In Memoriam

I tend not to focus too heavily on my family life on this blog, but events of the past few weeks merit their own entry; it's with a heavy heart that I write the following.

Monday July 20th we found ourselves unexpectedly having to put our cat, Tommy to sleep.

The details of his life prior to coming to live with us are nebulous. As we were preparing to move to Nova Scotia from Montreal in the summer of 2005, a very large gray tabby decided I was the person he wanted to live with. I was working as a groomer at a pet supply store and they often housed cats that were looking for new homes. Tommy was one of those unfortunate abandoned. He'd been living at the store for months, and while people felt "pity" for him, no one would take him home because he was so obese. As I often sat in the store waiting for clients, Tommy would venture over to see me and within a few weeks it was clear I was a favorite person of his. We don't know how old he was, but only that he'd gone through several homes before being unceremoniously dumped. I'm generally not a "cat person", but in this case, he chose me, and I am not one to turn my back on an animal in need.




We spent 4 tumultuous years of nasty biting and temper tantrums (who could blame him, with that sort of shady past) but also wonderful, cold winter nights where he slept on my pillow wrapped around my head like some sort of living fur hat. He was a trooper, suffering the presence of 3 dogs, of which he was not overly fond, but tolerated as long as they didn't pester him. I hope that he was happy with his choice of forever home. We enjoyed the years we spent together and will miss our silly little dancing bear.

Wednesday July 29. After a long, long batt
le with Westie Lung Disease, we faced the difficult day where we had to put our West Highland White terrier, Cody to sleep.


Cody came into James' life about three years before he and I met. A small pup with way too much energy and a bit of mischievous nature, Cody was from day one a daddy's boy. I remember the first time I met Cody, I thought he was adorable and full of life and it was obvious to me how close a bond he and James had. Over the years, I developed my own bond with Cody, taking him to work with me in a plaid pet travel bag on the city bus. Or the day I decided to groom him for the first time (before I was trained as a groomer) and did a horrible job with a pair of kitchen shears. Through the years that followed, Cody and I had many other opportunities to get his look down right. Although the classic Westie head just never worked on him. He was always a rough and tumble sort of guy and didn't like the prissy details or a perfect groom. You can see in one of the pictures, he got himself filthy, jumping into a ditch full of mud. I will always remember how delighted he was to see me when I came home and how he loved nothing more than to lie on either one of our chest and snooze.



The past year has been very difficult for all of us. Watching every day as he lost a little more energy, a little bit more of his spunk and fierce terrier attitude. We'd known about Cody's illness for almost 3 years. He was diagnosed very young with this disease; at 7 1/2 years old. On the flip side he lived much longer than we had ever expected and for that, we are happy.


Many years ago, James had set up a web page for Cody and an email. He updated it tonight for the last time. :(

The house feels very quiet without our two boys. In the span of two weeks we've gone from a family of 6 to a family of 4. Karla, our greyhound celebrated her 13th birthday this past May. A bit of arthritis is her only complaint, so we hope she will be with us for a good while longer. Shiggy, our Chinese Crested is going to be 5 in November. His lively spirit and loving nature have been of great comfort these past few weeks.




















One last picture; a rare one of both of them sleeping side by side.

Another hair clip

I really enjoy making these little flowers and I think they make very sweet little hair clips. I posted this one in my shop this morning.




I'm thinking of making this particular style of flower larger but will need larger clip to attach them too, something like an alligator clip. I'm also on the look out for a wig and mannequin head to be able to take "in context" pictures. I think seeing my hair clip being worn would give a better sense of perspective and style.

I've also just changed the template of this blog - if you hadn't already notice ;). I was finding the 2 column template unbalanced and prefer being able to spread things out a bit. Leave me a comment, let me know what you think!

Red is my favorite colour

Red is by far my favorite colour and when I shop for beads, I am inevitably drawn to red beads. I spent some time yesterday putting together a few red fantasy flowers, trying to use up some of my supplies.

This first piece, a single blossom includes yellow and orange, but the red is what really makes it pop, at least I think so. This little hair clip is now listed in my shop.



The second thing I worked on were small red lilies.


These blooms measure 2 inches across and the narrow petals makes them look quite delicate. So far I have only two made up, but I think a small arrangement of 5 with some delicate foliage will be very pretty. I'm hoping to have this piece done by and listed by the end of the weekend.



Today is also when the follow up to my book review for Vintage Baby Knits gets published. It's a Q&A with the author, Kristen Rengren and the readers of HMN had some fabulous questions. The article turned out wonderfully I think and I'm quite proud of this project on the whole. A big thanks to my HMN editor for all her help getting this piece to the finish line.

To read the Q&A, please follow this link!

Pure white and Vintage style

I've decided to list the first completed all white lily as a stand alone bloom. It is such a lovely piece, and at the rate I'm going these days, it maybe a while yet before I have the bouquet completed. As it stands, it can very easily be finished as a brooch or hair accessory so I've left those options open, but I worry sometimes that by offering too many choices, potential customers may walk away in a cloud of indecision. I think that for pieces like this though, it deserves that kind of customization possibility.






This weekend is also big for me in that my very first book review is now live on HMN. A lovely vintage baby knitting pattern book. Check out the review here. Leave a question for a follow up Q & A scheduled for next Friday and get info on how to enter to win your own copy! Lots of neat stuff going on that way for sure. Really looking forward to doing another book review as this one was so much fun to do.

The latest in a long long line of busy

Seems I'm always playing catch up these days. While the chicken is cooking for dinner, I'm taking a few minutes to post some new content on my poor neglected blog.

I'm making some headway on the all white bouquet. One lily done and petals enough to make two more are finished. Hopefully I'll have a bit of time to post some progress pictures later this week.

Most of my time lately has been taken up lately with
HMN, promoting writing, researching. I love doing all of it, I just wish there were more hours in a day. I'm very excited about this upcoming Friday as well. I'm reviewing a new knitting book, Vintage Baby Knits. It's part of a blog tour so there is a lot of hype around that. My review is going to be live on Friday of this week and there will be a follow up the following Friday with an author Q&A.
Should be lots of fun. Stay tuned for updates!

Summer time is busy time.

It's been ages since I've blogged, so much so that I'm not sure I remember everything that has happened in those few weeks.

Firstly, I just love writing for the Just for Fun department over at HMN and I have 4 articles already published with a 5th on the way for sometime this week. Follow my tweets for up to date info on that.

I did not get as many pieces listed in my shop this month as I would have like to, but I think that the road ahead for July is smooth enough and I hope to list at least 1 new item per week, if not more. I am rather proud of my latest listing and it is my first bouquet officially for sale too, so I'm very excited about that.




I'm quite excited too since it's received more views in three days than any of my other items. Either people really like it, or the price tag is getting a bunch of curious window shoppers. Doesn't matter to me. Either way, I'm just thrilled that my work is being seen and hopefully admired by that many people. I do think Twitter plays a major part in the increased views and I'm slowly warming up to this whole system. I really didn't want to feel tied down to what seemed to be a very intense marketing tool, but so far, I'm enjoying posting links and updates as much as I'm enjoying reading what others are up to. It's really quite fun actually.

I also really love the gallery feature on Artfire. Since I've worked on a lot of large pieces that I made as gifts, I like being able to show that work off to potential customers to give them ideas for custom orders. One of the many reasons why I love Artfire. The latest piece I added to my Gallery was a bouquet of daisies; a birthday present for my mother in law.