Pain Pain go away.

So back i go to the doctors.  Back and forth to specialists and the hospital for blood work.  Scans, and meds and X-rays OH MY!  Thank goodness for Canada and it's medical system. 

Seems that we are now leaning towards believing it is Lupus i am dealing with and with a healthy dose of Fibro/Chronic Fatigue on top of it. 

The oddest thing happens however when you are dealing with pain and health issues... something that you wouldn't expect.  At least it happened to me.  I began to appreciate what i have health-wise moreso than i did when i was pre-fibro.  Even though i am not as healthy as i was back then, i am so much more grateful for every part of my life that i have. 

I have tried a lot of different medications to help deal with the pain and fatigue so far to limited or no success... some drugs made me feel so ill that i couldn't even take them long enough to see if they helped at all.  I want to introduce you however to the one thing that has helped tremendously!

This is the fabulous (and sleepy in this picture) Miss Stella Rosa-Bella the pug.  She is the newest member of the Square family. You dump a bundle of ridiculous pug puppy in your lap on a sore day and they warm your heart.  They make you laugh and they trigger the brain to release neuro-chemicals that are proven to make you feel better as well as actually be healthier.  Holding a sweet pup or a new born infant is better for your well being than almost anything there is.

So... be positive, be thrilled with every ounce of goodness you have around you and GO HUG A PUG!

Look Ma, I'm covered in paint!

Well world's tiniest fan-base... if you've been looking, you may have noticed i have been away for a long time. After being in some rather terrible pain and dealing with ongoing draining fatigue for months, my doctor and my specialist diagnosed me with Fibromyalgia. It's been quite the journey and i am just managing to dig myself out from under the weight of the past couple of months. I do truly apologize for the lapse... but i don't promise it won't happen again. When you are out of spoons, ain't much you can do about it.

Well finally, after a very busy fall and start to winter including but not limited to 3 of our 4 family members' birthdays, Christmas, New Years, a family visit and a massive flood that mucked our entire main level of our home 4 days before Christmas, i have been back in the painting saddle again.

This first painting was inspired by a dream about a dear artist friend of mine. It's called "Chrome is Painless" and is the first painting in my "Girls You Can't Have" series. It measures 12 inches across by 16 inches high and is painted in acrylic on stretched canvas.



The second in this series is called "Francine". This painting also measures 12 by 16 inches and is painted in acrylics on stretched canvas.


The third painting in this series is "Vilette" (pronounced Violet). Don't mess with her. She'll gut you like a fish. She is also on 12 by 16 inch stretched canvas.


And now for something completely different. In the summer after watching a marathon of Flight of the Conchords, i had the strong desire to make a Bret McKenzie doll. Life intervened and i had to take a hiatus from a few projects but i finally got around to finishing him off this weekend. He is made from mostly environmentally friendly materials and is hand-painted. I didn't make the to scale guitar that comes with him but i did paint his tiny Chuck Taylor Converse complete with gum on the sole of one shoe. He took me about 10 hours to make and stands about 18 inches tall.

Now i am going to do my utmost to be on top of crafting and painting, sewing and spinning and of course, updating. Peace out yo.

Halloween is soon upon us!

In celebration of my favorite day of the year, i am going to share with the interwebz my favorite spooky shops! I would also like to invite you all to check out the Etsy Owls Street Team's October challenge. You can vote for your favorite haunted hand made craft! There are some lovely items and spooky inspirations to get you in the Halloween spirit.

Speaking of which, i will top off all of this ghoulish goodness with a picture of a possible ghost taken by yours truly on Halloween 4 years ago. I have never shared this online before. MUAHAHAHAHA! The photo is completely unretouched and i am scanning it right from the photograph without any editing except resizing the perimeter.

As some of you may know, Etsy has groups of people who connect due to their shared beloved craft. I wanted to find just the right group but that proved difficult because i have no one dedicated craft. I sew, paint, knit, make art dolls etc. Then i discovered the Owls. It stands for Off the Wall Ladies. Well, those who know me at all know that's where i fit. Each month we encourage each other to new levels of craftiness and hold a challenge. This month, our challenge is in the celebration of Halloween. Please click through here to check out the awesome stuff and place your vote!

I am constantly in awe of the mad art skillz i see on Etsy. It is inspiring and makes me smile each day. Today i share with you some of my favorite Halloweeny items i have found.

First up... be warm and terrify!

Rubella is a hungry hat monster from a fantastic shop called FairlyEnchanted. Cozy, functional, monstrous!

Next up are two horrors for the price of one!

I particularly love these guys because they combine three of my favorite things... Sock monkeys, Circus Sideshow and Halloween! You can find these guys and other great treasures in the Etsy shop Trigo.

