Thursday, December 17, 2009

I'm still here

I stole this one from Margie's blog.



1. First thing you wash in the shower? My face

2. What color is your favorite hoodie? Teal

3. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again? Yes

4. Do you plan outfits? Usually when going to work.

5. How are you feeling RIGHT now? Sleepy

6. What is the closest thing to you that’s red? Poinsettia plant on my desk

7. Describe the last dream you remember having? Don't remember

8. Did you meet anybody new today? No

9. What are you craving right now? Coffee, and I have one from Tims on my desk

10. Do you floss? Yes, before I go to the dentist, or when something is stuck between teeth

11. What comes to mind when I say cabbage? Cabbage soup diet, hahah

12. Are you emotional? oh, gosh, yes, too much so

13. Have you ever counted to 1,000? perhaps not

14. Do you bite into your ice cream or just lick it? lick and then bite, and then lick etc.

15. Do you like your hair? Most of the time

16. Do you like yourself? Huh? not all of me

17. Would you go out to eat with George W. Bush? Why not? I could use a good laugh.

18. What are you listening to right now? Ringing in my ears.

19. Are your parents strict? My father was, not my mom.

20. Would you go sky diving? No

21. Do you like cottage cheese? Yeeesss, and mixed with fresh fruits. Also with mashed potatoes

22. Have you ever met a celebrity? Yes, Brad and Sharon from Y&R, Ella, Cleo Laine, et al, many other musicians, and Valerie Bertinelli, and I am sure others, but can't remember. I don't pay attention enough, so I might have missed a few.

23. Do you rent movies often? Not any more, used to, but too busy knitting and crocheting

24. Is there anything sparkly in the room you are in? Just my smashingly sparkly smile

25. How many countries have you visited? Close to ten, I think. Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Germany, USA, Bermuda, Argentina, Chile, and Canada, of course. Does London Airport count?

26. Have you made a prank phone call? I don't think so, unless someone has called me and I have been snarky, does that count?

27. Ever been on a train? Many, many times, love traveling in train

28. Brown or white eggs? The ones with white and yellow stuff, other than that I don't care.

29. Do you have a cell-phone? I have BB Storm

30. Do you use chap stick? No

31. Do you own a gun? No

32. Can you use chop sticks? Yes, carefully

33. Who are you going to be with tonight? My hubby

34. Are you too forgiving? I think so

35. Ever been in love? yes

36. What is/are your best friend(s) doing tomorrow? Working and or knitting or crocheting

37. Ever have cream puffs? Yes

38. Last time you cried? This is a hard one, it must have been a while ago

39. What was the last question you asked? to co-worker: what's wrong? when she was leaving to go see a doctor

40. Favorite time of the year? Early autumn

41. Do you have any tattoos? nope

42. Are you sarcastic? Yes, used to read Mad magazines and learned

43. Have you ever seen The Butterfly Effect? No, is it any good? Looks kind of interesting.

44. Ever walked into a wall? Yes, in the dark

45. Favorite color? Green

46. Have you ever slapped someone? Playfully, yes

47. Is your hair curly? No, straight as can be

48. What was the last CD you bought? Must have been some classical music

49. Do looks matter? What kind of looks? If looks could kill, yes, tender looks matter and are good. Or is this a trick question, how one looks from outside? I guess it would matter if situation requires certain looks.

51. Is your phone bill sky high? it's high, should be free

52. Do you like your life right now? Yes and no, I want to win lottery, and retire

53. Do you sleep with the TV on? Yes, if I watch telly sitting on a recliner chair.

54. Can you handle the truth? Depends

55. Do you have good vision? I can see, good enough?

56. Do you hate or dislike more than 3 people? I dislike more than 3 people, hate no

57. How often do you talk on the phone? Not often

58. The last person you held hands with? My hubby

59. What are you wearing? Clothes, pants, shoes, underwear, shirt and vest, oh and socks

60. What is your favorite animal? teddybear

61. Where was your default picture taken? You mean my profile picture? In Buffalo, NY

62. Can you hula hoop? Little bit

63. Do you have a job? Yup

64. What was the most recent thing you bought? groceries

65. Have you ever crawled through a window? many times, when I was young(ger)

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

My Square Needles make my Stitches Round!

And here we go again. Summer is almost over, or is it? Rumors tell that September is the beginning of a new summer for us. Oh, phhleeez, no. I want a cool weather.

