006 - Romantic Home Sewing

A few pages from Romantic Home Sewing by Christina Strutt.

This book, borrowed from the library, is one that I keep renewing every three weeks. There are many beautiful sewing projects in this book, but my favourite one has to be the gardeners belt.. Every time I look at it I feel encouraged to start saving every penny (very difficult this time of year) and seriously looking into finding my dream apartment. I want to be able to wear this belt around my backyard! And I must have access to a backyard - I don't think I could do without.

This Christmas my younger brother gave me a gift certificate to Fabricland, and that, with the little stash of fabric I've been saving for something special, I'm going to sew up this little ditty sometime this week.

005 - Hamilton to the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia

This past summer my boyfriend and I decided that we would cycle from Hamilton, Ontario to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Cycling across Canada has always been a dream of mine and it seemed like a good time to complete at least a small part of it.

We made it to Quebec City on our bikes, but took the train the rest of the way due to bad weather (rain all day and frost all night) and being ill prepared to tackle New Brunswick (no bike route map/extreme wilderness)! I was disappointed at first that we couldn't complete the entire trip by bike, but looking back on our decision to take the train, it was a wise choice.

We chose to combine cycling with WWOOFing, something I've done in Scotland and have been longing to do again, especially out east. WWOOF - World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms - is a wonderful organization that connects you with organic farmers who could use a little help on their farm in exchange for room and board. For the record, I love this organization and hope to one day be a host myself.

So after spending a few days in Halifax, and riding to Peggy's Cove and back, we moved on to the next phase of our trip - Noah's Place Farm.

This farm had every kind of farm animal imaginable. Goats, sheep, chickens, two donkeys, horses, cows, one lil piglet, Angora goats, two dogs, and a million barn cats. From the sheep and Angora goats we would harvest wool, from the goats; milk. And eggs from the chickens. The donkeys were used to scare off coyotes during the night, they were so cute! You had to tap their bums if you were coming into their pen to give them food. Otherwise you might scare them and lose a couple of teeth from a hoof in the mouth. At this farm we made our own cheese, tons of bread, picked wool (picking out all the vegetation from the wool before sending it off to the mill to be spun) and dyed skeins, harvested fresh broccoli, beets, and turnips, did some canning, fed all the barn animals and cleaned their pens, chopped wood and built fences, and other random house chores throughout the day. It was wonderful!

Needless to say, we came home with our pockets full of goats milk soap, about $70 worth of wool, and rolls upon rolls of film. Really though, the entire experience was pure magic and I was so fortunate to have had such a great partner with me. I can't wait for the next segment of our Canadian cycling tour!

004 - MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Taken from Life Photo Archives

Merry Christmas everyone!

003 - Apartment Hunting

Rooftop Vegetable Garden

These are some photos of my old place on Locke South. I gave it up this past August so my boyfriend and I could ride our little bicycles to Halifax in September and farm out east for a little while. Well, we're back in Hamilton earlier than planned and now we're homeless! I wish I had held on to this place, but I suppose it's too small for both peter and I. But oh maaan, look at my garden! I grew carrots, bell peppers, hot peppers, tomatoes, pink and yellow achilleas, morning glories, bleeding hearts, hens and chicks, coriander, parsley, zucchini, mint, romaine lettuce, mint, everything! having been on the third floor of this house I got tons and tons of sun too and everything (except the carrots..) flourished. Hah, by the end of summer it was quite unruly!

Hopefully we can find a place just as sweet and cosy. I loved this place so much, it was just right for me. I had amazing housemates, sweet next door neighbours to the north of me, and beautiful stain glass church windows to the south. Not to mention living on Locke Street. Perfect! Kirkendall is my definitely favourite area of town. I'm crossing my fingers pretty hard that we get lucky and find something just as wonderful by February or May. Please cross your fingers for us! We need it.

002 - French General - Home Sewn

I've been drooling over nearly every sewing project in French General Home Sewn - 30 Projects for Every Room in the House by Kaari Meng for quite some time.

I found this book while browsing through The Bookshelf, an amazing bookshop/cinema/cafe in downtown Guelph, Ontario. My boyfriend and I went there back in the summer to visit some friends who were playing at ebar. While waiting for their set, I got lost in this shop and subsequently in this book. I couldn't put it down! Every page is full of beautiful french linens, tickings, old grain sacks, buttons and other notions. I was in deep reverential love, and was so sad when I had to leave it behind that night. Later in the month when we came to the bookshelf to watch this movie, I immediately walked over to the craft section and snatched it up. I was so lucky it was still there.

Since then I've been stocking up on vintage fabrics and notions. I would like to have a decent inventory before diving into a major sewing project. I'd hate to ruin the little fabric I have stored up because I was too impatient to wait for the perfect ribbon, thread, or other embellishment. I can't say it's easy though, because everyday I flip through this book in anticipation for the day I get to run some fabric through my little sewing machine!

French General sells textiles, buttons, jewelry, and paper. I want their entire website for Christmas - I hope Peter reads this!

EDIT - Updated scans from the pages of Home Sewn! Thank you Christmas scanner.

001 - HELLO!

A little piece from my flickr.

I've been playing with the idea of creating a blog for quite some time, and it's finally come to fruition. That being said, I'm going to give great effort not to neglect this little piece of world wide web. Expect frequent-ish posts about whatever I'm daydreaming of/ working on at any given moment -- Lately it's been world full of unusual knits, beautifully aged linens, and sweet treats from the kitchen. Stay tuned!