I got my order of Bullseye odd-lots today - Peach Glaze, Wild Mulburry, Sand Dune, Neo-Berry Shift, Dark Blue Adventurine (sparkly), and Pebble. Glass colours are almost as much fun as hand-dyed fabric and threads.

St. Petersburg Update

Here's the cross stitching in Part 1 of St. Petersburg.

Catching Up....

Questions and comments:

To MissyAnn - thanks for letting me know you bought your first peyote stitch kit - hope you enjoy it!

To Trixie - I think making beads is pretty easy, but I have to admit that I wasn't thrilled with the beads from my first attempt. I was lucky that I had some good resources and teachers when I first started out. Beads like the bracelet beads, which are pretty much just small even beads are actually pretty easy to make.

The Recipe:

Apple Pie a la Easy

Caramel Sauce:
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
2 T. Corn Syrup
Pinch of Salt
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 T. Dark Rum
1/2 stick unsalted butter
1 t. vanilla extract

Pie Crust:
1 round purchased pie dough
1 T. butter, melted
2 T. coarse sugar, such as Sugar in the Raw

Apple Filling:
1 T. unsalted butter
2 Braeburn Apples, peeled, cored, thin sliced
1 Granny Smith Apples, peeled, cored, thinly sliced
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/4 t. cinnamon
pinch of salt
1/2 cup of apple juice or cider

To assemble:
Vanilla Ice Cream

For Caramel Sauce:
Boil sugar, water, corn syrup and salt in a saucepan over medium-high heat, swirling occasionally. Cook until caramel is the colour of iced tea, 10 minutes. Add cream and rum, whisking to combine. Off heat, whisk in butter and vanilla. Transfer sauce to a bowl to cool.

For Pie Crust:
Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees; line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Unroll pie dough onto prepared baking sheet, brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar. Using a pastry wheel, cut dough into 12 wedges and bake until golden and crisp, about 15 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside.

For Apple filling:
Melt butter in a non-stick skillet over medium heat, add apples, raisins, cinnamon, salt and saute until apples begin to soften, about 4 minutes. Add juice, simmer until nearly evapourated, then add 3/4 cup caramel. Reduce heat to low and keep apple mixture warm.

To Assemble:
Arrange 1 crust wedge on each of 6 plates, then top with 2 small scoops of ice cream and a spoonful of apples and caramel sauce. Place a second wedge on top with more ice cream and apple mixture. Serve immediatley.

Thanksgiving Dessert

This is Cuisine at Home's "Apple Pie a la Easy", which I made for Thanksgiving dinner on Monday. The pie crust is cut into wedges and baked, and the apples are pan-fried with apple juice, raisins and caramel sauce. All in all, it was easy - I only had to peel 3 apples, and I didn't have to fuss with trying to make sure that the pie crust wasn't soggy.

St. Petersburg progress

This is about 2/3 the way through the first of 12 sections. It doesn't show up much in the pictures, but it's going to be really sparkly.

The Weekend

Its been nice to be home for 4 whole days. Today is a public holiday in Canada, and I took Friday off from work. And I've pretty much done nothing this weekend except stitch, cook, eat and go to the gym. It's been a busy year - I feel like I've continually been in an airport or in a meeting since about January, and it's nice to have a couple of days to get the tightly wound springs in my life unwound a bit.

I did manage to:
- Get my hair cut
- Have 2 Thanksgiving Dinners
- Watch an entire season (Season 4) of Grey's Anatomy
- Go to 3 spinning classes, which will go a little way into making sure that some of the calories from the dinners get burnt off
- Stitch on Egyptian Garden and St. Petersburg
- Re-arrange the blog layout

Updates and Turkey Day

Here's where I'm at with Egyptian Garden and Le Epoche Nouveau. I'm quite enjoying both, and am glad that the long weekend has provided some stitching time. To everyone celebrating this weekend - Happy Thanksgiving

There and back again....

It's been quite a couple of weeks! Along with everything else that's going on in my life - I decided to take the jewellery class again, and I finished up a bracelet that I was working on last year. It still needs to be polished, but I'm happy with the way that it turned out. I made all of the small beads, plus the 4 metal charms and the chain on the bracelet, so it ended up being quite a bit of work. On the other hand, I like the fact that I know how to make chain and clasps now.

