Uli's Creative Corner

Hmmm........... before I start what I really wanted to talk about today, I just had a weird thought....... I looked at my motime profile picture and looked at me wearing my finished Eris which I absolutely love...... I just realized that the entire winter passed and I didn't wear it once and if you asked me where it was in my closet, I would have to admit that I have no idea.  For the moment, that's kind of freaking me out because I have no idea where it could be.  I've worn my other knit winter sweaters throughout the winter but I have not seen or stumbled across that one in ages.  Yikes.....

My little spinning project from the other day turned into this little baby skein of an unplied single......... it's pretty bad and inconsistent spinning but I still love my little baby skein:

A busy weekend has come and gone.....  The show was a bit of a dud............ way too quiet.  In November one day, we fell hostage to the snow.  I think this time, we fell hostage to the nice weather.  Everybody wanted to be out and gardening and not inside looking at stuff.  I made my table money back and little bit extra.   I'm not complaining but I guess I could have been out in the garden, too.  It was still fun and I did enjoy myself.  And if I had packed it in early when everybody else was jumping ship, I wouldn't have made back my table money.  All of a sudden there was this little flurry of an activity and I sold a bunch of stuff. 

Yesterday, aside from having a lazy morning knitting on Norwegian Woods - I'll get a progress shot of that tonight, I ended up doing a bunch of running around in the afternoon.

While the Little Miss was at a birthday party, I went bedding plant shopping and when I came home my summer 2008 flower tower was born:

It's that time of the year.............. planting and gardening time.  I love my plants and I do enjoy gardening - to some extent - I do very well at the beginning of the season and as the summer wears on, I often lose that enthusiasm for the watering and the daily care and maintenance a garden requires.  I guess the good thing is that our garden is postage stamp sized and I mostly enjoy container gardening.  I usually do one big "flower tower" of a hanging basket.  That one didn't get done last weekend but my inlaws bought us these 2 big half barrels - they aren't the little kind..... they are the big honkin' ones.  So last Sunday, I set out to buy some plants and here are the results of all my work:



The first is Barrel #1 and it was well planned.  Once the plants grow up and the colours of the blooms meld, I think it will be quite beautiful.  Barrel #2......... well, what can I say - it got all the leftover petunias and lobelia and the spike in the middle so we'll see how that one turns out.

Tomorrow is craft show day.  I hope it goes well.

And look at my newest purchase:

I've been immersed in thinking about shawl pins and other fun stuff to do with the Victoria Fibre Fest/Knit Out.

I'm very excited to be a "small scale" sponsor of the event.  Right down the page under the "cotton level"

We're going over to the Island as a family (well, or at least I think so).  At the market on Sunday, I'll be setting up shop with fun knitting accessories like my stitch markers, my bookmarks and cell phone charms (especially the knitting and spinning themed ones) and of course my shawl pins including a special pin for a very special design.  After a craft show that I'm involved in next weekend, I'll have about a month to get prepared for this event.  I have a lot of new goodies to prepare - stay tuned - I have some awesome stitch marker beads ready to go and a pile of lovely beads for new pins.

So, I'm thinking that my knitting time might be a little bit limited.  I should probably not commit myself to anything big.  Uli, come on you silly................. just stick to SOCKS!!!  But my head is kind of telling me this morning that I should really challenge myself and commit myself to getting Norwegian Woods done, finished and blocked in time for the Fibre Fest.  Yeah right............ Well, you heard it here!!!  I'm gonna try.  Having said that, I don't even have a new picture to show you today because it doesn't look much different yet from the last post.  I have now 2 repeats done of the first chart.  I think I need to do a total of 4 and of course, the rows are getting longer and longer and longer.

This is a wonderful project though so I'm giving myself a chance.  I bought a set of Addi Turbo Lace needles (my first pair of Addi Turbo Lace although I have lots of regular Addis).  I got those at the International Fibre Fest from my dear Shelley aka Fun Knits.  I like them a lot.  They are working well for me for this project.

So then the other thing that's occupying my mind are spinning wheels............ what am I thinking.  2 kids, full-time job, a side business that's keeping me quite busy, big upcoming events, knitting, gardening, etc. etc.... why would I want a spinning wheel?  Well, just because I've wanted one for a long time and when Brenda bought hers, I started thinking about it again, even getting my drop spindle out for a few minutes here and there.  I really know nothing about wheels but this one looks cute, doesn't it?  I can't afford it.  I don't have hubby's support either.  I can't even get him to remember the weekend that the Fibre Fest is on.  I think he's blocked it in his mind even though I talk about it very, very regularly.

So that's what's in my head.  I hate having no pictures at all in a blog post and I don't have any new knitting to show.  I've got lots of fun new charms and bookmarks and earrings in the shop but I don't always want to show those here either - avoid boring everyone..... so I'll leave you with our fish tank.... I meant to blog about that some time ago.  Here are our new friends:

Spring has really playing a game with us this year.  I've been feeling so cold for the last few days.  Always cold hands and that chill in the air that just wouldn't let me warm up.  So when I heard the weather forecast for Thursday, I started jumping in anticipation of finally feeling warm.............. here's the icon for our Thursday forecast:

Thanks for all the nice comments on JR.  Let me just say this experience has been tough but it is amazing how quickly little kids like that bounce back and how resilient they are.  He is basically recovered very well.  This week was a normal week with daycare and all.  We think he is eating way better and the quality of his sleep at night is just so much better.  It's obvious.  So after all the stress, it was a good thing that we made him undergo this little ordeal.

Now I turn to my toad girl................... she deserves some blog attention, too.


These are my colour combos for now but there will be more.  These are made with large anodized aluminum rings that are combined into what's called a moebius flower.  I love the big long hoops.  Most of the time I use sterling silver or gold filled and don't mess with other stuff but these hoops are hypo-allergenic surgical steel and I've got piles of them.  I think they'll make a great, fun summer accessory.

Come check them out in my shop.  Also come back and look for more new shawl pins.  I'm going to a show tomorrow where I hope to pick up a whole pile more of the Kazuri ceramic bead that I enjoy using in my shawl pins.  I also have some other design ideas for pins that don't use those Kazuri beads.

My weekend is busy, how about yours?