I’m having some back-end issues with the blog. It may be offline at some point this week or weekend. I shall return. So keep that in mind as I know you’ll mourn during the 24-48 hours the blog could possibly be offline.

Either way, this weekend is SUPER busy. I have a work event in Victoria (1.5 hr ferry ride away) all day Saturday and then I have to rush back to Vancouver on Sunday to make it to my choir’s Spring Concert!

I didn’t go to the first annual FibresWest last year, so on Friday I decided to head out to Abbotsford and take a gander. I dragged Chelle along for the ride and we had a very good time. I am the kind of person who needs to look at everything before I decide to buy, whereas Chelle would purchase when she got the urge (gift yarn only, yarn diet).

At the Abbotsford Exhibition Parkt AgRec building | Posing with “yarnpiggy“!

Indigo Moon… where I smushed different skeins of yarn together and demanded they make “yarn babies”.

Knitopia Wools (now located in White Rock)

Twist of Fate (also stocking Handmaiden Sea Silk).

Unwind Yarns with Shannon spinning … throwing sheep into rainbows! Best tagline ever.

Kensington Prairies Alpaca Farm… they do tours! They’re right in Langley too on 248th at 16th. I can’t count the number of times I’ve driven past and yelled excitedly at their alpacas.

This little display was the Mission Tartan for the Mission Spinners and Weavers Guild who are opening up a shop June 5th at the Mission Arts Council.

Sweet Georgia Yarns. Felicia had a fantastic display with “menus” displaying her prices and yarn “ingredients”.

Gone Hooking created amazing tapastries.

A hand-cranked knitting machine at Stitches Quilt and Fibre Art Supplies.

Quo Vadis Handspun — local spinner and dyer for animal-fibre-free yarns.

I didn’t get a photo of Louisa (aka damselfly) spinning at the Great Vancouver Weavers & Spinners Guild booth. They were there doing demonstrations and handing out information about the guild.

I was very good and didn’t fall off the wagon. I didn’t buy any yarn although I nearly gorged myself at Indigo Moon. I did treat myself to a ball winder though! I have been contemplating getting one and they truly are a necessity. Now when I want to knit something, I can instantly wind it up and cast on. Later today my dad and I are going to build a DIY yarn swift. Wish us luck!

Tuesday night I walked to the Vancouver Police Museum, which is a real hidden gem located in the former Coroner’s Courtroom. I had signed up to participate in their first-ever Forensics for Adults Workshops. Tuesday, March 16 was the first evening with Forensic Pathology, which was all about autopsies. Kim Werker has a great post up at the Vancouver Is Awesome blog about the forensic event. Not only did we get to hear, smell, and see what an autopsy was like, it took place in Vancouver’s former morgue. We got a chance to walk around the exhibits and had a personal tour from the museum’s curator, Chris Mathieson.

The Vancouver Police Museum has organized two more Forensics for Adults Workshops: tomorrow night is Blood Splatter and the following Tuesday will be Ballistics (Bullets). I loved learning creepy and gruesome things about my city’s history that I never knew (even growing up here) and would definitely recommend a visit even once the workshops are done.

Wednesday and Thursday were full of dental and doctor appointments. Let’s skip over that… I’ve got much more interesting things to talk about.

On Friday afternoon, I met up with Chelle for some sushi before going to see Handmade Nation. We arrived early at the Museum of Vancouver (MOV) and got a chance to look around the current exhibit, The Art of Craft. The Art of Craft is part of the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad and showcases handcrafted art from western Canada and Korea. The exhibit is on until April 11 and really is a gorgeous display of unique art. Our only complaint was that crafting is such a tactile activity, but the exhibit wasn’t meant to be touched (as is similar in other museums).

The main event at MOV was a screening of Handmade Nation. When Got Craft? did a couple showings in the summer, I was really bummed I missed it. When I heard that MOV was screening it on Friday, March 19th, I jumped at the chance! Overall it was a good documentary and I’m certainly glad I got to see it. Although, I initially thought it was going to focus more on the community of crafting, it was certainly interesting to explore the small business side of handmade goods. MOV had also arranged for several local craftspeople to have a Q&A afterwards: Kim Werker, crochet/knitter and author, Erin Boniferro, owner of CollageCollage, and Rob from GotCraft? Vancouver’s largest indie craft fair.

