Hair of the Cat

Tis the Season to Make Dishcloths

 

Every year I make my two bosses some dishcloths. The first year I made them they made it clear they definitely wanted more, so now it's an annual thing. It's nice to have your projects appreciated by someone not related to you.

This year's batch:

 

I somehow ended up with a lot of blue and green this year ...

I also made this afghan for charity:

Via Ravelry (of course) I learned of a mental hospital in California that distributes donated afghans among their patients. Normally afghans take me a couple of years to complete (did I mention I'm a slow crafter?) but this one only took a month. The pattern is called "The 5 1/2 Hour Throw". It took a liiitle longer than that, but much less than my normal time.

Valley Haul

A few weeks ago Mike and I headed to the valley to try some more local wines than you can get at the NSLC. Apparently our liquor stores only carry wines that can be mass-produced for all of the stores in the province. Of course, small wineries are not able to supply high volumes of all of their wines, so there are many that we miss out on.

The beauty of the valley is that it has so many wineries within a short drive of each other. We hit five, four of which were open (not sure why the fifth was closed mid-week, but it's their loss). Here is our haul:

The Blow Me Down from Blomidon is the only red we bought; we prefer sweet wines so normally avoid reds.  This one, however, is very mild.  The Gaspereau Rose is really nice, as is Luckett's Scarlet.  Because most of these wines are not available at the NSLC, we will either have to make another run to the valley to buy these or, if they come to the Farmer's Market, ask the wineries to bring a few bottles for us and buy them there.   Worth the effort!

Sisterhood of the Travelling Watch

Please don't see Tic/Mob Rules.  (The UK version is called Tic; for some reason they gave it a completely forgettable name for the US release.) I only watched it to see my Daniele Favilli.  Apparently director Kevin Parmer believes he's the next Guy Ritchie, with a little Tarantino tossed in for verbose measure.  Just a typical mob-revenge type film, except with too much dialogue and too many attempts at humour.  It's like Reservoir Dogs in the last scene except, you know, not good. 

Crossing fingers that Favilli's next English film is better, but I'm not holding my breath.

P.S. The "Travelling Watch" is in the film.  In fact there is a mild obsession with watches among many of the characters.

Our trip to New Glasgow.

Mike and I spent last weekend in New Glasgow,  a little town in northeast Nova Scotia.  We actually wanted to visit a vinyard in the area.  It was a lovely scenic drive near the ocean to Jost, a winery in a wide spot in the road called Malagash.  It's a great place for a cottage (if you live in the general vicinity); it's a picture-perfect area.  In the summer at least; I can't imagine living there in winter.

After filling our wine bags with cheap wine (cheaper than the liquor store anyway), we passed a sign that said something about Earth and Farm and ... Cashmere.  Then we passed another one and I noted that it definitely said Cashmere and had a picture of a goat.  Well that settled it, off we went in search of cashmere yarn.

Earth Art Cashmere is a beautiful little farm with lots of geese, ducks and chickens, a dog with curly hair that looked shearable, and I'm sure there were some goats hiding somewhere.   The birds were all of special varieties, the names of which I can't remember, but the geese looked like turkeys and the chickens looked like they were ready for Fashion Week.   All were very friendly and not the least perturbed by our car.  In fact some of the chickens approached us, but since I value my fingers I didn't try to pet them.

I did find what I was looking for, mainly yarrrrrnz.  Unfortunatley I could only afford one skein.  This is what a $52 skein of cashmere/merino yarn looks like:

 

This is also what our TV remote looks like apparently.

The owner threw in a free pattern for a scarf for which I will use this very squishable yarn.   First I have to finish another one-skein scarf I just began, plus finish Mike's scarf I started last winter, then there's the cat bed that's been on the needles for about a year ... knitting is my kinda hobby.

 

How about some Italian eye candy?

This is Daniele Favilli.

 

 

I am not a sci-fi fan, but Mike is.  He was kind enough to alert me to a very hot scene in a recent episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day featuring this guy and ... some other guy I don't care about.   I think his name is Jack.  Yeah.  I really only noticed Mr. Favilli.  After some Googling I learned he's done very little English work so my chances of seeing him again are pretty slim (unless I come across one of his Italian works in our local awesome video store).  So I'm just gonna immortalize him here.

Note to self: learn more Italian than pasta names.

It's Sprouting

As mentioned a few posts ago, I have a pretty brown thumb, literally and figuratively.  I've killed many a plant in  my life.  My poinsettia is still doing well, which is a pleasant surprise.

In a knitting swap I recently received a cute little daisy grow kit (no idea what type of daisies).  It came with a soil pellet, seeds and a little blue pot.  I followed the instructions and planted the seeds about a week ago, then watched anxiously for a sign of life.  It only took a few days before tiny little sprouts began pushing through the soil.  They are so cute and I'm so excited!  May these little sprouts grow into beautiful daisies and not fall victim to either my brown thumb or a kitty with a taste for little green shoots.

 

I've also recently completed an afghan I've been working on since I learned to knit three years ago.  Did I mention I'm a slow knitter?  So how did I celebrate the completion of this blanket?  By beginning a new one of course, crochet this time.  My completed-just-in-time-for-summer heavy creation:

 

That's Mike hiding behind the blanket.  Check out our lovely array of remotes in front there.

And lastly, a gratuitous photo of Tubbs.  She was perched on one side of the barbecue on the balcony, wondering what-all we were up to inside:

 

 

Gratuitous kitty photos

Tubbs is still fat.  But also still pretty active.  Just not in this photo.

 

Buddy tends to hide his face when he sleeps.  (Awwww.)  Also an active cat, but only when the camera isn't on him.

 

My Green Thumb

I have a tendency to kill any plants I bring home.  I don't know how I do it, it just happens.  So I have been pleasantly surprised by this thriving poinsettia I brought home from work after Christmas that looked to be at death's door at the time.  Last year I tried to "save" a poinsettia and it didn't last too long under my watch.  It was down to one leaf by the time I gave up.

This one, however, has new leaves sprouting all over the place.  I'm giving all the credit to the plant food I'm using this time.  It looks a thousand times better than it did in December.  Go poinsettia!

 

Miscellany

Good Eats & Bad Movie:

I briefly knew Halifax's local "celebrity chef," Ray Bear, when we were little kids.  He's had a couple ups and downs with his career over the past few years but things finally seem to be settling down for him.  His new restaurant is called Mix, and I went with some co-workers a couple of weeks ago for a goodbye lunch (not for me, I haven't gone anywhere).  Despite reading mostly negative reviews online I was pleasantly surprised by the decor, the attentive wait staff and the food.  Will definitely be returning.  If only they had more pasta on the menu ...

Mike and I went to Rocco's recently as well.  It's an upscale Italian restaurant in an awful neighbourhood, but they're worth the risk.  ;-)  We decided to try their pepper steak and it was very, very good.  Too much sauce but otherwise very good.  The mashed potato was pear-shaped and coated with some sort of crunchy flour batter.  Creative and tasty.  

Rented The Town last night, starring and directed by Ben Affleck.  What a yawner!  Out of a two-hour film I believe there are maybe 20 minutes where anything happens other than characters revealing depressing aspects of their lives.  Cry me a river.   It's about a bunch of bank robbers in Charlestown, MA (which is supposed to mean something I guess 'cause they harp on this fact) who take and release a hostage, and of course Ben falls for her and he wants out of the bank-robbing business but of course they won't let him leave and blah blah blah. 

I much prefer Matt Damon.

More Spanish eye candy ...

David Ferrer made it to the semis at the Aussie Open this year.  What is it about Russian women and Spanish men in tennis?