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! 

Gardening Update: Tomato plant disaster

There were very high winds in North Vancouver yesterday.  I came home to find that 1/3 of my tomato plant snapped off at the stem.  Boo hoo.   

There were even a few teeny tiny tomatoes starting to grow on that section. 

Gardening Update: Beans

Check out my pole beans!

I am quite pleased with the trellis that I rigged up.    

I drilled a couple of holes at each end of the pot and then I rigged up a little trellis with some hemp...not the same hemp that I'm knitting with.  

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.  

Gardening Update: Fresh garden salad

Yummy Salad!

The tomatoes aren't from my garden, but the rest is. 

 

My first harvest of green leaf lettuce, swiss chard, and peppery arugula.  And a radish and some parsley to add a bit of flavour.  Mmmm.  

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!

A tooth fairy gets her wings

Thanks for the feedback.

Maybe a wee bit crooked, but that's ok.