A Closer View

I have been looking at the world through my macro lens this past while, and what goes better with taking pictures, than a steaming cup of tea, and what goes best with a steaming cup of tea - Chocolate!
A challenge came from a photographer pal to pick a passion and do a photo shoot.  Her passion is chocolate.  Now, I love chocolate too, but I also love colour, and fibre.  So I combed through my fibre stash and picked out some, set up my mini photo studio and had some fun.
Once I started looking at things a different way, the shiny cranberries in the colander caught my eye too.

The Lily bouquet was next to jump in front of the lens.  It's fun to look at flowers from a bee's point of view

I have been working hard these days, completing the set of ornaments for my ETSY shop.  I'm added two more critters to the menagerie.  Do you remember the song "I want a Hippopotomus for Christmas"?  Well, here comes a darling little hippo to hang with your ornaments, and an Elephant too, all decked out in beads.
I'll have photos in a couple of days, as soon as they are stitched up and stuffed.

The Holiday Ornaments are ready!

Well, here they are:  My take on holiday ornaments to decorate your tree and your life during the celebrations.  I have created a camel, a cat, a dog and a bunny, all festooned with beads and personality.  You can hang them on your tree, your lamp, your door knob, or anywhere you think they might add a bit of cheer.  They have all been equipped with thread hangers.

These little critters will be going up on my Etsy shop today,here.  Each critter is complete, and will sell as an individual piece for $9.95, or can be purchased as a set of three of the same critter for $28.00, or...as a set of four different critters - one cat, one dog, one bunnie, one camel, for $38.00, all plus shipping.  All are ready to ship.

The critters are made of felt, stuffed with fibrefill, and measure approximately 3.5 inches from nose to tail, and stand about 3 inches high.  Each is embellished with embroidery thread and beads, including beaded collars and a saddle for the camel.   I really enjoyed creating them.  It's time to send them out into the world.  I hope you like them.

I Had a Friend

We met when we were nine going on ten.  Our mother's met first, over beans and weiners bubbling on a camp kitchen wood stove in Yoho park.  We were born two weeks apart, something our mothers marveled over.  She was an American, very exotic in my eyes.  We vowed to be friends forever, and wrote faithfully to each other once a week all through high school.  We were pen pals.  But it was more than that.  We holidayed together.  Our parents became friends.  It was a friendship meant to be. It was good.
She was a Bird of Paradise, an artist, sculptor, weaver, decorator, writer, story teller..and one of her best subjects was herself.  She loved to laugh. She loved bright colours, ethnic clothes.  She was intense, intelligent and sometimes she even loved life.
We grew up, married,  became mothers.  We were there, long distance, for each other through trying times. "Tick and tin" we used to say.  Sometimes we took breaks from one another though. One of those breaks lasted 10 years as I recall. 
 The day I staggered home from the doctor's office, I grabbed the phone to tell her I had breast cancer.  A month later, as I was recovering from surgery, I picked up the phone and she was on the other end "  Well," she said, "I guess it's my turn now". 
I eventually beat breast cancer back.  It wasn't easy. After her first surgery and treatment, she came to me to convalesce.  We thought our trial by fire was over.   It wasn't.  I fought one more.  She fought two more big battles with Breast Cancer.   She fought like a tiger.  She wanted to live. The third round finished her.  She was 62. 
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month.  By all means be aware.  By all means contribute if you can. For sure do the self examinations, and have a mammogram.  Don't be afraid of it, just do it.
 Buy the pink hammers, the pink machines, wear the pink ribbons, drop cash into the pink collection boxes.
 But, really, we should be finding a cure.  And we should be able to treat this nasty disease with better tools other than cutting, burning and poisoning. 
This is for Margie.  I miss you.

The harvest is in!

 We dumped the potato barrel into one of the raised beds, after we took out the frozen tomato vines

 if the frost just could have held off a couple more weeks, I'm sure these would have all been ripe

 Here is some of the potato yield from the barrel.  Not bad for a first time trying this.

So here it is, the yield from the first garden year in our Calgary house.  We had a pretty amazing freeze mid week last week for two nights.  The tomato vines, even under their little tent  just could not withstand the cold.  The tomatoes are now resting on newspaper in the guest bedroom awaiting their fate.  Believe it or not some of them are actually turning red.  I might just get some tomato sauce after all.

The plants and leaves in the garden looked like they were sprinkled with sparkling sugar in the sunlight, when Libby and I went out for our morning walk. Both of us were bundled up in warm coats against the chill and ice fog that covered the city.    The next day, ah, the next day, things didn't look so pretty.  The scarlet runner bean vines hung on their trellis's like old wornout clothes, the tomato vines had shrunk to half their size, the gourd vines were black.  Very sad indeed.
The apples survived though and we picked one bucket full.  I think the tree is Macintosh...at least that's what the apples look like.  So we have much to be thankful for this harvest time.  Happy Thanksgiving to all.  I love this time of year.