chenille fabric.  It is a light mauve colour.  Isn't it lovely?!?   

I have a project in mind...but it will remain a secret project for now...


Ballarat Patchwork was a great shop.  So many fun fabrics, quilts, patterns and even samples of some of the patterns.  There were some very cute samples made up from Melly & Me , Make it Perfect and Heather Bailey...plus others.  It was really great see samples of the patterns.  I could have spent hours in the place!  (Luckily we went in  1/2 hour before closing!)  


I also came across some cute softies mad by an Australian designer Alimrose when visiting some other shops. They make dolls, but also some cute hand squeakers for little ones.  Here's a shop selling some of their products. Cute.  


Lots of crafty inspiration!