Sunday Kitchen

One of my little photographers caught me in the kitchen in my Sunday kerchief,
making coffee in the French press.

New Woolly Popos

Here are two new Woolly Popos. I like their long legs, and their long hair, like dreadlocks. My new thing is to sew a little pocket on the back and stick a heart in.

That way, you can use the Woolly Popo as a tooth-fairy pillow, and put the tooth in the little pocket. Or, it can be a bad-dream-banisher -- write some happy thoughts or draw a happy picture on a piece of paper, fold it up and tuck it in the pocket, then take you Happy Dreams Monster to bed with you, and the bad dreams can't hurt you!

P.S. Did you see my blanket in the background of the first photo? That's the one that Kathleen sewed together for me on her serger. It is made from 16 squares of felted wool about 14" square, cut from old sweaters. I love to use it in the evening to cozy up with. Dad, do you see your old, rusty-orange sweater in there? That must be almost 50 years old!?

Halloween

Halloween kind of slipped by me this year. The boys dressed up in costumes they had already.

Here they are in their school costume parade.
Troy is the red and blue Spiderman, above, and Teddy is the black Spiderman, below.

They went out Trick-or-treating on Sunday night, and I stayed home and handed out candy. I didn't dress up, and neither did Pippa, so I didn't get to create anything. I love costumes and making things, so afterwards, I regretted not getting more involved. I've determined to make up for it next year . . .

Woolly Popos

I had a very crafty weekend! I spent the weekend with my sister, Kathleen, the talented designer and seamstress of KH Designs -- NO BOYS ALLOWED :)

We sent the boys with my dear H (hers was out of town) and we took the girls and went shopping and made sushi and did crafts. Kathleen helped me finish a warm, woolly, winter project, which I already used, and I can't wait to show. But even better, I photographed my current batch of Woolly Popos in her sunny window on Sunday morning. I have some great wool right now, with perfect Autumn colors:






This one has a little pocket on the back, which you can use as a tooth-fairy (or tooth-monster) pillow. My friend Catie gave me that idea. Isn't that great?

I just posted all these and more in my Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/shop/woollypopo

New York Trip

I promised a full report of my trip to NYC, so here it is. We took the MegaBus. This was our view from the front seats at the top of the double-decker.

The trip down was great.
I always get excited when I arrive in The City. The atmosphere is just . . . there's nothing like it.

We reserved a hotel room through Hot Wire, so we didn't know what it would be like until after we reserved it, but it turned out to be a boutique hotel called the Night hotel, which turned out to be really fun. Everything was decorated black and white and very Urban Gothic. Here is the view looking in to the room:

Here is a close-up of the wallpaper. I love the thistles:

This is the bed. It would have been romantic, if I hadn't been sharing the room with my BFF from tenth grade:

And the black-tiled bathroom:

After checking in, we went shopping in the Fashion District (the bead stores -- wow), went to the top of the Empire State Building and took pictures . . .

Then we walked to Times Square, shopping along the way, and had dinner at 10 pm (very New York).
On Sunday we went to the Guggenheim, and then down to Greenwich Village to visit Purl SoHo, shopping along the way (are you starting to sense a theme, here?). We had a fantastic lunch at an Indian restaurant in the NYU area, and took the subway back to the hotel to pick up our bags. Suddenly, it was late, and we had to run the 14 blocks to the bus station. We were toward the end of the line, so we didn't get seats together, so the trip back was not as pleasant. All in all, though, it was a relatively reasonable way to take a whirlwind tour of the Big Apple. I'll definitely do it again!

New House

Well, it's like new on the outside. Here are the pictures I promised.
We really like the color, and other people seem to like it, too.

The decorative molding shows up so much more, now.

And the greenery looks nice in front of it. Also, I didn't get a good picture of the foundation, but even the grey stone looks nicer now with against the contrast of the strong red.

Here it is in all its glory, our "little red house."

New York trip -- another sneak peak

My friend Penny visited from Vancouver last week. Over the weekend I took her to the City. I have lots to report, but here is a sneak peak: some of my loot from the great shops we went to. There are Day of the Dead skulls, plastic goldfish, a scarab beetle in clear plastic, and a few of the fabulous fabrics they had at Purl Soho. (I could have spent days just shopping for beads and fabrics!)