Sunny saturday...

One of these three things is a Thomas Haas double baked almond croissant (hint: it's not furry). I rue the day I found out about that place.

It may seem small to you....

Yes, there is big news at the Bunkle...THE BATHROOM DOOR HAS BEEN INSTALLED! My parents and brother came over yesterday and helped me hang it again - it has been down for almost a year now (yes, it is coming very close to my Bunkle anniversary date). Such a little step (and such a little door - it is very very narrow), but it feels like a very big accomplishment. The photo is a bit of a cheat - I haven't screwed in the door handle plates yet (plates and knob thanks to pals A&J), and I think I might swap out the door handle with another in my house so this one would be glass instead. You will also notice the distinct lack of trim on the right side of the door in the red room - one more finishing touch to do (I have all the trim painted in the basement, I just need to find the time and tools to cut it....)









I ripped the paper down this morning. I caught Maggie looking with some concern at the door from the bathroom side...she then wandered into the red room and stared some more. Hopefully she has now realized she cannot gallop through this one, like the cat-ripped version she is used to. As for Thomas, as soon as I took down the paper he put on his Gnarler hat and got straight to chewing at the paper and tape.

Funny how little steps like the door really make me happy. Happy isn't really the right word, satisfied is not quite it either really. But there is a little flash of joy. And as impatient as I sometimes get with the renos, each little step brings its reward...very pavlovian but very true. The Bunkle has sort of become a big craft project for me I think, and there is a certain amount of joy knowing it will never be completely over - houses never are. I may want to eat my words a week from now, but that is how I'm feeling at 7:55am on a Saturday morning.

And here's a little reminder of spring - the cherry tree in the front yard. I took this yesterday, when it was rainy out. It is sunny today, and the tree is looking even prettier.

I've had a request...

...to move the sheep blog further down the list. Sheep too creepy I've been told. So here are a couple of snaps to fill the space...

Bunkle Easter...

...well, Good Friday at least. And the weather is great. Which has inspired me to start back to the Bunkle renos again. Last year I removed one of the three (count 'em) doors to my bathroom. It's a tiny door - maybe 22 inches wide. When I moved in, the door was covered in layer upon layer of paint which was cracking and cleaving and a few embedded stickers (yes, stickers) for good measure. It took 2 days to strip the paint with chemical stripper (day one with Mum's help). It was sort of interesting to go back in time through yellow, blue, grey, white layers. I thought - briefly - of not painting the door, and leaving the oak exposed. But then I thought through the implications (all 3 doors would need stripping...and what about the door trim, which certainly isn't oak!) and gave my head a shake. Anyway, today it made it's way back outside for some sanding and priming. The cats are going to be very sad to have it back - they really love bursting through the current ripped paper bathroom door -it makes a lot of noise, and Thomas usually stops and snorts
afterwards like he has accomplished some amazing physical feat - but really it isn't providing quite enough privacy when I have guests over ...



And here is another addition - a cushion so perfect it almost hurts to look at it. It's made by the very very talented Beth - who reads this blog sometimes, so thank you again Beth!! And thank you for taking me to see the elephant repairs and back to a world I still miss. Though maybe I should just think of the bunkle as one long conservation project (albeit without elephants - yet)...

Some Sunday wishes...

First, Birthday Wishes, for my Dad, who is 71 today. Pretty much the whole crew came to the bunkle for birthday tea. I meant to take a picture of the banoffee birthday pie I made for the blog, but it got ravaged by my apparently sugar-starved family far too quickly. Here is the recipe though. Incredibly tasty and incredibly easy (and whoever wrote the recipe is also pretty funny - check out the Evil Chilli Butter Kitten recipe by the same guy ). Through this crazy brit's website I also found a link to a film I am really hoping makes it to release in north america ... oh the horror, the horror...

Speaking of films, watched Spike Lee's Inside Man last night - very good. And not just because Clive Owen is in it. Really.

