resurrection fern

Something to do while FLICKR is getting medical attention

So flickr is sick. We all send our best wishes for a speedy recovery but in the mean time I want you all to listen to the wonderful podcast of an interview with one of my favorite artists Matte Stephens here creative thursday. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed hearing Matte's voice and he has some wonderful stories and life experiences to share with us " makers of things" . If you catch the interview you will understand that last quote. Have a wonderful weekend . I will be in Ottawa spending time with my daughter.

Wild Turkeys : A Wildlife Management Success Story

I remember vividly my first wild turkey experience. We were living in a very old farmhouse just near the town where I have my practice. My daughter came running into the kitchen, flushed and breathless yelling " Mom come quick there is an ostrich on the front lawn." So I went running of course and saw the biggest bird I had ever seen outside of a zoo. It didn't look like an ostrich but I was a transplanted city girl so I thought maybe an emu escaped from a farm near by. I had never seen one of those up close. Turns out it was a wild turkey which at that time was still a protected animal in Ontario. In days gone by this area was teaming with wild turkeys among other things. Then in the early 1900's with all the lumbering destroying their natural habitats they became very scarce and were placed on the wildlife protection list. It was against the law to hunt them . Some new turkeys were introduced from our american friends and the population grew. Last data I could find said there were over 70,000 wild turkeys in Ontario now . They allow a small number to be hunted every year to manage the numbers. I was reminded of this when driving home yesterday from work I looked at a field a saw a gaggle of them . I don't know if that is what you call a group of turkeys but it seemed to fit. They wouldn't let me get very close to take their picture so I borrowed a close up off the ministry of natural resources web site.

They have nests but I have never seen one. I think I will go turkey nest hunting when the weather improves because this picture of their beautiful eggs really inspires me. Of course if I find one I will only take a picture . I would never disturb a nest .

What wildlife have you been fortunate to see lately?

Oscar Day and Bluenose Ghosts

I bet this title got your attention and you are scratching your head, struggling to think of the connection and no it has nothing to do with Johnny Depp or pirate movies. The connection is Halifax , Nova Scotia. Nominated for best actress and winner of last evenings Spirit award for best actress is Ellen Philpott-Page from who used to call herself a tomboy from Nova Scotia. She is from Halifax as are my mother's ancestors. So what does this have to do with ghosts? A few weeks ago I was doing a quick visit to the thrift stores and I always check for interesting old books. I found a copy of the book Bluenose Ghosts written by Helen Creighton .

This is a book I had seen as a child at our cottage and I remembered being told that some of our relatives are mentioned in it. It contains the folk tales and stories of a small island off the Halifax harbor called Devil's Island. In the 1800's there were only only two families on the island the Edward's and the Henneberry's . Thomas William Edwards was a fisherman and the second permanent settler to the island. I think he was my great great grandfather . The relative mentioned in the book was his descendant and may have been my great grandfathers brother . My mom is 91 years old now and can't remember the exact relationship but the island was only 27 acres so my guess is that everyone who lived there was related in some way. You can read the excerpt here .

There was a house on the island that was infamous for poltergeists and ghost sightings. Fires were always appearing there but things would never burn down or even feel hot. My relative John Edwards lived in this house and experienced these things first hand. The house was finally demolished but because there was a scarcity of wood on the small island some of the planks ended up being used in other homes and building and brought with them misfortune. I am sure most of you have heard about the six degrees of seperation theory. Simply put it means that any two people in the world are connected by a maximum of 6 interpersonal relationships. Since I have started this blog I have this to be true and that it really is a small world . I will give you an example. About a week ago Louise Murphy from Atlanta left a message on this blog saying she missed shopping at the thrift stores especially value village and frenchy's . Well the only frenchy's I know are in , you guessed it Nova Scotia. She used to live in Halifax and her sister lived in Dartmouth, beside Helen Creighton, the author of Bluenose Ghosts. Her house has been turned into a museum. I will have to visit it next time I find myself in the Dartmouth/Halifax area. Have a great Sunday evening and if you watch the Oscar's tonight look out for Ellen and Elsita Mora in the beautiful dress she made .

Sunny Grass Seed

Ontario has had record snow fall this winter. The snow came early and although there have been two brief thaws it looks like it will be winter here for a least another month. Although I love snow as any one who has looked at my flickr photos knows when the month of march arrives I want to see green. Today I decided to plant grass seeds. No , not that kind of grass, "sunny grass seed". At least that's what they called it at the Schomberg Supplies.