This weekend I celebrated my twenty-second birthday. I haven’t had a proper party in my new apartment (not that I’m much of a party-er) so I decided to rent a button-maker and have some friends over on the Saturday. Yes you read that right… we made buttons, and it was pretty awesome! I rented a button-maker and circle cutter from Blim Art & Craft Facility and bought button parts in bulk from Six Cent Press. I designed a bunch of buttons ahead of time but also made sure to have lots of funky paper and pens for anyone who wanted to draw button designs. We had a good time through the afternoon and it quieted down in the evening.

And last but not least, on Sunday (my actual birthday) we had a family dinner at my parents’ house with my uncles and cousins. It was a really nice night and I enjoyed sitting around and laughing with my cousins. Overall a very busy (but good) week and I am looking forward to something a little less hectic this week/weekend.

The BC Book Prizes announced the 2010 Finalists on Thursday, March 11. Yes, this is self-promo since I work with the BC Book Prizes, but I really believe in what we do so I don’t care! There are some great authors and illustrators listed for seven different awards. We also organize a free Soirée and right now we’re planning our 7th annual BC Book Prizes On Tour. This tour takes finalist authors all over the province — we’re planning three legs: Northern BC, Kootenays, Okanagan and Vancouver Island. Sign up for email newsletters on our website to get all the updates.

Canada Reads 2010 also concluded the debates on Friday, March 12. The winner was Nikolski by Nicolas Dicker, translated by Lazer Lederhendler. In my review of Nikolski, I mention I was pleasantly surprised by the translation. However, I’d like to comment that the Canada Reads debates weren’t as intriguing for me this year compared to last year. I remember painting my bedroom last March/April and listening to the debates. I kept thinking “oh I want to read that” for each of the books. I loved The Book Of Negroes and still really want to read Fruit: A Novel About A Boy and His Nipples by Brian Frances and Outlander by Gil Adamson. I think that this year they spent too long debating what makes a book “Canadian”, which was never really the point of Canada Reads. I guess that they [CBC/Canada Reads] need to make their criteria less vague (“A book that all Canadians should read”) so that they [the champions] spend more time talking about the books themselves.

The UK’s Orange Prize for Fiction also released the 2010 longlist today. The Guardian newspaper in the UK has a great mini-site set up so you can browse through the titles. Some of the books have now been added to my TBR mountain, including Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel which also won the Man Booker Prize in 2009 and The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison, one of seven debut novelists.

Also, of note:

• The 2010 Pulitzer Prize (Pull it, Surprise!) awards will be announced April 12.
• On March 8, 2010, the Jury for the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize was announced. The Gillers announces their longlist in September, shortlist in October, and winner in November.

P.S. If anyone knows of anything I missed, please let me know! I love hearing about new things in the publishing community.

My friends Nigel, Deepinder, and I have been voting on the Oscars each year since 2003 (I think). One of these days I swear we’re going to have an Oscar party! Bascially we vote beforehand and then keep track who guessed the most correctly. It tends to make the long event more fun for the lesser-known Oscars. Every year Deepinder also tries to watch all the films nominated for Best Picture, but with 10 nominees this year I don’t think he made it.

Let me preface my guesses by the fact that I flip-flop between who I want to win and who I think will win.

Read the rest of this entry »

I know this post is a bit late, but a couple weekends ago the BookCrossers went on a daytrip to Granville Island during the Olympics. Our pretense was to deposit books… but I forgot to bring them. Instead, here are some highlights and photos from the trip. If you’d like to see all the photos, visit my Flickr set. Also, Marina got some fantastic photos too… I hope she doesn’t mine if I post a few here!

Marina snapped this shot of us sitting on The Bench art installation. I’m crouching in a swoopy-crevice that was oddly comfortable.

We met at the Olympic Village skytrain station where the city has borrowed a streetcar from Brussels. We rode the lovely, efficient, sleek, sexy Bombardier tram to Granville Island. The Bombardier “Olympic Line” had been running since February 1st and in just 30 days had over 300,000 riders! I wish we could keep it… but we have to return them to Brussels as they are far too expensive for Vancouver to keep.

We arrive at Granville Island and began wandering around. Here is the pond beside the Kids Market.