Feel like bringing a touch of Halloween into your wardrobe? You can with this rad dress from JamesAnthony.

I love Calavera. I also love this store so much i ordered a custom made skull mask from this store just for me!


PrayingforFall has lots of fun spooky stuff and takes custom orders too!

Now one thing i love almost as much as Halloween is Geeks. Both the Circus Sideshow kind and of the nerdy variety. Therefore it is natural that i should love this shirt.



Nontrendy has lots of other cool stuff too... or is it not cool. Don't ask me, i'm Square.

Now Halloween would not be complete without a touch of Zombified charm. This choker from Tianarutledge can make you appear to have a severed and reattached head... how cool is that?


And now as promised, the "ghost picture". This photo was taken at the Denman Mall in the West End of Vancouver BC Canada. I have no idea on the haunted status of the mall. My daughter and i were there on the afternoon of October 31st 2005 when i snapped this picture on film (not digital). Imagine our surprize when we got our pictures back! Denny the Denman Place Mall mascott was totally still when i took the picture so it's not a tracer from movement from his glove. Ironically enough, the two of them are standing in front of a liquor store with a large sign that reads "Spirits" right behind them. This photo is not retouched in any way other than to scan it into the computer and resize it smaller so that it doesn't take up the whole page. Tell me what you think!

Happy Haunting!

[ j ]

Great sewing machine company and more Halloween costume madness

I love to sew. I have been sewing since i was 7 when i got a battery powered sewing machine. My mother bought it for me hoping that i would take to it and keep busy while she was sewing. Little did she know, it only made me long for the power locked within her now 60 year old pale green metal monster Elna. That thing can sew through anything!

I would wait until i had the house to myself at 10 or so and thread up that Elna and off i would go. My crappy hot pink and purple toy machine taught me how to thread a machine so it fed the beast inside... and creativity was hatched from the deep recesses in my brain.

As an adult, i still have a penchant for old super heavy metal sewing machines and love my Old Faithful which is a 50 year old yellow Singer in a blue and white box. Old Faithful lived in a friend of mine's garage for some 30 years in the damp climate of Vancouver BC Canada where it rains more than it shines. That pup got plugged in and off it ran -- no sweat at all! All i really needed to do was Febreeze the box which smelled like mold. (worked like a charm on the wood too).

Sometimes i have found over the years that i hanker for a new machine. They have all these fancy features like one touch button hole makers and a multitude of stitches. This past January i caved to this covetous leaning and picked up a Brother CS 5000H. I couldn't believe the lightness of the machine. No back breaking labor to pick this sweetie up, i could tote it in one hand. I threaded her up and off we went on a journey of leaf and vine stitches, single touch button holing and a great interlock stitch that is virtually like a serger without the cutting blade. FUN!!

Alas, all this good sewing came to an abrupt end this weekend. The needle arm seized on me like a crocodile on a fried chicken. No efforts to free the arm would rectify the situation. I chalked it up to the affordability of the machine and the paces i put the poor thing through with my home based business. I figured i would go back to Old Faithful or need to buy a new machine for all those fancy stitches. It came to me that i should perhaps call the 1-877 number on the Brother website.

I gave them a call yesterday and was told that they are shipping me a brand new upgraded machine to my doorstep this week and all i have to do is ship the old broken machine back. In this day of "ain't my fault" companies that shirk any kind of responsibility for faulty products or low quality manufacturing, it is SO refreshing to find a company that backs up it's products with excellent customer service and reliability. I highly recommend a Brother sewing machine and know i will be dealing with them for any additional sewing machine needs.

Now for some new costumes recently made:

6 costume from Shane Ackers' Movie 9 above. Below, a toddler cobra costume requested in green and blue.




Here is a toddler Hedwig costume. Hedwig is the owl from Harry Potter. Requested with horns.



Here is a dinosaur costume based on the dino from the movie Toy Story.

Halloween Costumes Central... how may i help you?

Halloween is almost upon us again and i cannot be any happier. While i love the summer months, my natural pasty pallor, my October birthday and my morbid sense of humor has led me for most of my life to consider Autumn and Halloween the best time of the year. The smell of crisp leaves with a touch of frost in the Canadian air sets me all a'thrill.

I am the grown daughter of a Halloween obsessed costume maker and took up the gauntlet myself as soon as i lived on my own. I have been making costumes as a hobby for some 20 years now. I make all my patterns myself and just dive right into that pile of fabric.

Here is my charming little housefly son from last year.


Buzz buzz... don't want to shoo that fly away, he's too cute -- and he has a cookie!

My daughter has a penchant for sushi much like her mama. Here she is be-decked last year complete with wasabi cap and chop sticks. Much to her chagrin, most of the people in our rural neighborhood believed that she was a hockey puck... i guess you see what you know.



