Bruno and Philippe

That's the thing with handmade items. They still have the person's mark on them, and when you hold them, you feel less alone. This is why everyone who eats a Whopper leaves a little more depressed than they were when they came in. Nobody cooked that burger. --Aimee Bender

I've been a bit slow with posting recently. I took the last two weeks off and I've been trying my best to savour them and to not fall into the trap of letting the "to-do list" reign over my time off. It did feel good to get a few things done in the garden and around the house that I'd been putting off for ages, but I tried as much as possible to sit around and drink cups of coffee and watch tv. Seriously, that's the life.

We did get away for a couple of days to Victoria for a change of scenery. Even though we've been so many times, we did manage to find a couple of new spots to explore. I think my favourite was Azkhabi Garden, a tiny little garden hidden in the neighbourhoods near Oak Bay. We drove past it a couple of times before we found it. It was worth a peek:





I also have been a bit slow in posting because I had been working on a couple of secret gifts for a friend of mine who is expecting twins. I was able to give them to her yesterday, so it's a great relief to finally be able to share them because baby gifts are always so darn cute.

May I introduce Bruno and Philippe:


For some reason, Bruno's trunk is longer than Philippe's and I did briefly consider trying to fix it, but the longer I thought about it the more I realized how ludicrous it was to try to give a little elephant a nose job. They're both still darn adorable.

They're adorable from the back as well. Geez, look at those bums:


I also made a couple of small blankets with my sewing machine. I reasoned that it would be faster and easier to sew a couple of blankets than to knit or crochet them. This, I learned, is not true. It was indeed faster, but you know what is not easy? Cutting fabric in straight lines. Holy moly, never doing that again:


The patterned side is a jersey knit/sweatshirt fabric. The back is t-shirt jersey. And while I found it a challenge, they are both lovely and soft and cozy:


I haven't made baby gifts in a while, and these might be the cutest I've ever made:


I was so focused on the gifts that I neglected to think about how I was going to give them away. I rummaged through my drawers and the best I could find was a paper bag that was branded with a shop name on the front. I thought that was a bit crappy, so I pulled out some watercolours and pens and made a label to cover it up. I love an excuse to play with watercolours:


It worked out pretty well:


So now, I am freed up to work on this sweater experiment that I'm working on with some of my hand-dyed yarn. As mentioned in my last post, I thought the two balls of grey yarn were the same colour, but it was only when I started working with the second ball that I noticed how much darker it was. I'm still going with it, but I'm not entirely sure I like it, and when that happens I either work really fast to get it over with or really slowly because I am unwilling to commit. This time, I'm kind of doing both: quick spurts of many rows followed by long stretches of just standing there looking at it. I did order more of the lighter silver grey, so I think I might switch back it is once I get through the main body, but we'll see how it all goes:


One thing I am noticing is that when I look at the wrong side of the fabric, the colour changes appear to be gentler and more mellow. When you turn the wrong side of stockinette stitches into the "right" side, you call that reverse stockinette. I used to feel like reverse stockinette garments were just sweaters that were inside out, but I'm warming up to the idea with this sweater. I keep changing my mind about which side will end up being the right side. I guess we'll see how it all shakes out in the end:



Meanwhile, I'm off to savour my last day off before I go back to work. I'm off to enjoy what sunshine we have left. Have a good week!

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