Thanks for all of your kind comments on my blog - it's nice to know that I have some readers around, even if I post less than I would like too!

Has it really been 3 weeks?

It's been quite a couple of weeks - and it doesn't feel like it's been that long since I last blogged. I sent Barbara a Pay-It-Forward gift earlier in the month - I'd put out the offer ages ago, and it's taken me some time to finish everything, but I'm fortunate that she liked the gift.

I also managed to get up to the glass studio for some beading time. I wanted to make a blue and silver bracelet, so many of the small beads will find their way into that. I also finished a couple of buttons - I think the Christmas themed one will be nice in the centre of a biscornu, so I'll have to get busy with my Christmas stitching!

Awards and Progress

Glenda was kind enough to nominate me for the "Brillante Blogger Award", which I appreciate. I do love reading lots of other blogs, and I think most of those that I read have already been nominated, so I won't name any additional blogs at this time. I received this award from another reader as well, but can't for the life of me find their comment to acknowledge them. I do appreciate all of the readers and comments though!



In other news, I finished one Pay it Forward gift last night, and am hoping to have the other one done by the weekend. I also finished decorating one additional bag for the Purses for Africa group. It's slow progress some days, but at least there's progress!

Egyptian Garden Update

This weekend was the annual fruit and vegetable sale at the local historical park, and I have to admit that I went a bit overboard. I picked up some pears, peaches, oranges, strawberries, green beans, chard, watermelon and red and yellow peppers! It was a welcome treat, as I was away last week and hadn't had a chance to get many vegetables.

I managed to get a bit more time in on Egyptian Garden - its coming along well, and I'm really enjoying working on it.

And the winner is .....

Congratulations Susan! You're the winner of the buttons - send me your address (caycay at shaw dot ca) and I will send the buttons out to you!

I also received the Candy Exchange back from the lampworking website I read. The exchange was to create beads that were inspired by candy. I sent 5 little gummy bears, plus gummy beard candy and received the following in exchange:

I love great hotels....

The one I'm at this week has glasses of wine and beer after work and cookies and milk before bedtime.....

I'll draw for blog candy on Friday, so please add your comments to the previous post if you'd like to be considered.

Progress and Blog Candy

I was busy this week finishing up two purses for a charity project. They have people to knit and crochet, but often get items that need a bit of help to make them special. I put beads on two bags this week - the blue one has little glass buttons that I made and the purple/brown one has a couple of things from my bead stash on it.

I ended up with a few of the green and blue buttons left over and thought I'd offer them up as blog candy this week. I haven't done much blog candy this year because I've been behind on gifts that I promised, and need to get them caught up. But since the buttons are finished, and aren't really much of a gift until they're put on something, I thought I'd offer them as blog candy.

If you'd like to receive the buttons, please leave a comment on this post, and I'll draw from all of the comments on Friday night. It doesn't matter if you're a regular visitor or this is your first viewing of my blog, all comments will be entered.

On the buttons - they are 100% glass, and would prefer to kept away from kids and pets. The do have quite a large shank on them, and so are perfect for attaching to something with some depth - a biscornu or knitted/felted bag, for example.

China 2005 - Part 5 - Conclusion

Here's the last lot - thanks to everyone who's left comments saying that they enjoyed the pictures - it was a great trip - and I enjoyed taking them.

I'm planning on putting blog candy up tomorrow, so stay tuned. I haven't this year, largely because I've been busy, and I should have been working on a couple of gift that I haven't yet got done. But I have something (super-cute) that isn't really gift worthy on it's own, so I thought I'd put it up for blog candy......

China 2004 - Part 4 - Beijing and Great Wall

China 2004 - Part 3 - Xian and Beijing

China - Part 2

Memories of China - Day 1

I visited China in September 2004, Almost 4 years to the day before the Olympics. All of the Olympic coverage has brought back a ton of memories. China was such a different place to visit - it was becoming modern at such a rapid pace, and you could see construction in almost every form as we traveled throughout the country. I remember how quickly foreign things became familiar too - when we first received green tea - with it's loose leaves floating in a clear, tall glass, it seemed very odd, but by the end of the trip was normal.

