Montreal Part Deux

These awesome Adirondack chairs were part of the street fair at the comedy festival. I thought, "This is an awesome photo-op!" Ann and Missy were less than enthusiastic. On the second pass I finally cajoled them into a photo with big blue chair. I found out at dinner tonight that I was quite the pain in the ass about it...moi? But hey girls, what did I tell you? Great photo, even if you wouldn't climb up and have a seat.

Good Girls Go to Heaven, Bad Girls Go to Montreal

...or so the t-shirts say.

Bonjourhello! It was time for the girls weekend. Ann, Missy and I jetted off to Montreal for a few days. We headed off for Canada to escaped the heat and humidty of Philadelphia, but of course we took it with us. Still it was nothing that couldn't be cured with shady decks and pitchers of sangria.

Montreal was a blast. We hit the International Fireworks Festival; gold and white weeping willow shells are my favorite. We went to see Dimitri Martin at the Juste Per Rire Festival and after wandered the street fair packed with performance artists, mini comedy venues and people playing games...pure fun.
We did the obligatory drinks at the Swelligan...ooops Nelligan, with the shi-shi people.

Best of all in Montreal were the men, oh my! Yes, they were short. But, heavens they were something to look at. I think the three of us agree that the award goes to Steve at Eggspectations where pancakes were served with a wink and a cheeky smile. We were three puddles in a booth. And of course a special mention to Sam at the desk of the Cantalie, who took flirtation to an all new level.

Yup, I think that Montreal is worth a second visit!

Studio Friday - Sidekick(s)

This week at Studio Friday, we were asked about the sidekick(s) that keep us company in our creative spaces. Well, these two have been the topic of previous postings for Studio Friday. But as an adoring adopted mom, I had to share more pictures of my babies, Artemis and Tosca.

My girls look a lot alike, but have very distinctive personalities. Artemis is the older queen bee of the household. She is way too smart for a cat and has a distinct talent for vengeance. My friends and I like to rile her up sometimes so we can get a good laugh over her growling hissy fits, she has quite a temper. She loves it when I quilt; nesting in all the cut pieces, using my lap frame as a kitty hammock, and having lots of doo-dads and spools of thread to casually push off the edge of the sewing table. Most fun, but slightly anxiety producing, is watching her daintily picking glass head pins off of the magnetic pincushion and dropping them back on, plink. She does not have much appreciation for knitting, although she has made off with several skeins of Reynolds Odyssey. Maybe she realized I was losing interest in the project and was saving me from the guilt of a UFO. But as I said she's a vengeful creature and she has gone to great lengths to get to projects and chomp off the yarn, just to show me that she is not too old or fat to get anywhere.

Tosca, aka Toscabelle, is the baby of the family. She is very petite and still has the impossibly soft coat of a kitten. She is the opposite of Artemis in temperament, relentlessly sweet, dumber then a stone, and truly able to leap tall buildings at a single bound (I suspect that she has been aiding Artemis in the stealing of skeins of yarn hidden in high places.) Tosca is a knitter! She loves to curl up on my lap while I knit and knead away at my knitting. I have seen her so enthralled with kneading a skein of slippery cushy yarn that she started to drool as she purred away. She never bites the yarn, just lays on it and kills the tension...sigh. Tosca's second passion is napping on the laptop...so what if my keyboard is jammed? It's so nice and warm.

I don't know if they do much for my creativity, and do tend to leave way to much of a hairy imprint on my work; but there is nothing better in a moment of stress than scooping up a warm sleeping kitty and burying your face in their fur.

Sock it to me...

...I don't think that this is what Goldie Hawn had in mind. Have to say that other than portability I have never seen the appeal of knitting my own socks. It is so much easier to pop into the Gap and pick up three pairs for $9. But, I am weak and susceptible to peer pressure. If all your friends were knitting socks, would you? Duh...

So, when Lisa from Rosie's announced that she would be teaching a "Toe-Up" class, I caved. And I started dreaming about socks.

On Sunday we gathered to knit socks from the toe-up. My knitting buds Sherry and Marissa were there, along with some other very nice ladies with sharp pointy DPNs. Only one other gal was a sock virgin.

Marissa and I picked the same colorway of Sockotta. Look Marissa...finally a blue stripe!!!!! Our skeins started in different places and it looked like we were knitting on different yarns. Her's was all blue at the beginning, no green; mine was all green, but I picked the yarn because of the blue.

This is the second start for this sock. My first attempt was too big and the stitches too loose. Now my stitches are fab, but the sock is still a wee bit big. Oh well.

My first toe is pretty, let's see how my first heel turns out.