kitchen love

Doing dishes never looked this good! Haha, not really. Doing dishes never looks good. But you can try to bring some joy to it by making cute dish towels.

I like to embroider stuff, as you probably know. And I think it's important to add a little homemade flourish to your life. Consequently, most of the gifts I give tend to be on the homemade side of things and tend towards wonky as most of the things I make end up slightly askew. I like to call it character. Or maybe style. Yes! That's it! Wonky is the style I intend every time I set out to make something... :)

Anyhow, I digress. Have I mentioned my lovely boyfriend before? And especially how lovely it is that he appreciates my penchant for things homemade? I made these as part of his Christmas gift and just got around to taking pictures yesterday.

The first one came out of my head. Or at least, I think it did. But chances are I saw it somewhere, cataloged it in the deepest region of my brain for future reference, forgot I saw it, and then produced it thinking it was solely mine. I imagine I should be attributing the idea to someone, somewhere, but who knows?

The second one is the kitchen gnome. Kitchen gnomes make doing dishes magical, didn't you know? He comes from Andrea Zuill's blog BadBirds. Every month she posts a free embroidery pattern and they are dripping with awesome! Check out her blog here and download the gnome here.


And for the record (and just for fun!)... Me: cookies, wasabi, coke and eggs. Dave: milk, sushi, rum and ham. :)

sweet dreams

I made these pillow slips for my lovely boyfriend for Christmas. Who doesn't want a dinosaur sending out waves of love as you drift off to sleep? I know I do! Aforementioned boyfriend also took these shots, proving he's no slouch with a camera either. xo.

on the upswing

This past week has been a rollercoaster of feeling well, not-so-well, horribly ill and everything in between. But all was not lost. I managed to drink a lot of this.


And finally finish this.


And even learn how to do this! (Yay french knots!).

cooper's wedding {the eve of}

I. AM. SO. EXCITED! Cooper's getting married tomorrow! YAY YAY YAY YAY!

It has been an absolute privilege to watch everything fall into place over the past few months. I almost said "magically fall into place" but that would be doing a great disservice to Cooper, who's meticulous attention to detail and organizational skills are beyond compare. And that's an understatement.

As a wedding guest book Sarah is having all the guests sign a square of fabric with fabric markers. Then, after the wedding, her Mom is going to sew all the squares together into a wedding quilt. I know - an immensely touching, beautiful idea.

So you know I was thrilled (and honoured) when she asked me to design the center square for her quilt. OMG... I DO! :)

My idea was to create something with a homemade arts & crafts sort of feel... cute but not overly so, simple but not stick man simple. And of course, it had to be wool because it's soft and awesome.

I'm over the moon with how her center square turned out. I hope you can see all the love I poured into it. I love you Sarah and Robert! As I said before and will say again, it will be an honour to witness the linking of two perfectly matched souls. I'm wishing you lots of love, laughter, peace and happiness tomorrow and forever. Enjoy your special day! xo.

work in progress

I have been doing stuff, just nothing to completion. I've also made a conscious effort to spend less time in front of the computer lately, so I have less awesome websites to share. Here's a sneak peek at something I hope to have finished in a week.

Doodle Stitching

Friday was my day off last week and I decided to do only the things I truly wanted to do. I don't think I even vacuumed or washed the dishes (which is actually an amazing feat of will power if you can believe it!).

So what does "doing what I want do" constitute? A three-hour trip to Chapters! And it really was three hours of booky goodness because my brother was kind enough to drop me off AND pick me up. Yay!

I bought an awesome new sewing book but I will expound its virtures in another post. What I want to tell you about tonight is the inspiration I found while browsing through the home section... you know, where they keep Christine-crack items such as journals, stationary and every brillant office gadget you had no idea you needed.

While perusing the journals I couldn't help but notice the ones with famous quotations printed on their covers. Some of them were lame. For example, "Reach for the moon because even if you fail you'll be among the stars." How is that inspiring?! I don't like it.

But one jumped out at me and seared itself on to my brain. A few sage words from Mr. Henry David Thoreau: American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic and philosopher (thank-you wikipedia).

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined."

Well that's a nice sentiment if ever I heard one. And one that I need to meditate on and repeat over and over to myself. It's the law of attraction neatly packaged into 13 words and I thought to myself, "That's something Dennis and I need to remind ourselves of on a regular basis."

[If you know me personally, you know why this struck a chord. If you don't know me, suffice it to say, I am currently hinging my life on hope and the aforementioned law of attraction. Which is an admittedly flimsy ideal when up against the constant barrage of daily life, especially in the service industry].

Skip forward 3 hours from my Chapters adventure. I'm clicking through my favourite blogs and link from feeling stitchy to the wonderful world of Aimee Ray. Her website is dreamfollow.com for goodness sake! How could it not be love at first sight? Her work is based on the premise... well, she explains better herself in an interview with feeling stitchy:

"I have always done random sketches in my sketchbooks, usually tiny and done with very little thought- almost stream of consciousness. :) They can be actual drawings of things or just abstract shapes and lines. I guess it just struck me one day that some of them might make cool embroidery art, so I blew one up and transferred it to fabric. These have become some of my favorite embroideries I have done."

I love this idea! I absolutely adore the art of embroidery and am taken with the idea that you can create anything you want with a needle and thread.

So, borrowing heavily from some of Aimee Ray's designs I found on flickr, look at the pattern I designed! I'm super proud of it and am working on it every spare minute I get. I think it's going to be AWESOME! If it turns out as nice as I hope, I will frame it and hang it in my sewing room as a constant reminder that every stitch I sew is me heading confidently in the right direction. :)

Happiness Is...

... a raisin bran muffin fresh out of the oven

... a hot cup of tea

... and something fun to stitch!