Sunny Bunkle Saturday...

Apparently you only need one ear.

Before and after....

A few posts ago I mentioned a new couch. What I failed to mention was the new dishwasher. That weekend will be known as "Jan's blow out extravaganza" until I do something equally out of control again.
So - the old dishwasher was a Caloric (yes, that was apparently a brand of appliance at some point in the early 20th Century). It didn't clean well, sounded like a small aircraft, and was rusting on the inside. The new is a Bosch, chosen not really because Bosch are great dishwashers (thankfully they are), but because my crappy counters are not standard depth, and Bosch are neatly european and small in size.
The shiny beauty is highlighting the complete lack of beauty around it (note the crap flooring that stops just short of the base of the DW...and I'm guessing you've already noticed the other spots of beauty - like the stunning chipped forest green cupboards - in my very old kitchen). I should mention that the top control panel is grey plastic, not white like it appears in the photo. Funny how the more I try to un-bunkle the place, the Bunklier it seems to get ;-) Good thing love is blind.

Not everyone enjoys pedicures....

Every six weeks or so the cats go for a nail trim (referred to by my vet as 'pedicures', I think so they can charge $20 a pop...sigh). Not something I can do at home unfortunately without having my flesh flayed from the bone. Maggie is better about it now - there have been times at the vet when she has had to be completely mummified in towels with one limb protruding at a time - guess she prefers the way long nails slim her paws?

Thomas is fine once he is actually AT the vet (other than doing some sort of spiderman manoeuvre to stay lodged in the completely inverted cat carrier when it comes to trying to get him out onto the table) - the fun with him is catching him and getting him in the carrier in the first place. Once it involved taking my old bed completely apart as he had managed to get up inside the box spring - old bed has gone, new bed thankfully has no kitty access point.

But I've gotta say, the $40 is almost worth the look on Thomas' face.

Who needs legs anyway...

So I've taken a bit of a break from birding. I tried to make some legs with florist wire, and wasn't very happy with the results. So I stopped.


Until last night, when I made the newest member - who is a Western Meadowlark by the way - and tried the legs on for size.


I'm still not very happy with them - they are too shiny, too gold, and too metallic looking. They also were a complete pain in the rear when I was sewing because the thread kept getting caught in the wire.



Seems to me that I might be losing my way a bit - the intention here was to make birds for my tree next Christmas and I'm getting lost in the details. I like Mr. Meadowlark, but he seems to be a bit ...beyond... the original intent. Maybe too much detail. We will see. ( As an aside, am I the only one that goes a bit crazy when you post more than one photo? Find it impossible to get the layout right...sigh.)

As I sit typing this Thomas started rolling on the blanket box. The photo is fuzzy but I have to share...funny thing was that when I got up to take the photo, my shadow moved, and so did Thom...it's a fuzzy sequence, but he's a fuzzy guy.

Me and Meg White....

Moving slowly today - a rainy Vancouver day, bit of a headache (damn atmospheric pressure...can't we do without atmospheric pressure?). The Big News is that I have bought a fold out couch for the red den. Quite excited about it - it should be ready for delivery in 6 to 8 weeks, and god help me that better be enough time for me to install baseboards into that room ... and who knows, maybe finish refinishing the door between the den & bathroom (though the cats are so used to rocketing through the current torn-paper door that I dread to think what is going to happen when something solid is put there - may have to get cat crash helmets of some sort for the first little while).

On the way back home from buying the couch I stopped at Thomas Haas and picked up a double baked almond croissant. If anyone comes to visit and sleep on my new couch, I promise a visit to Thomas Haas. As a pal at work said, no problem is so large that it cannot be solved by a Thomas Haas double baked almond croissant. Anyway, came home, and had it with some tea from this little pot I painted years ago. The painted houses look surprisingly like the Bunkle.

Speaking of good food, had a great night out at my pal L's house last night with a group of old and new friends eating great home made pizza and playing Bohnanza.

