Do you like loose tea or bags, or both – something you want to try?
I like both. For the convenience I like tea bags. In the morning I have Tetley tea bags. But when I’m looking for a treat, I like making loose tea. But if I had to pick – I’d probably choose bag.

What is your favorite kind of tea (Brand, flavor, variety, etc)?
Tetley Orange Pekoe is what I drink most often. Easy, quick, cheap… and I don’t feel guilty if it gets cold. Some kind of English Breakfast is my favourite overall.

Favorite color in regards to tea or one you would like to try? (black, green, red, and white).
Black. I drink black tea. I love black tea. Black tea with fruity flavours is nice, a creamy-flowery-Earl Grey is nice too. I love trying different black tea blends. I don’t have a favourite “specialty” tea. I only drink herbal occasionally.

Would you say you were a tea pot kind of person or just a hot water heater kind?
Both. Usually I make myself tea by the cup, but sometimes I have a tea pot. I bought this adorable little Tea For One set in England. I love how many cute accessories can go along with tea pots! I find knitting tea cosies is very fun – my sister has one that matches her apartment in Germany.

What tea accessories would you like but have never purchases for yourself?
I’ve always wanted one of those individual/one cup, loose-tea-steeping, personal-pot things. My loose tea strainer ball thing is too big to fit into my Tea For One pot. Or today I saw like a tea-strainer-ball but it’s on a stick and it’s just for a single cup. Now I reeeally want to buy that.

How do you prefer to be pampered? (examples: mani/pedi, bubble bath, yummy treat, etc).
CSI, a nice home-cooked (vegetarian) meal, and good company.

If you were a kind of yarn what would you be and why?
Either 100% cotton or some sort of alpaca blend. I’ve recently fallen in love with amazingly soft natural fibres… I’m pretty much converted from acrylic (started there for prices).

If you had to knit/crochet baby booties, a fun fur scarf, or a fair isle sweater, which would you choose and why?
A fun fur scarf, but definitely not for myself. I babysit some girls across the road that would probably love something like that. I enjoy gifting my knitting, although I’m not very fast/advanced.

What other event would make you skip a tea party? (A garden party? A book club meeting? A yoga class? Opening night for a new action thriller? etc?)
Getting to see my boyfriend (we’re long distance). Or a birthday party – I think that birthdays are very important and not to be missed!

What treat would you consider essential at your tea party? (Sweet? Salty? Scones? Those petite pastry trays with a couple of all sorts of things? Little crust less sandwiches?)
Egg salad pinwheels! I don’t like overly-sweet treats so scones or light pastries are perfect.

When buying yarn for a project how do you choose – do you buy the one called for or do you substitute?
I tend to do it the other way around – I buy yarn and then find a project to go with. But recently I’ve been browsing the natural fibres (cotton and alpaca) at my LYS… and I want to knit yummy fuzzy warm throws and scarves and shawls for everyone!

What do you carry your knitting/crocheting in when on the go?
Usually just a scarf that is easy to pick up & put down so that I don’t miss any important steps.

Favorite movie (thing) to watch while knitting/crocheting?
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Las Vegas)!

Are you a traditional tea cup kind of person or a mug type of person? Do you care if they match?
It’s mugs in my house. All of mine are souvenirs or gifts. My mom’s are matching — green with bamboo… but I like the generic mug shape; one day I will have a matching set of generic-mug-shaped ones.

Favorite childhood birthday party?
Rented a trampoline and put it in the backyard.

Favorite type of scone and jam?
Plain with raspberry jam and devonshire cream.

If you use candles, what is your favorite scent?
I don’t like scented candles because I find they are too strong-perfumey. I burn unscented tea-lights. I also burn natural scents in my diffuser. I really like the fresh scent of this Lemon Oil I have. I also have a Lavendar (but I only like that in small doses). I like most/all citrus scents.

If you could choose 3 people to have ‘tea’ with, who would they be and why? (famous or not, living or dead).
My best girl-friend Anna (who introduced me to The Secret Tea Garden). My boyfriend Craig (because we’re long distance and any excuse to see him is a good one). And my nanny (my father’s mother – she passed away when I was 7 and my dad said she loved to knit).