Wandering around the Public Market… to our left and behind were lines and lines of people waiting to get into Atlantic House.

Marina got interviewed by Slovak TV on who was going to be in the Gold Medal Hockey game.

Oh yea and we left books to roam…

Red and white admiring the Burrard Street Bridge.

Me basking in the Spring (February!!) sun

Marina snapped a shot of me scratching the Swiss mountain goat’s ears… and Dale is grabbing it by the horns.

Then we wandered around Place de la Francophonie (The French Quarter).

All in all it was a lovely day!

Here’s a video I took of the tram leaving Granville Island. Please excuse the shaky camera, I was reaching up a wall and under a fence to film this.

We cats must inspect everything that enters our domain. We must approve of it before it is allowed to stay. Recently, mommy brought home these weirdo green things. They don’t taste as good as that bamboo-y stuff at mommy’s mom’s house…. don’t worry, I tried it. I guess they can stick around. All these silly things do is sit there anyway. They’re no fun. kthnxbai ~ Love Henry

P.S. The plants are here to stay. I went to Home Depot Garden Centre and asked for plants that needed either a.) no sunlight or b.) minimal sunlight. The smaller plant is a Money Tree with a beautiful braided trunk. It needs minimal light and lives on my kitchen window sill (I’m in a basement suite). The larger plant is a Peace Lily and needs nearly no natural light. It is in the living room.

P.P.S. I did an art project with these new arrivals. Photos of that shortly.

A few months ago, Sara (aka wenchlette) asked us if we’d make flowers for her wedding bouquet in the summer. Sara has asked the flowers to be purple or teal and prefers natural fibres. Of course we all whole-heartedly agreed. We thought it was a fantastic idea! Janel is on leaves (click for her Ravelry project) and last night I whipped out the Cascade 220 I had leftover from my sister’s toque.

See my Ravelry project page for details.

Yarn: Cascade 220, 100% wool, Italian Plum (purple)
Hook: H hook (5.00 mm)
Pattern: none, but I watched this “how to” video

Here’s a close-up of the general design of the five-petal crochet flower.

This is one of two “wrong” flowers. I was inserting the hook into only the back of the stitch for the petals. This created sort of a circle around the center.

These are a couple variations I tried. I’m not impressed with the two-toned one, although it has the potential to be very eye-catching (in different colours).

Chan recently lost a dear friend to breast cancer. Sissy and Gretchen, being the supportive furkids they are, initiated the Pink Parade to help raise awareness for breast cancer. Henry and I decided to help out… unfortunately he doesn’t like to dress up as much as Chan’s girls do! You can easily join in too! Visit Sissy and Gretchen’s post to learn about the initiative (you don’t have to use pets).

My first idea was Henry’s hot pink mouse… but he is not a very independent player. It took a few tosses to get this shot, and after the mouse fell he looked at me like “okay, now what?”

My next idea was my hair! I dyed my hair purple several months ago and then lightened it up over the holidays. Henry loves sitting on my shoulder like this and rubbing his head into me. He also likes to chew on my ponytail too. But I still didn’t think this quite conveyed what I wanted to.

So I subjected Henry to his least favourite activity: dress up. Mainly it just confuses him. He has never liked to be “under” or “within” things like blankets or covers or outfits.

Princess Henry

However, if you catch him asleep and unawares… you can do what you like! [This is an old photo] (In real life, his tiara is pink)

I’ve been home a week today (it feels like much longer) and once I got home, I scooped up my kitty and gave him a snuggle. I texted once the plane landed and my dad picked me up from the airport. We met my mom at my apartment where they’d just finished cleaning up (after the kitchen reno — more on that later) and brought back my boys.

My mom said that once they brought Henry back to my apartment, he scoured the apartment for me and when he couldn’t find me, he looked at mom and just. kept. meowing. He looked at her like, “okay, I’m back. Now where is MY mom?” (according to my mom’s interpretation).

While I was gone my parents took very good care of both Henry and Chico (my chinchilla). Dad and Chico bonded and on the way home from the airport, dad told me how Chico’s new favourite treat is walnuts. He said once he tried to give Chico a piece of fresh banana, and he wouldn’t even touch it until he’d had a walnut.

HAPPY WHISKERS ON WEDNESDAY