And in other news, according to this oh-so-accurate site, my celebrity look alike is Meg White of the White Stripes. Followed closely by a series of young asian actresses I've never heard of, Sela Ward, Christina Aguilera and Beyonce. Anyone who knows me will be laughing hysterically at this point. I think they were matching the spacing of the eyes or something. I guess mine are wider than I thought...? At least it didn't pull up Rodney Dangerfield. I dare you to try it. I did try it on a photo of Thomas to see if my pal's assertion that he looks like Peter Lorre holds water, but the site didn't recognize his furry mug as a face. Too bad.

Something for the fans.....

I have had a request for more cat photos. I can't quite believe it, but am more than happy to comply!
Makes me wonder if I shouldn't set up an official fan club.

Ranking Full Stop...

So, as promised, here's the Dave Wakeling blog. I know you were all (all 3 of you?) holding your breath.

It was at the same venue I whined about in early blog (the Grizzly Bear night), so we tried new seats - up on the balcony, but right at the end, very close to the stage, far away from the bar, and RIGHT infront of the flown speakers (sorry, ears, really I am). Much much better choice.

So. Where to start.

DW & the Band - As my brother said, you couldn't have asked for more. They sound fantastic, played everything (that didn't feature Ranking Roger as lead vocal) and were having an exceedingly good time. For over 2 hours. And they were determined to make sure everyone else had a good time too - somehow a positive spin was put on everything (including a fight and some dodgy moments thanks to the monitor tech which I will touch on later) - which might have something to do with the super upbeat DW consuming a steady stream of Red Bull. It was an unbelievable love fest.

The Audience - oh, where to start, where to start. A roiling boil of skanking 40+ year olds would be the quick description, though that is probably only 70% true. Falling outside of that would be the female Tom Waites look-alike (in body, hair, and outfit...and yes, female) who wandered up on to the stage to start some sort of incredibly slow, incredibly stoned 'oooh I'm moving in jello' dance until she was finally coerced to leave by some friends. At which point she continued the same slow dance with the wall, though my gut call is she couldn't tell the difference. I could go on. People's need for acknowledgment at concerts baffles me sometimes. Are you trying to connect with the band? Do you need to have 500 people's eyes on you to feel special? I don't get it. The band seems to get it more than me and had no problem trying to accommodate their needy fans, including those feeling the need to share the spotlight on the stage. A fight did break out at one point - even the oldies can get feisty I guess - but the perp was ejected like a cannon ball, and DW glossed over it in his own uber-positive way.

The Sound - A small drama all on its own. There were some major monitor issues during the opening band, which resulted in VERY cranky sound tech hopping up on stage in the middle of the set to verbally tear apart the obviously not very on the ball monitor tech - using the lead singers mic, so we were all part of the joy. When DW et al start playing, DW mentions that the sound is GREAT despite the problems he heard about earlier. Then his voice starts to crackle. And sound guy storms over to monitor guy. Who hops up on stage and manages to switch DW's mic cable in between verses. Which DW praises as soon as the song is over (remember the 'positive spin' mentioned earlier). I have seen so many bands that would have been having major fits over this kind of stuff. But, in DW land (or rather, Red Bull land) EVERYTHING'S GOOD. And really, I've gotta say, it was.

Me - Yes, I get my own heading. It was a weird time warp for me. I found myself thinking about who I was when I used to listen to the Beat all the time. What I wore (what happened to those red and black loafers anyway?). What I thought my life would be. What my view of the future was. And I've got to say, nothing has turned out how I thought it would. Not that it has turned out worse - not that you can judge better or worse when you only end up living one way I suppose - it has just turned out differently. And I have to admit relief that my teenage fear that I'd be wearing polyester elastic waist pants when I hit 40 has proved unfounded.