You’ve been invited to a tea party, what ‘props’ will you wear (formal or casual)?
Probably just a cute skirt and a matching top. Maybe a scarf to tie my hair back.

Any allergies/preferences you have or are willing to admit to?
I’m a vegetarian. Sensitive skin – can’t handle SUPER perfumey stuff, a little is fine.

Anything we missed that you want your pal to know?
Favourite colour – blue. Favourite yarn colour – cream.

Have you ever been stuck in an emotional rut and just not known how to get out?  I don’t want to talk to a professional because I don’t think this really needs to go that far, but I’m looking for suggestions.

The problem is that the person I would go to is my boyfriend (and best friend) and I’m sure he’s had enough of my over-sensitive upsetness. I feel like I just need a change… but I’m so scared to. I know I have a commitment to school for the next two week – and I skipped out last week because I was ahead of schedule, but I want out.

I’ve always wanted to spend my summers with Craig, and he’s out at camp… so I’m really thinking that this is my main problem. We only get a few months together, and I have to be in school.

I’m thinking of moving to England sooner than planned. I don’t care what type of job I get at the moment – in fact, I think I need something that isn’t high-stress. I’m quite an emotional and high strung person, and I don’t think I can handle a stressful job right now. I think I might be happy in retail or secretarial work.

Sorry for the absence. Not just related to Harry Potter (which I finished Wednesday)… but I was having a rough week so I decided to go out to camp for the week. I know they were short staffed so I offered to work in the kitchen with Janet.

Next week is a short week at camp so it’s only Monday to Friday (instead of Sunday to Saturday). Tomorrow is my 2 year anniversary with Craig. Then, Monday is his 20th birthday. It should be a good weekend!

I won’t be online much for the next week. I’ll be busy reading and I don’t want to encounter any spoilers. One of the campers already told Craig a bunch of “key events” when she came for check-out on Saturday. We stopped at Costco on the way home to pick up our copies… and I refused to listen to ANY spoilers. I want to read it at my own pace. Enjoy the book everyone!

Vacation Swap

Leah and Jane C. tied at winning Blackout Bingo. Here’s my card:

In other news, I’ve bought the yarn for my Secret Pal and I’ve knitted up a swatch for them. I also bought a pattern that calls for the exact yarn I got them. I’m a bit worried and quite nervous because the yarn they like is a little out of my price range, so I thought I’d give my Secret Pal something different to try.

Earrings

I made these earrings for Craig’s Aunty Janet. Her birthday was July 9th, but she just arrived in Canada last Friday. Her favourite colour is green and the crystals are Swarovski. I thought that the gold accented it nicely.

I buy most/all of my supplies from Country Beads here in Vancouver. My sister got me hooked when she taught me how to make my first pair of earrings. You can check out everything I’ve made at my compilation website entitled, Crafty Creations (which just got an updated layout)!

I’ll be updating Crafty Creations soon and adding these earrings to it. I feel like I’ve been abandoning that website lately… I guess it’s just a less “bloggy” version of my blog! It has (almost) all my projects, just condensed.

Knitting

My side project for quite a while has been the Reversible Scarf for my BF Craig. Well, as you can see in the picture (left), the yarn was making weird patterns in the scarf.

The reason I settled on this yarn was because of how soft it was, but it wasn’t looking very nice which totally cancels out how soft it may be. I should have known — the baby blue in it was far too different from the other blues, and the dark blue had not “lead time” into it. In the photo the baby blue practically looks white.

I posted on the Knitter’s Review Forum to see what they thought, and most of them agreed that if I wasn’t happy with the project, I shouldn’t continue.

So I frogged the entire scarf – I’ll use it for something else. Maybe one of my friends will get pregnant; it would make a cute baby blanket. (Just joking – my friends are much too young to be considering motherhood).

Anyway, Craig and I went to Dressew, and he picked out a yarn that is much more neutral and subtle in it’s colours. I’ve been knitting it up with the same stitch and it’s looking pretty good.

