Notes from the East Side

Like Irmi it seems that life has been kicking my butt as well and has prevented me from posting in a really really long time.



Since my last post it seems we've managed, yet again, to lose another podcast recording...I'm beginning to think this is the Fates telling us the Internet is just not ready for the two of us...at least not in audio form.



This weekend was the East Vancouver Culture Crawl (Nov 20th, 21st, and 22nd), a yearly event when artists from East Van open up their studios to Christmas shoppers and sell their various wares. http://www.eastsideculturecrawl.com/ I went a little wild buying stuff this year but you know...this only happens once a year so what the heck!



I bought a beautiful Gailan Ngan bowl: http://www.gailanngan.com/, a Jessie Turner ring: http://www.jessieturner.ca/, a Grace Lee necklace: http://www.eikcam.com/ and last but not least a Carny Love dress (which I got on sale...jealous!?!) http://www.carnylove.com/. Culture Crawl is great way to support local artists, so for those of you that missed Culture Crawl this year I highly recommend you attend next year. The only unfortunate part of the Crawl is the weather. This year ,we had deluge of biblical proportions on the Friday night and then all day Saturday, I guess it's the price you pay for having an outdoor event at the end of November in Vancouver.



Irmi and I thoroughly enjoyed our Culture Crawl experience, except for one of the vendors who started waxing poetically about knitting and how it was a dying art...ummm apparently someone doesn't have access to a computer or for that matter to Ravelry.



Well it's about 75 days, give or take, until the Olympics. I'm so sick of the Olympics that every time a commercial comes on I either turn off the TV or press the mute button. This does not bode well particularly since I still have another nauseating two and half months of 'Rah! Rah! Olympics!' to endure. Ugh!



So what's on my needles right now. I'm knitting up a scarf using Araucania Yarn 'Ranco Multy' and a pattern from Summer 2008 'Spin Off'. I'm also still working on shawl in Aegean blue Fleece Artist wool, I don't remember what the pattern is called, sorry folks. I also knitted another scarf from a pattern in my Estonia lace book using my own spinning wheel spun white Merino...it's been a very productive couple of months.



I took a Maiwa Symposium workshop on felting. So much fun! I learned about felting basics, 3D felting and Nuno felting. Maiwa always has the best workshops. A few years ago I took a natural dyes workshop and learned so much about the production of dye stuffs and the effect of commercial dyes on the environment. I highly recommend any of the Maiwa workshops but they can be very expensive and difficult to get into. If you want a specific workshop you need to sign up the first day as soon as registration opens. http://www.maiwa.com/symposium/index.html



Okay I think I've included enough for one post. I hope everyone has a great week and to my American friends have a wonderful Thanksgiving!