It has taken me so long to write this that I've actually seen another concert since then - a fantastic evening with Guy Clark, Joe Ely, and musical demi-gods John Hiatt and Lyle Lovett. Every time I see Lyle Lovett live I am floored by his voice. It is so easy for him. What an incredible treat. And to the lone off-beat clapper in the middle of the super-quiet audience...oh, I'll stop. It's not good for my blood pressure.

Did you hear the one about...?

Didn't I mention (warn) at the start of this whole blogging thing that it was completely self indulgent? Brace yourself.

I'm off to see Dave Wakeling & The English Beat (what that will look like remains to be seen) this weekend with my brother. On the way to work this morning I started thinking about the last time I saw the Beat. It would have been in the mid-80s, and I went with my pal Ian. Somewhere is a cassette recording of that night - Ian smuggled a tape recorder in the crotch of his jumpsuit (yes, jumpsuit...). It all got me thinking about what makes a concert memorable.

The ones that stick out in my mind aren't necessarily the best ones, but there was always something...special.

Cheap Trick - I was 11 or 12, and my brother took me to see Cheap Trick at the Coliseum. I didn't really know them, he took me as his beard - no self respecting 18 year old would be caught going to a Cheap Trick concert, but taking your little sister was a pretty good excuse. I didn't really know the band but it was like the Second Coming. I chewed my gum so hard that my jaw hurt for two days afterwards, and I spent the next two years trying to play I Want You to Want Me on the piano.

Joe Jackson - think it was the Night & Day tour, mid 80s - once again, with Ian. It started with me tearing the heel off my favorite vintage pump in a crack in the sidewalk outside the new (and hideous) Terry Fox Memorial, and ended with having to call a tow truck because Ian backed his Dad's station-wagon into the ditch outside my parent's house. There was stuff in the middle too - including a fantastic concert - but I'll leave that out.

Violent Femmes - at UBC, in the early 80s, with my friend Maureen and her boyfriend. Who was an idiot. Who I was also sort of seeing (making me a bit of an idiot too). We were squished right up against the stage. I'd never been that close before and the band was sweaty and loud and amazing.

Kiss - in Toronto, in about 2000 - yes, that recently - with my pal Anne. Her friend was on the lighting crew and got us free tickets and backstage passes - how could you not go? I borrowed a leather jacket with flames on the sleeves, and we sat close enough to see the ingrown hairs on Gene Simmons' thighs, and to get a particularly interesting view of Paul Stanley as he ...flew...above the audience on a wire. You just can't pay enough for that level of cheese. And I do like cheese.


Sufjan Stevens - pictured above - for reasons I've gone into on a previous post. I just needed a good photo for my blog, and all the other bands I mention have photos that are...let's say, a bit past reflecting the year I actually saw them in. And I figure as he's wearing bird wings it kind of fits into the general bird theme of recent posts....

This just scratches the surface, but even I'm getting bored with myself at this point... I'll let you know how memorable Dave & the Beat are another time.

Lime....again.

Bunkle Weekend....

It's Saturday at the Bunkle and we are all moving slowly. I am a morning person by nature - I love getting up when it's still quiet outside, and time seems to move slowly (is it just me or do clocks speed up as the day goes on?). This morning though I slept in - I got up at 6:30 at the insistence of the cats (a good 45 minutes past their regular breakfast time - and when I say insistance, I mean Thomas chasing Maggie through the house, up on the bed, through the house, up on the bed...and when I say up on the bed, I mean 15 lb cats leaping onto - and off of - my bladder which is fairly hard to ignore), then went back to bed and dozed until just before 9. If I say "cats?" out loud from the bed there is the sound of scurrying and I am suddenly surrounded by two large purring beasts - one of the few times that they allow each-other to be on the bed at the same time (usually there is a territory battle). I get up, have a shower and sit on the couch with my coffee and toast, and once again am surrounded (you'll see the dent between them on the couch - that's my spot). There is nothing that exemplifies complete coziness like a sleeping cat.