This is a terrible picture of a cute costume. This was made for my daughter when she was only 4. She was a real Reptar fan.


The next year, she was a metallic blue dragon. The body was scales with rippled blue lame scales down the belly and iridescent blue wings. The head piece fit like a hat.


Sometimes, waiting for Halloween is just too long. Here is the costume i made for my son when he was 1... just in time for Easter.


As many people who know me can attest to, i have a real love for sock monkeys. One year, i decided to be one for Halloween. Here's the costume. This sold on Ebay - used - for $200.oo.

When my son was one and a half, Fall was a cold time of year for a fair child with very little hair. This made an interesting idea boil forth in my mind. If he had no hair, could i make him a costume with hair? What kind of hair would i make? Well naturally, a POMPADOUR... Elvis has left the potty!


Another family obsession is pirates. Here is my dear daughter when she was 6 as a cute an cheeky pirate. Oh those buttons were so much fun... without a button holer on my sewing machine.



Below is a custom request for an Ewok costume i made just today for a friend's daughter... my son is a willing model.


Here's another custom order i made for this year's Halloween. It's Max in his wolf suit from Where the Wild Things Are. The person who ordered this will have fun rumpussing for sure!


I just revel in costume making. I take custom orders and make up as many costumes as possible each year for Halloween. If you would like to have me make you something, check me out via my Etsy store or leave me a msg. here. Cheers!

Happy Birthday Frida Kahlo!

Today is indeed the birthday of one of my all-time favorite artists, the wonderfully talented Frida Kahlo.

In celebration, the Etsy Owls Team (which i am a member of) and the Spanglish team have decided to join forces in a friendly contest honoring Frida. Various members of the two teams have come up with their own tributes and you can vote on which one you like the best.

There are so many fantastic entries! I was going to complete a painting i have started of Frida but alas, life got in the way and it's a really large painting so i will have to save that for another day.

Here is my entry...

Thanks Frida for all your genius in creativity, your perserverance in the face of suffering, and your fabulous eye for details. Happy Birthday Frida Kahlo!

The wooly experiments continue...

So, last post i wrote about my adventures into the world of spinning wool by hand with a drop spindle. I had tremendous fun and here is the final product after i had set the wool. Below that is an example of how the wool looks knitted up. Unfortunately, i don't really have enough to do much with but i plan on using this wool for some art dolls hair. In the first picture, the wool is still wet and the color doesn't really pop like it does in the dried and knit picture.


Now as i had promised, i was going to share my experience with DYING wool. It is extremely limited so don't look to me as offering you the gospel on the subject. As some of you may know, i have been a hair dresser for almost 20 yrs. There are some basic facts of hair and coloring that i figured would apply pretty well to dying wool. I had previously read about dying wool with Kool-Aid and had tried other ways of doing it to very unsatisfactory results. That's when my hairdressing experience kicked in.

The rule of thumb for hair is that HEAT and ALKALINITY open the cuticle layer (or the outside of the shaft of the hair) which allows color to be removed or deposited into the center of the hair. COOL and ACID will cause this same cuticle layer to close and trap deposited color within the hair shaft. I wasn't certain but thought it was a good bet that the same would apply to wool.

I took my pre-spun wool and immersed it in enough water to soak it but no more than what it would hold. I placed the wool in a microwavable glass bowl deep enough that the wool was completely below the upper edge. I donned my heavy duty rubber gloves and opened 3 packs of fruit punch flavored Kool-Aid. I sprinkled these liberally all over the wool as i fliped the wool over, making sure to not be too even with application as i wanted variations in the color. Then i placed a microwave safe saucer on top of the dish and placed the whole shebang in my microwave for 5 minutes on high. I checked on the wool at this point, careful not to burn myself -- really freaking HOT! I added just about 1/2 an ounce of HOT water at this point to keep the wool from drying out... i didn't want a fire. I then returned the wool back into the microwave for another 5 minutes.

When complete, i took the wool out of the dish and placed it carefully on a sheet of waxed paper to keep my counters clean and then let the wool cool down. Once it became cool enough to be close to room temperature, i immersed it into a clean sinkful of cool water that i had added about 1 ounce of vinegar to. Carefully, i swished the wool about and noted that very little of the color was coming out. Once i was satisfied with this, i emptied the sink and rinced the wool carefully in cool water once more and straightened it out on a white towel to dry. There was virtually zero color transfer to the white towel and this is how the color turned out with the wool when it dried!


Some parts are a very bright rich red and some are a softer pink. I don't think these pictures really do the wool justice. I am now looking forward to trying this with more colors... PLEASE don't try this method on your own head though... heads are not made for microwaves.