I am also planting cat grass, Black madras grass, pink pampas grass, cilantro, fernleaf dill, lavender, larkspur, icelandic poppies and bachelor buttons.

I hope to have some green grass growing in my kitchen by easter to be used for some special easter gifts.

How to make a simple knitted bunny

This is a tutorial on how to knit a very simple bunny. You will need some wool, needles , a yarn needle , embroidery floss, an embroidery needle, fleece for stuffing or some other stuffing material. First cast on 24 stitches and knit a square in stockinette ( that means knit a row and purl the next and continue in that manner) until the desired length and then cast off.

Cast on three stitches and knit an ear in what ever length you want . You can decrease at the top of the ear if you want or just gather the top stitches together before casting off. Knit the other ear. Now sew together each corner diagonally to form the legs. Sew up the seam about 3 cm.

Now stuff a little fleece into each of the legs being careful not to overstuff them.

Next make a small ball of fleece and insert this under the knitted piece between the front legs. Thread a piece of yarn and sew around the base of this ball so as to create the neck . When you have gone full circle pull the yarn to gather it slightly and then secure the ends and draw them inside the bunny.

Turn the bunny over and stuff the body . Again don't over stuff . Sew up the body lengthwise.

Now sew on the ears .

Then tuck the hind legs under the bunny and stitch to the body with a few stitches. Then you can also join the front paws if you want to with a few stitches. This is optional.

Make a small pompom out of wool and attach it to the bunnies back side

Embroider a simple face with embroidery thread and make a few whiskers with embroidery thread or yarn.

You are finished your first bunny. The grey one was knit with alpaca and the green one with the beautiful hand spun yarn from Cathy of novembermoon. This is the yarn from our February swap of homespun and the same wool that I used to make the rooster. Thank you so much Cathy. These bunnies would be wonderful additions to your easter baskets or spring decorations . You can add felt or fabric to the ears and make multicolored tails to jazz them up a bit if you want to. You can also make them in different sizes by varying the size of the square or the thickness of the yarn and needles.

caterpillar day

caterpillar day, originally uploaded by knitalatte11.

Today has been declared caterpillar day by elsita mora and this is my contribution to the event. Meet Oak the reversible caterpillar. Green on one side and grey on the other with a splash of yellow on his underbelly. the Oak caterpillar is the finest example of phenotypic plasticity . My daughter Bekki is home from university on reading week and is studying molecular ecology and genetics. If you are really interested I could ask her to explain what this means. Have a wonderful weekend . I hope to get better pictures of Oak tomorrow when the sun is out.

Thrift Store Rescues : Part 2 : Needlepoint

Part 1 was the crewel post in case you were wondering. Over the years I have rescued a number of beautiful unloved needlepoint pictures from thrift stores, most tossed in a pile with a bunch of old frames or linens if unframed. I have never paid more than a few dollars for any of these. I really appreciate all the hard work and many hours that went into making each piece. Needlepoint was very popular in the 16th and 17th century and involves pulling wool or another fiber through canvas in little stitches called tent stitches to make pictures and patterns. I think of it as paint by number with wool. I had no idea there were 3 types of tent stitches depending on the order of completion and each has its own purpose even though to the untrained eye they all look the same. I want to show you some of my collection.

This next one is an example of petit point and used embroidery floss instead of wool. I found two of these so I think they could have been made for chair covers or matching cushions. The detail is fantastic and I love the reverse side with all the threads . I left the price tag on it from value village . Yes that says 1.49 ! That probably works out to pennies per hour labour.

The last one is something that has been in my family for as long as I can remember and was a thrift store treasure my father found . You see I inherited my love for treasure hunts. It has always hung in our dining room as a reminder for us . It is a part of a biblical proverb that simply put means don't worry you are being cared for. Have a wonderful weekend and happy hunting.

Love and Chemistry

That is how it all began. Love at first sight in the organic chemistry lab. My future husband was performing what we science types call a "desk top extraction". What that really means is he was a klutz and spilled all his laboratory product all over the bench and then he was scraping the surface to see what he could recover so that he didn't get a zero on his lab report. That day I felt differently than I had ever felt in my life. Maybe it was the fumes but I think it was love.

Now it doesn't hurt that he was extremely handsome. Over the years people have told him he resembles a number of famous people. One day my daughter's boyfriend came over to our house and asked her why we had a photograph of Keanu Reeves on our wall. It was actually a photograph of my husband.