Bunkle renos continue, thanks in part to my brother - I took the day off yesterday so he could help me retrieve a pile of baseboard and door moldings - somehow my Corolla doesn't move 13 foot lengths of wood as well as his Jeep does. Hope to get them all painted this weekend, and then will have to figure out when the cutting happens. It shouldn't be as tricky as the bedroom as there are less corners (no cupboard), but there are also some outlets that happen below the level of the top of the baseboard that will require some shnizzeling (the official word for tricky little things you have to do to make things work). It will be great to have the den done & ready to decorate - oh, wait, still have to finish refinishing one door...ok, well, ALMOST done. Also toying with (gasp) hiring someone to paint the livingroom/diningroom for me - can't stomach the idea of doing it myself and it is really what is holding me up when it comes to decorating - most importantly hanging my art. Will depend on how much it would cost. I can't wait - oh, ok, yes, I can wait but I don't want to ...

And before I forget, yay to pals & 'old house collective' members Graham and Kathleen! Their incredible "old queen" and all their hard work has received some much deserved recognition. It's an incredible house, and their determination and perseverance is amazing. I should also mention that without Graham's calm and reassurance I probably wouldn't have bought my beloved Bunkle - and much of the work done on the place has involved him, and I will forever be indebted to him for wresting me from the clutches of a truly evil floor sander. Congratulations!

Chasing your tail is so old school...

Yesterday I came home and the sun was streaming through the windows - I love the light at that time of day. I was standing in the living room and noticed that my silhouette was showing up as the sun from the front door was throwing it's image on the wall. The camera was on the table, so I picked it up and thought ya, might as well take a photo, it's kind of neat. The problem was I moved, so the shadow moved. And so did Thomas, quickly launching himself at the wall. Which brings up the issue of Thomas and Shadows.

I get ready for bed, undressing to the sound of Thomas hurtling himself against the shadows I'm casting on the wall. I walk through the kitchen, and have to watch my step as a large grey cat flies by to land on whatever shadow moves along with me. I walk into the kitchen on a sunny day and find him sitting on the floor with his nose and inch from the wall, watching a shadow. What is weird is how serious he seems about it all - usually, a cat plays for a while, then the ears move out to the side, they look bored and wander away (perfectly exemplified by Maggie, who caught a mouse at my old place, carried it for a while, dropped it, then bellyflopped on it and looked incredibly bored and blase...ok, that was only for a few minutes, then she started torturning the thing again). Thom just looks desperate. Like shadow hunting is somehow his own personal burden. Maybe he knows something about shadows that I don't. Or maybe his brain is just smaller than the walnut-size I imagine.

In other news, I succumbed to my fantasy world and bought a "Million Dollars for Life" ticket today - it's the last day they are for sale. I walked by one vendor and thought Nah, silly waste of $5, then suddenly started to panic - what if I could win? what if I didn't buy a ticket and it was the worst mistake of my life? - so went to the next vendor and put down my $5. We will see. But the $5 was worth the last 2 hours of wealth-ridden fantasy (in which, by the way, the Bunkle does NOT get sold and replaced by a bigger home, it just gets renovated more quickly). Dream on, dream on...

Saturday night at the Bunkle....

Not the best photos today I'm afraid. Flock is slowly growing. The little guy with the perky tail is a house wren - quite pleased with him, not only because of his boat-shaped body he can actually sit up on his own (the rest tip onto their heads - which I could say is intentional as they are supposed to be pecking for seed...ok, maybe not). The junco's head is a little too defined, but oh well, maybe my junco has a larger brain that the one in the drawing. I borrowed a couple of bird books from my parents yesterday so we will see what happens...

I realize the whole bird thing isn't all that exciting, but it's my blog and I can bird if I want to.

