Satisfying Saturday

Yesterday was a day completely devoted to doing solely what I wanted to do from 10 am to 6:30 pm. I had been a good little worker all week and this was my reward: Dressew, lunch at the Water Street Cafe, and Jersey Boys.

I've sung the praises of the low-cost craft store, Dressew, in the past. Tena was not able to find the leather buttons she wanted for one of her sweaters and I knew I'd be visiting Dressew on Saturday. I offered to check out their buttons for her giving me a mission as I walked into the store. Here's the two sets of buttons I picked up for her.

Tena's Leather-look and Hot Pink Buttons

Tena was quite clear she wanted dark coloured leather buttons for one of her Gramps sweater. So selecting from the multiple options was easy; I just picked the darkest colour I could find. Although these are leather-look buttons, (Tena said it was fine for this baby sweater to not necessarily be real) the most impressive part is they came to a total of $1.25 ($.25 per button). The hot pink buttons required more thought; there are a ton of different colours that can be identified as hot pink. When I sent Tena this photo, she said the colour hit the mark. And if not, I have a total of $.50 invested in them.

Here are some additional buttons I picked up for myself:

The Water Street Cafe located in Gastown in downtown Vancouver was my stop for lunch. It was recommended when we first came to town and remains one of my favorites. I had their potato gnocchi and it was very, very light. A quick cup of coffee and I was on my way to the play.

Jersey Boys is about the Four Seasons, an Italian quartet from New Jersey, who hit it big in the 1960s. (Yes, I'm old enough to remember them quite well.) The play takes place over 20 years outlining the group's humble beginnings to years of success to the quartet's demise. If you like their songs and good four-part harmony, this is a must see. Here's a list of some of the songs in the play: Sherry; Oh, What a Night; Earth Angle; Sunday Kind of Love; Big Girls Don't Cry; Walk Like a Man; My Eyes Adored You; Dawn (Go Away); Let's Hang on to What We've Got; Bye, Bye, Baby; and C'mon Marianne. (A remarkable thing about the music is my youngest son remembered more of their hits than I did. He attributes this knowledge to the years of having to listen to this type of music as a kid. He had Boomer parents.)

It was a thoroughly enjoyable 2 hours of story and music. Should you like Frankie Valli's voice, good harmony and the songs of the 1960s or just an interesting tale, I recommend you go see Jersey Boys if it comes to your town.

Ode to the Cat

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing. I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away. Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close. Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening. As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend. Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration. I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned out finished, and

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time. One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock. So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep. Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot. And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms. (BTW

Yarn Barf

It's back to quirkiness and time to step away again from the cuteness for a while. But as you see I'm someone who slips from one to the other without much effort so anticipate this back and forth to be my new normal. A dramatization of me in the midst of my startitist frenzy Yarn barf . I'm willing to bet you hadn't thought of putting those two words together, had you? It just so happens yarn barf can be a reoccurring pain for those of us who use yarns that come in a skein instead of a hank. (No pun intended regarding the current Noro virus, well maybe a little pun.) Skeins of yarn wound by the manufacturer These are hanks which need to be wound into balls If you look closely at the picture on the right you'll see the start on the millet yellow skein at the centre right of the photo. Its start can easily be seen coming from the centre of the skein onto the violet skein to the left. Easy to find, right! Sure but what about the remaining 4

Flagel Knitting Files

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