I’m heading off to the Sault again. I’ve got a copy of The Golden Compass to read, a few papers for my masters and the stats from all that wonderful data you generous folks gave to me!

I’m also printing something else out…

I’m finally starting Bubble! I didn’t have any worsted/aran wool to use with this and I’m still trying to stick to my stash diet, so I drove to Value Village yesterday and bought a pullover in a crimson colour. It’s cotton, which I don’t usually like to knit with, but I think it will be ok. I ripped, skeined and washed it last night, and it’s drying as we speak. Hopefully it will be dry in 4 hours when I have to leave!

I’m back to taking photos again, now that my mom is back from Europe (along with her camera). Here are a few I took for you guys:

Read the rest »

I love the final effect of this Flour Paste Batik, but I also love this image of the batik in progress. So much texture and contrast!

I came across Folding Trees a few days ago and then again today, which I’m taking as a sign that I need to subscribe to their feed! They’ve got a great tutorial for Printing Your Own Origami Paper and a bunch of great links that I’m saving on here so I can find them again if I need to:

• Colored paper and Japanese Paper from Origami Club
• Origami Papers from The Khans
• Canon 3D Papercraft

They’ve also got some other wonderful posts I’d like to link to! I like this Mini pizza box-style gift box, as well as this cute little Favor Bag. Most of all, I love these Lucky Star Ideas. When I was a kid, most of my friends were (culturally, if not by birth) from Hong Kong or China, so I learned how to make these bad boys pretty early and kept going and going for years. I didn’t have the special papers you can buy to make them, so I’d use the strips off the side of my dot matrix printer. (NERD + CHILD OF THE EIGHTIES = DOT MATRIX PRINTER! REPRESENT!) Every time I needed to print something, a few more stars would go into my bowl. So now I have at least a garland’s worth of stars, and I believe next Christmas we’ll have a new decoration to put on the tree! How do you say “Oh Tannenbaum” in Cantonese?

From seeing these Ceramics by Naomi Cleary I’m tempted to take everything I own and put it outside during a rain storm in the hopes that it will turn out just as beautiful. What do you think? Maybe I’ll do it for all but the laptop.

This Candy Hat is wacky and awesome.

The word “Trivet” is sort of sore for me, because the corpus for my Masters mysteriously doesn’t contain it. Of course, it does contain the word “kafferboeties” and “mooooooooooooooooooooo”.

Not “moooooooooooooooooooooo.”

Not “moooooooooooooooooooo.”

Just “mooooooooooooooooooooo.” I know! It’s hilarious. Anyhoo, I like these trivets, even if the word is trying my patience.

Register Here!

How would you use a $25 Amazon gift certificate? Any way you want! And you’ll have the chance to win one simply by filling out a quick questionnaire in under 5 or 6 minutes.

I’m looking for people (hopefully you) to answer some questions about household objects. There are 40 objects and it should take you only a few seconds for each one. If you can spare a few minutes to help me out, you’ll be entered to win a $25 Amazon gift certificate. I’m capping this contest to 20 people, so you’ll have a 1 in 20 chance of winning 25 bucks.

Quick note: If you participated in my previous Uses of Objects study, you can sign up on the site to be included in the contest, but please don’t respond to the questions because I can’t use your data. Thanks!

REGISTER HERE!

If you are knitting or have already knit a pattern that I’m talking about, leave me a comment and I’ll update my post with a link to your version. If you’ve written up a pattern and you want me to link to it, send me an email or leave me a comment and I’ll post it! It makes the list longer and my job easier.

• On the heels of the Slytherin Socks, Hurray Hufflepuff!
• Eva’s Shawl is pretty in crochet. Example here.
• Cyanne is more crochet! A pretty and colourful bed throw.
• Here’s a cute Happy Star Felt iPod Cozy, a Nintendo Perler Bead Coaster Set and Kimono inspired hoodie from Craftster.
• Here are some patterns I missed from DROPS fall 07/08. There are Felted slippers, Felted slippers in 2 threads, Texture knit mittens, Long socks with cables and folded edge, and Long jumper and hat in 2 threads.
• I’m dipping into the old patterns I never got to last year and was keeping for a dry spell! Knitting pattern designers, post more free patterns! Fortunately, the backup patterns are super cute. Here’s Pretty Miss Bubby and a Santa Helmet.

Paper Corner, 2002.

Read the rest »

I’ve never actually planted a garden let alone a tiny terrarium before, so I’m glad this Grow Your Own Miniature Garden tutorial from National Geographic comes with some plant recommendations: Moss and lichens, Miniature orchids (cool!), Baby tears, Begonias, Miniature ferns, Hepaticas, Spider plants, Wintergreens, Gloxinias, Small palms, African violets, and Coleuses. Great ideas! Via Craft.