It's the Academy Awards tonight. One bonus of living on the west coast is that it actually airs at 5pm, which makes watching it somewhat less painful that having it start at 8. Why would I watch it if it is painful? Very good question. I'm not that interested in the outcome, and as always the nominations are predictable... I guess I watch for the cringe factor. I wait for someone to say something really dumb, which is guaranteed to happen. As is an abysmal musical number. I hope for something to match Jack Palance's one-armed push-ups. There are a couple of things I'd like to see that won't happen - Ryan Gosling winning for Half Nelson for instance. I'd also like to see Jennifer Hudson win for best supporting actress - not because I've seen Dream Girls (I'd rather rub salt in my eyes) but because the best supporting actress win seems to be a bit of a career kiss of death, and I would miss her the least. And I'd like to see Pan's Labyrinth win for Best Art Direction...or best foreign film, though The Lives of Others is also a very very strong film. OK, finding myself starting to care, so I'll stop.

Friday night at the Bunkle

Time for a bigger couch?

Let me go wild, like a Bunkle in the sun...

I'm sick. And it's sunny. Which I guess is better than being sick when it's rainy? I'm leaving that for tomorrow - it's supposed to rain all weekend.

One thing the sun is bringing out are the bulbs in the garden - still a suprise to me as this is really my first Bunkle spring. As you can tell by the weeds and rotting leaves, last year (and this year so far) did not include focussing on the garden. At all. I'm hoping that this year I can at least get it looking less completely unloved, but there is so much inside I still want to do. Dilemma, dilemma. I try to remind myself there is time, lots of time, it doesn't all need doing RIGHT NOW. But then I wonder where exactly all that time is, because it seems surprisingly scarce to me. Oh well. We'll get there.

Did someone say Baltimore?

I'm not ranting am I?

It is a gorgeous, slightly sunny, slightly cloudy day...I just came back from a walk, ear buds of my mp3 player cutting me off from the rest of the world and providing a soundtrack to go along with the purple and yellow crocus buds that are starting to nose their way up from the dirt. All very nice, and one of my favorite ways to pass the time - walking, looking, listening. I started thinking about the listening part of that equation, a result in part of my experience last night, when my brother and a friend and I saw a band last night at the Plaza, a dance club that has started to have live music in the 'early hours' before they open as a club. Yes, there is a bit of a rant coming on. Sorry.

Rant #1 - Venues

The band we saw was Grizzly Bear - a quartet from Brooklyn NY. Enjoyed the show - their recordings are quite subtle and atmospheric, and I suspect not that easy to bring to a live show but they did a good job given the circumstances. And what were those circumstances? As mentioned, a dance club being used for live music. Nothing wrong with that really I guess, and for some artists it would be just perfect - but when you are dealing with a band that is relying on quite complex vocal harmonies and subtle instrumentation, and the contrasts between soft and loud, lulling and jarring, the fact that my brain is being pulled between what I am hearing from the stage and the general din from the centrally placed, glowing, sparkling bar lodged on the dance floor was making me a tiny bit CRAZY. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I go to watch, and to listen. CLOSELY. Don't get me wrong - this type of venue has its place, and is great for seeing louder, high energy acts where any bar glass clinking and chatter is going to be drowned comfortably out. Vancouver does not have enough seated venues that would be appropriate for this kind of act - and I'm afraid a seated venue is the only way things are going to be quiet enough to really let a band like this really shine. And what is the final kicker about the dance club venue? The crowd has to be out by 10 to let the heavy drinking/profit-making club kids in. At 9:50, last night's show ended - and the extremely devoted crowd hollered and cheered waiting for the encore that never came - not time for that sort of thing when you've got that line up waiting to come in and shimmy up to that glowing, centrally placed bar.

I have a whole other rant dedicated to audiences. I'll leave that for another time.

In other news my Mum dropped off some inspiration for some more flock members, shown above - a bit of a preview of what's to come in the land of felty feathered friends!