I just visited CGOA blog, and started thinking of the weekend in Buffalo. I went with my friends,
Sherri, Maggie and Gisele on the 7th of this month.

We left early on Friday morning and stopped at Walmart, spent some money there and then we had lunch at this amazing bread place. Would you believe (you would, eh?) that I forgot the name.
Must love google, they remembered the name Panerabread. I had the most amazing cheese-broccoli soup I had ever tasted in my life. Well, I have not had that combo, only plain broccoli, but it was the best.

Off to find the hotel. We had the greatest room in the world. Two rooms, and I had my own private sofa bed, which allowed me to sleep quite nicely.


The others, poor things, had to sleep in the actual bedroom, haha, I had my private little space.







As soon as we had settled in, we headed to the Market. The first booth made me stop with the beautiful display of a shawl, Figure 8 Fantasy Shawl. It's in the book Special Little Knits
(guess what, I have that book at home, nicely in my bookshelf, oh, geeez and I almost bought it at the show)

I wanted to buy the book very badly, just for the shawl pattern, but I could not buy the first thing I saw, I had to see at least a few more items in the market, before I could open my money pouch, the one with all the US dollars that I had been saving and guarding a few weeks before.

I am not sure at what point we decided to go for dinner, but it was later in the afternoon. The hotel had a restaurant, and we checked the menu and the prices and ran away as fast as we could. We settled for the hotel lobby restaurant and had no complaints about the food or the prices. The service, though, was unbelievable slow that night. Unlike the morning services, but it was mostly buffet in the morning.

Later in the evening we had coffee and tea evening with CGOA Chapter group. There were lots
of cookies, and we were told that all the cookies had to be eaten before we left the meeting.
It was an interesting night. Every attending Chapter had a spokesperson who was telling what their chapter was doing.

I left the meeting for a little bit to go and look for my freeform friends in the hotel, but everyone that I had seen before, had gone either to bed or somewhere else. My friend Vashti was asking others if they had seen this person or that person, but no luck. So Vashti, thank you again for your kind efforts, you are truly a wonderful person. Not to forget the great silk vest you were wearing. It was so beautiful.












On Saturday we went back to our shopping adventure and spent more money than anticipated. At least I did. Way too much, but here is my loot, the picture does not show the items too clearly.

There are several items that are my favourites, but the most favourable item that I bought is a set of dbl pointed square needles. Wooohoo, I love them. I must order more sizes, since I only bought one set of those and one circular needle in larger size. I noticed, when I was testing my needles with the sock yarn I had bought, that the stitches still came out round. I had been cheated. I expected square stitches. hahah.

Of course I bought sock yarn, which I don't need, but what the heck. There are lots of cold feet in my family. Specially up north somewhere.One of the exciting events at the Market place was to have Crochet Dude to sign his booklet for us. We also got our picture in Buffalo news. We are so famous now, hah.









The four of us, Sherri, Maggie and Gisele and me, of course, took a sight seeing walk around the hotel and found it strangely quiet. There were no other people walking but people who looked like tourists, ahem, like us, with cameras and maps and lost looks.









We went to a nice restaurant to have lunch, late lunch, which later approved to be a bit too late.


















After "lunch" we headed to our hotel and started getting ready for the evening event. It was Dinner and Fashion show. We were doing our hair, putting on some make-up, even me, surprise, surprise, and wore our fine art work. Sherri had an elegant Nefertiti shawl, Maggie wore her great crocheted skirt, Gisele had her beautiful "spider web" shawl, and I had my black freeform vest on me.












At dinner, I didn't feel hungry, although the food was excellent. There was chicken, and beef on the plate. Plus some veggies, of course and I think there was a potato, also. I just could not eat
everything. I still had my lunch traveling in my insides, so unfortunately I just ate a little bit, and drank a lot of coffee.

The fashion show was amazing. So many great designs and creations. I didn't take any pictures, because my little camera would have objected with the light in the room. It was terrible, the only way you could see the show properly was to go right beside the stage, which was not possible for me, because I was too full to move. Tsk Tsk.

Margaret Hubert
was wearing beautiful freeform top that she had made (of course), and the top was truly incredibly attractive.












Barbara had a swirl purse with her, that I wanted to make, but did not have time to attend her
class on Sunday morning.








After the fashion show we chatted with many friends and then headed back to the hotel.
We decided to have a drink before going back to the room, and then it was time to have a little shut eye.