More Olympic Stitching

I've been stitching a lot lately - largely because there's so much Olympics on. I figured I'd try a rotation in order to get a bit of work in on a couple of pieces that have been too long ignored... So, without further ado, here's Twilight of the Tsars (Dimple's Designs)

LEN Update

I managed a bit more progress on La Epoche Nouveau (Dimples Designs). I started this back in 2000, and then restarted it a couple of years ago. I'm much happier with it now, and am glad to be making some progress on it again.

9 weeks until the next hockey season...

But still 15 more days of Olympics.

I realized I'd posted the wrong progress pic on Egyptian Garden, so here is the latest version. I've also got a picture of my two latest bags to raise money for African AIDS relief. Someone else has knitted the bags, but I had been given the bags to "decorate" as the plain bags were a little less than interesting. All of the bags that I've been given have been challenges - slightly off colours, or with lots of colour, like these ones. It's very challenging to pick decorations that enhance the bags without being way too much.

Egyptian Garden Update

I worked a bit on Egyptian Garden this weekend - here is my progress...

How people find my blog....

Thanks for all of the comments on Pyra - I've started to make the glass fringe for the end of the pouch, and should have pictures up shortly.

I also went to the glass studio for the first time in a long time yesterday - mostly to complete the beads for a couple of purses which will be eventually sold to benefit African AIDS relief. They have several people knitting or crocheting purses, but some need a bit of sparkle to add to them, so I've volunteered to "accessorize" some of the purses with beads and stitching.

I'm always amazed at how people find my blog - here are a couple of the recent searches that have directed people here:

- soccer slider beads
- Star Wars beads
- house necklace
- St. Petersburg bead stitch
- The little watchmaker
- Twilight button blog candy

Pyra's Done!!

I finished the last of her beads tonight! Of course, she still needs a strap and some fringe at the bottom, but the little tiny seed beads are done!

The Freecycle Report

I've been freecycling lately in an effort to get some things out of the house. I had 9 lots on offer this weekend to those who'd come to my place and pick them up. The items on offer included a desk, clothes, coats, games/puzzles, books, an air mattress, cookie cutters and some cookbooks. I've now had everything picked up except the desk, and I half suspected that I'd end up tossing that, as it's from IKEA, and not really the best quality. I'm glad the items have a new life and a new home - I could have organized a garage sale, but I'd still likely be left with something left-over, and I'd have to go to all of the trouble to organize and advertise the garage sale. Somehow it's just nice that something in the world are still free too - even if you have to go collect them.

My Rant of the Day

I've noticed the following disclaimer show up on my bottled water within the last couple of weeks:

"Not a significant source of saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, fibre, sugars, vitamin A, vitamin C or iron"

It's water - just plain water.... how much fat did you expect to be in there?

Egypt Garden Update

I managed to get a little bit more done on Egypt garden - here is the progress on this one.

There and back again...

I've been travelling again - it was nice to get out of town for a little while, and I got to see a dear friend who's moved. It was nice to catch up with her again, and we managed to catch a yoga class, which was interesting given that it was extremely hot and humid where we were. I don't think I've been that sweaty in a long long time.

I've been working on "decorating" a couple of bags for a local organization. The bags were knitted and crocheted by others, but needed a little something to help them out, so they asked me to add some embelishment to them. I used a form of japanese fabric folding, called tsumami, to make the flowers, and added some beads on to other bags. They will be sold in the fall to raise money for African AIDS victim's families.

And I'm back....

The Calgary Stampede takes over the city this time of year - 10 days of rodeo, chuckwagon races, fair food, and western wear. I love that the whole city gets into the Stampede, and puts on their best cowboy boots and western hat to enjoy the fair. There's also fireworks each night, which I can see from my balcony. Someday, I will not live here, and will miss this.

I've also been working away at a few things. I joined a "candy" exchange on one of the glass BB's, and created little glass gummy bears to exchange. I started St. Petersburg mandala from Chatelaine (I just couldn't stay away from this one), and I managed to get a little bit more done on Pyra.