Let there be...an acorn

Finally, a real bunkle update - the installation of a light from Rejuvenation, home of many many things to tempt the easily seduced owner of an old home. This very cute acorn light is in the red den, replacing a really....special....piece of track lighting (which I must admit worked really really well with the star and sun wallpaper border that graced this room when I moved in...yikes). Look carefully though and you will see that the job ain't done yet - still have to patch and paint around the holes where the track came down. Couldn't resist taking a photo of it anyway :)

Shall we go out and find something?...

I came home today to a package leaning against the front door - wrapped with the most fantastic piggy tape. Funny how getting mail never gets any less exciting...sounds silly but there is something sort of amazing about holding onto something that someone far away you care about was holding not so long ago. This time, it was an unexpected treat from my pal Tracy - two books - one which I can tell by the dust jacket is really based on my life story: sensuous and talented Nina Ashton comes to LA to carve out her career in fine art restoration...plunged into a series of adventures that require finesse and artful skills, Nina assumes a variety of personae: a lady of the night, a high-powered female executive, and exotic dancer...

why did I leave art conservation again? I can just imagine her mischievous smile as she wrapped them. Thank you lovely!

Wireless or bust...

Aaahhhh the joys of sitting on my couch beside Thomas (sitting on papers beside me, as you can see) to update my blog! Wireless at last. Gotta say so far I LOVE MY MAC! It just seems so much...smarter...than my PC. I know I'm tempting fate saying that, but so far so (very) good. There is something so decadent about being able to sit on my couch, listen to Pandora.com (the English Beat at the moment...bit of nostalgia), type this, tickle the pushy cat beside me all at the same time.

Once again not all that much to report. There will be a minor Bunkle update this afternoon when new blinds are installed in the red den...small steps. I am also contemplating getting the foldout couch version of this - the photo doesn't really convey how cute it is - what works for me is that it is quite small, tightly upholstered (not a big fan of poofy things),the fabric choices are endless, and it nicely balances traditional styling that suits the Bunkle with a bit of a modern touch. You don't get that sense at ALL from the photo, so you'll have to trust me. I have to figure out if I can comfortably fit a full couch or loveseat in the den - that is part of this afternoon's non-taxing chores. It is review time at work and that includes this year's bonus, so this might where the bonus goes (other than the house taxes - SIGH. That's what you get for not paying the damn things monthly). Or maybe not. I'll let you know.

And for those of you that have sent admiring notes about the growing flock, it's still growing...more snaps soon if I can make them sit still for bit ;-)

Another member of the flock...

Not as flashy as his red-breasted predecessor, but he has a much prettier song...

The Littlest Birds...

Well, this is my first post on my new MacBookPro....still a little intimidated by it, but I'm sure we'll become friends soon enough. I work with a mac at work, but weirdly actually work in a Windows environment (won't bore you with how or why) so never really have to deal with the supposedly intutitive Mac side. I'm so very comfortable in Windows, so very confused in Mac-land! All that being said, it was way too great a deal to pass up on :)

Anyway, here is the latest creation. I had a heck of a time trying to photograph this little one - think I was getting too close and the perspective was getting really whacky. These are taken from a greater distance and I've cropped them. Looks a bit better I hope.

So, yes, a bird to add to the christmas collection of felties. Sewing this one made a few of my very characteristic... characteristics ...that much more apparent. I sat down with scissors and felt and just cut pieces until things looked like they might make a bird if sewn together correctly, stitiched, stuffed, stitched some more, looked at it, smiled, thought Gee I think I'm on to something here, maybe I can make another bird? and then realized that ONCE AGAIN I had failed to make a pattern. That would be waaay too organized. I am all about instant gratification & lack of organization. How often have I found myself at this point - making the pattern after the fact. Oh well.

And now for some input - the other thing I forgot with this guy was a method of adhereing to a tree - should I get wire so I can perch the little bugger, or attach some sort of hanging contraption?

As an aside, Ive also been forced to upgrade my Blogger version. Now my photos appear as script until I post or preview them - fellow blogheads, is there a way around this I'm missing?