So what is the chemical of love? Scientists think it is oxytocin a peptide of nine amino acids released by the pituitary gland . It is released during hugging, touching , orgasm, giving birth and breast feeding. It is thought to be the most important chemical involved in the formation of human bonds and trusting relationships. Who would of thought chemistry could be so romantic? Happy Valentine's Day to my favorite protein chemist and husband of 25 years .

The embroidered molecule is oxytocin in case you didn't guess.

How to Make a Knitted Rooster

Before I start I want to tell you about a special swap I am doing with Cathy from the wonderful blog novembermoon. You see she and I both love to spin and knit and create colorful objects so we decided to have a monthly swap of home spun wool and make something out of the wool and then share it with each other and our flickr/blog friends. This was our first month and she sent me this beautiful wool spun with a spindle out of BFL roving. I thought this would make a beautiful rooster or cockerel so I set out to make one with a very simple pattern for the body. This amazing little square can turn into so many different birds and animals . I might share some more with you in the future if you let me know you are interested. For this rooster I cast on 28 stitches and knit each row until I had a square. The number of rows will vary with the wool and needles you are using but here it is 40 rows . Cast off.

Fold the square diagonally and then sew up the edges leaving a small opening on one end for the stuffing. I use natural carded wool for stuffing to stuff my wool animals. After stuffing firmly sew the open end shut.

Now thread the needle with a long piece of yarn and starting at the tip of the triangle make a running stitch up and over and down the other side back to where you started . Pull this running stitch so that it pinches the center of the triangle . This creates the bird shape.

Now choose which end you want to be the face and embroider a beak with a few yellow or orange stitches of wool or embroidery floss and an eye ( I used a dark brown embroidery thread and a french knot for this) . I made the crown and comb with red yarn and a crochet hook just making chain stitch loops and joining them to the main body. Three loops for the crown and 2 longer ones for the comb. These could also be made of felt or fabric and sewn on .

Next I made the wrapped wire legs. I am not very good at making these so I am not going to discuss the details since you probably can do a better job than me but the general idea was that I cut 4 pieces of craft wire about 4 inches in length and poked the 4 wires through the bottom middle of the rooster. I then wrapped each end with thin fabric strips for about a cm doubling over the ends so that it wasn't sharp . Then I joined them and continued to wrap each side until meeting in the middle. I stitched the ends of the fabric together so that it wouldn't unwind and also stitched them to the knitted undersurface of the rooster so that it held firm. I have no idea if this is the best method for this but it worked for me.

Now my attention was turned to the rear end of the rooster. You could substitute some colorful yarn here but I decided to use some of my fabrics for the tail feathers. I cut different sizes of feathers out of a number of fabrics ( liberty cotton, felt and japanese prints) , threaded a needle and just joined them all together into a little bunch and sewed them onto the end of the rooster.

He is all done now ready to usher in a new day.

This same method can be used to make hens and chicks . For those you don't need to make legs or tail feathers and so that they could stand I just sewed buttons on the bottom. For the hen I cast on 20 stitches and the little chicks 10. They are very quick and easy to make and would be great projects for children learning to knit. My children always found knitting animals more interesting than little blankets or scarves. They would make great additions to your easter baskets.

hear me whine about winehouse

I usually don't care the least for popular opinion or award shows but since my blog friendship with elsita I have become more aware of these cultural events. I don't understand how amy winehouse comes away with 5 grammies and leslie feist gets none. Feist and I go way back. Well at least a few years back when I first heard her sing and play guitar at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. I had never heard of her even though she lives in Toronto, about 30 minutes south of where I live. I was received a tip from a friendly manitoban working at starbucks in Winnipeg who heard I was on the way to the festival for the day and told me if I didn't see anything else I had to catch the Feist set. She was amazing to hear and I purchased her first cd for my daughter back home. She and I have very similar tastes in music and she loved it instantly. She had the pleasure of hearing her live the next summer at another folk festival in Guelph , Ontario and then her and her dad went when she played in Toronto last year. She is so talented but she is also naturally beautiful , down to earth and wholesome. She has never been expelled from school, arrested , abused drugs or alcohol or cut herself up as far as I know . She has been to rehab but it was voice rehab from voice overuse stemming from her days in a punk rock band and then broken social scene. She had a serious vocal cord injury and almost had to quit singing but then found a different way to express her musical talents . Well all I want to say is Feist we love you and I am sure you will win at the Juno awards ( the Canadian equivalent to the Grammies) and to amy winehouse please get some help and stay in rehab, yes , yes , yes.....