On Sunday morning I dashed to the Market place as soon as it opened, and bought some Tulip crochet hooks and the rest of the small balls of yellow crochet thread.

The ride home was full of excitement. We had rain, we sort of got little bit lost in Niagara Falls, NY, but finally got to our beloved country, Canada. We headed immediately to the Flying Saucer restaurant and had a feast with French fries covered with yummy meat sauce. We also had Chicken quesadilla and Gisele had a hot turkey sandwich. After the meal we just headed home, and all went well.

Thanks girls, for the great trip!

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Tenant BBQ





















Well, isn't it nice that our work landlord gives annual BBQ's for tenants. There are three buildings in the
community.
We get either hamburgers, hotdogs, sausages or chicken. Potato or Caesar salad and this year even a corn on a cob. For drinks there was a choice of water or different sodas. And to top it all, even an ice cream of your choice (what they had in that ice cream cart, that is).

I stood in a line-up for 25 minutes, so you can imagine how many people there were, considering the fact that there were at least 4 if not even more food stands.

Entertainment was ... well, not to be nasty, but I don't think these three girls were ever going to
be in the "So you think you can dance" program.

Oh, and all was free.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Slow motion time











































It's been, once again, a long time since my last post.

I've been riding on a free form crochet road like a mad person, and have reached a frustration city. I feel like I am in a tunnel, but there is no light at the end of this one.
There are only scrumbles that don't want to fit anywhere.
(See the explanation for scrumbles at Sylvia Cosh and James Walters site, quite interesting)

I am using crochet thread in different sizes, the thinnest being size 20, which isn't too bad, just nerve wrecking to see the blackness in this delicate thread.

I have hoped to finish this creation by the time I will travel to Knit and Crochet Show in Buffalo. It is in four weeks. Some would think I have lots of time, but when I make one idiotic scrumble in one day, and then either "fix" it, or frog it, then it becomes an idiotic object. I need quite a few sane pieces, but am unable to go beyond the box. I am very surprised that I, a free spirited, laid back individual, would be so stuck in only a few stitches, and does not feel comfortable to make a double crochet stitch, or any other after making chains and single crochets, occasional half double crochet, picots, and buff and limpet stitches, that's about the size of my range of different crochet stitch world for this project. It seems to be a lot, but there is not very much variety in the travels. Oh, I forgot the occasional flower motifs, that do have some double crochet stitches. Hmmm. I need to take another look at my project today and hope that something will look like a vest or a shawl or a headband, my head feels very big these days, not because I am good, it's because it's ready to explode.

Yesterday, while chatting with friends at Purple Purl, I felt brave, and tried to make a circle that was in a pattern in a crochet a magazine. That was to follow a pattern. Ok, sometimes I feel very self assured, and thus started making this said circle, but came to the last stitch on the first row, and got stuck. I could not tell how to make the joining stitch, perhaps because I had incorrectly started the first one. My frog pond is getting very full, since there was another one for the pond. It's been a constant battle with this project, and I had an insane moment the other day, I took scissors and ALMOST cut the whole dang thing. I stopped, though, when I started sobbing and the scissors got wet from the tears that fell on them. Oh, no, I cannot have any stains on this thing.

I then forced myself to crochet something, since I had planned to stay for a while at the store, besides, my parking ticket had another hour and a half left, so I was not going to leave, not only for that, but also for the fact that I had a full cup of coffee in front of me. Oh, and the main thing to stay was to wait for my friend Sherri to arrive.

Well, once I got home, I started again, and this time I was fairly excited because I was able to create a scrumble that actually fit in between other scrumbles, well, with a little help from some
ever so eager chain links.


Here is a short video from Mendoza. I wish I had taped more.


Saturday, June 20, 2009

Finally at home

FreeForm book: Four Seasons is now published, it's available at Blurb. I have one item there, and cannot wait for my book to arrive.

The book includes works of International FreeForm artists' from around the world. The challenge was to create something for the four seasons, winter, spring, summer, autumn.

We came home from Argentina last Saturday (June 13) after 18 hours since we went to the airport in Mendoza.
We had a great vacation for four weeks. Meeting the family, spending time with the little kids, attending their birthday parties, and just having a great time.

I will write more, hopefully, about our vacation, but right now I just want to make sure that you know I am still here.

Here are some pictures from our trip to Argentina