A beginner's adventure in drop spindle spinning

I mentioned in my last post that i recently acquired a top whorl drop spindle from fellow Etsian MaineWoodsYarn. I also promised to elaborate on my newbie spinning experience.

Wool is a beautiful thing. I, like many other knitters and crocheters, can be stopped in my tracks by a well stocked wool shop. I can spend an hour or two just browsing and touching -- i have to touch almost every item in the store. As a kid, i crocheted with whatever yarn was passed my way or that i could find at a local bargain center and therefore was always playing with crappy acrylics. While acrylics are quite fun when it comes to painting and serves a certain utilitarian service in amigurumi or items you need to wash alot, it really can't shake a stick at natural fibers. Alpaca is so soft and beautiful. Bamboo has natural antibacterial properties and a lovely sheen. Wool is like a miracle material being strong and warm, water repellent and yet absorbtive as well. Cottons give you the opportunity of wearing knits even in the summer.

I have long lusted after the knowledge of spinning. I held spinners in the same category as mystic conjurers, falcon trainers or high school teachers. They must posess some magic power to do all that they do... a power that i do not posess.

After doing a little reading here and there over the course of the last couple of months a new seed began to sprout in my brain... one that had a little voice of it's own stating "spinning isn't that far away, reach out and spin!" The Eureka moment came when i discovered a web page talking about drop spindles. More research took me to this great video tutorial on Youtube. I took the plunge and bought my top whorl spindle. How fantastic to not need a whole spinning wheel! (i wouldn't however rule that out down the road though :D )

This brings us to today. I eagerly await the mail with hungry eyes wondering what Etsy treats i have coming my way. Today i recieved my package from HeartstringsbyDee... five fantastic goober buns of roving in fantastical hues. I ripped open those packages and ran for my spindle. I put on my leader line, sent the men upstairs and plonked myself down on my kiddy finger smeared couch. *note to self, rent steam cleaner* Here below you can see three of these roving bundles draped smooth prepped for my spinning endeavor.
Here i am carefully feeding and blending the rovings in to the drop spindle... well, i paused to take the pictures since i don't have three arms and it takes two to spin.
You spin the spindle down your thigh with the opposite hand while stabilizing and feeding the rovings into the top of the spindle. As you work, you gradually move your feeding hand further up the roving away from the spindle. You have to be careful not to over twist or over or under feed your spindle but other than that, it's easy peasy. When you have a nice long spun strand (i find i like to stop when my hands are spread the full arms length) you "park" the spindle between your knees or thighs and unhook your recently spun yarn. Carefully, you wrap it around the lower stick part of the spindle and then bring the last inch of it back up and under the hook and you are ready to spin some more. Take care not to wrap too much around the base right below the disc or too much near the bottom of the stick or you will run into problems, either running out of stick to spin down your leg or no room to spin at the top.
Below is the finished spun wool. I will unwind it carefully around a rectangular block of wood i use and immerse the wool in very warm water and then blot it carefully out. This "sets" the spin. This is a basic spinning technique and you can repeat the whole process on the other leg for a double ply by spinning in the opposite direction but i will not be attempting this any time soon.

I love this wool and can't wait to knit it up in something. It is a nice strong thick and thin chunky mix in various shades of pinks and reds with purple, black and aubergine accents. Fine metalic red threads and silks run through it. Lovely rovings means no dying... that'll be another project day for miss Jane.

And more with the fun fur...

I think if i keep sewing this fun fur stuff i'm going to develop a hairball.

My awkward bunny sold to a dear friend of mine who is also a repeat customer... (love ya Nic!)
Nic also ordered a custom girl bunny... i love how she turned out... i just want to hug her and hug her. Her pinafore is fully reversible and i got to use my new Square [ j ] Jane labels i bought and absolutely love. If you are in need of nice affordable labels, check out Rememberwynn on Etsy. Fantastic and easy to work with, she helped me through the process and got the tags to me super fast too.

The eyes i've used on my awkward bunnies series have all come from another Etsian and fellow Owl member Chezmichelle at Sun Catcher Eyes. They are the easiest safety eyes to use and so pretty too.



I am working on a furry fish with legs right now too and will finish him off tomorrow.

I Just got this fantastic worry journal in the mail for my wonderful albeit slightly fretful daughter. So adorable and fun to use! Click on the monster below to check out Spiderbite's boutique on Etsy.
Recently, i have also crossed the line from random crafter to insane hard-core crafter by spinning my first ball of wool. I found a wonderful and affordable top whorl drop spindle from Mainewoodsyarn on Etsy... I highly recommend them. More on these wool spinning shenanigans later.

UPDATE: As promised, i finished up my Darwin fish... i present to you, MURDOCH.