(And it’s on my favourite pair of metal needles — I agree with Anne, I’m a metal-needle knitter).

Laurie L. was right, Ravelry is going to drive me crazy. I do have a huge stash and a bunch of UFO’s (more like multiple projects at any given time). I wonder, will Ravelry help inspire me to actually finish one of them? I think it’s because I have maybe 3 on the go at once, so I jump back and forth and it seems like I don’t make much progress. (Check how antsy you are to get your Ravelry invite).

• You signed up on July 16, 2007
• You are #16890 on the list.
• 10585 people are ahead of you in line.
• 1919 people are behind you in line.
• 32% of the list has been invited so far

I just heard about Ravelry… I am out of the loop. The online knitting/yarn-arts community is huge. It feels like grade 8 – I want in but I’m worried that they won’t accept me! I’m not that good at knitting. I just try to be. Anyway – I signed up for an invite to Ravelry so we’ll see what happens.

I would also love to host/co-host a swap… I’m really getting into it. I miss hosting and organizing events at school. I think it’d be tons of fun to do it online with a cohort of knitters!

A few weeks ago, I bought my first pair of bamboo needles. After knitting for a while with some bulky yarn, I’ve decided that they have a nice feel, but they aren’t quite smooth enough for me. I’d want another coat of varnish on for the yarn to slide smoothly over the needles. But other than that, very nice, light feel – fully functional and good use of my money.

I checked out the Secret Pal 11, which Chelle told me that they are accepting pals for already. I read through it all, and as much as I would love to do another knitting swap, I think I’m going to hold out for Knit One, Tea Too. As a student, I don’t reeeeally have a lot of money so it’s difficult to spend money buy yarn that I don’t get to knit up. But, I know that I get a nice package, as well as sending off something nice too. And I am a Potter fan… but not a die-hard fan (anyone doing a LOTR knitting swap?!).

While I was at my LYS on Tuesday, I found this 100% cotton Blue Sky Alpaca that I really want now! I’m definitely moving towards more natural fibers. The Lorna’s Laces I saw and the Indigo Moon sock-weight yarn… Yuuummm…. so soft!!! If only my wallet could handle it! I wonder if they’re hiring… I’d get a staff discount right?

I’m gonna bring my knitting out to camp tomorrow… as well as the laptop, iPod charger, Craig’s Nintendo DS, and hopefully we’ll get a bit of relax time. We ordered a charger for the DS off of eBay and it’s taking forever to arrive. As some may know, my boyfriend Craig lives in England – so all of his electronics have UK chargers… I told him I get first dibs playing Animal Crossing when it’s charged up.

I just learned about a Knitting/Tea Swap on Jessi‘s blog. It’s hosted by two ladies named Devon and Chan, and it’s called Knit One Tea Too (K1 T2)… I’m so excited for August 3rd now! (That’s when sign-ups begin… also when classes end!)

The Virtual Vacation Swap is totally underway. We’re all supposed to make contact by this Friday, which I have. My pal’s eCard inspired me to send one to my secret pal. Since all my emails are obvious like monnibo, mcmiller, monnie321, mmille02… Craig’s let me use his old email so I don’t have to create a new one.

Virtual Vacation Blackout Bingo is going really well too… it’s still going strong, but I wanted to show how my card is doing so far!

I hope everyone had a great Canada Day (July 1st). For me, camp started on Sunday and Susan still hasn’t found a lifeguard. So she asked me to come out and guard for the Canada Day Monday. If she still hasn’t found a lifeguard for Friday, I don’t have school that day. Also, I finish August 3rd, so Susan has asked me to lifeguard for August. I find it funny that she still hasn’t found a lifeguard, because I told her last August that I’d be in school during the summer. But apparently she has ads up everywhere. I think it’s mainly because people see “Aldergrove” and run far, far away; or perhaps it’s the whole “single lifeguard, pool with children, bathrooms 4x daily, live-in position”. But really, almost all our staff were campers at one point, so no matter how screwy the camp gets, you still have that love for it deep down from when you were a camper.

Just thought I’d share the eCard I got from my secret pal…Thank You Secret Knitter!