yums., originally uploaded by mintyfresh.

Hector did just the opposite of what I did this weekend. While he lazed around on pillows and groomed himself from Friday through Sunday, I worked and worked and worked, cutting and hacking away at loads of material, webbing and organized more plastic parts than I care to think about.

But the end result is good – a long line of camera straps, wrist straps, patchwork pieces, gocco screens and tea towels all waiting in a lovely (colour coordinated) line for their turn at the sewing machine or paper press. A sewing machine which after easily 30 hours of sewing in the last week, surely hates me fiercely at the moment.

For a change, though, I feel pretty good about ladyfest, which is my biggest show every year, and also the most fun – it’s a crafter’s reunion! I have my fingers crossed, my i’s dotted and t’s crossed in order to avoid the 3am Friday night finish that I’ve been known for in years before. This year? Smooth sailing! Hard work pays off, I hope, in hours of sleep gained. :)

meagre., originally uploaded by mintyfresh.

Ok, local Ottawans….it’s that time again!

The annual Ladyfest Christmas version of the Not Your Grandma’s Craft Sale happens next Saturday (December 6th) at Jack Purcell (off Elgin) from 10am – 5pm.

I will be there with SUITCASES full of goods, including some more random than usual items like wrist straps for your point and shoot camera, patchwork tea towels, necklaces of felted wool balls and more!

Come and say hello! And of course, get all of that pesky Christmas shopping out of the way, too!

letters from home, originally uploaded by mintyfresh.

60 years ago, my great grandfather in Scotland sent a letter, month after month, to my grandfather, who I never met as he died many years before I was born.

On a recent trip to Toronto, we discovered, among other things, this stack of letters that had been sitting, dust-covered for years and years.

Most of them were mundane, about girls (my great great aunts? someone’s sister?) picking berries, and the cost of passage to Canada by boat from Glasgow, but some were touching – letters from father to son, always signed “I remain, your loving father”. It makes me sad that modern society has forgotten about the art of letter writing – and the immense value letters have so so much later than when they’re written.