Monday, April 11, 2011

little cardigan

I finally finished it up and sewed on the wooden buttons. Now to wrap it up and mail it off to my cousin who will be a mom very soon! It was a very simple pattern, which I found for free here (through Ravelry).

more hellebores

I have had a hardcore gardening weekend. The weather was great, and it felt wonderful to get so much done - planting seeds, moving perennials, adding manure to the beds, building trellises... I also made a trip to Plant World, to get some supplies, where I happened upon several gorgeous Hellebore varieties. I wasn't planning to get more of these until maybe next year, but they seduced me. Plus, they were on sale, so how could I resist them? There are three: The top two are different colours of the same double petalled variety; a greenish yellow and a dusty greenish pink (2 pics of the pink one), both with subtle little speckling; and the last one is a different variety with spiky edged leaves whose nodding flowers will appear more white as they open. 

This year I was supposed to take it easy with the garden, since I should really be spending most of my time painting, but I haven't been able to stick to my aim of keeping things low-maintenance. I just enjoy it so much that I can't keep myself from following whims and trying new things. In the Spring, especially, I feel a passion and excitement for gardening that I haven't felt about much else all winter. I just have to find a way to be more efficient with my time. Maybe I can add a few extra hours to the day or days to the week? ha ha. Wouldn't that be nice. 

I have managed to develop yet another new plant obsession (in addition to this Hellebore infatuation), which will definitely make more work for myself, but I just couldn't put off indulging it until next year. So... more about that soon. 

Sunday, April 3, 2011

more from yesterday

The best thing about yesterday was seeing my friend Stephen Appleby-Barr's exhibition at Nicholas Metivier Gallery. It was the last day for the show and I'm so glad I made it. It was amazing! I even bumped in to Stephen on the street after, and he gave me these exhibition cards from his secret stash.

I also bought some buttons for my baby sweater (which is aaaalmost finished). I had trouble choosing, so I got a few options. Hopefully in the next couple of days I will finish it up and post some photos here. I have to finish soon, because the baby is nearly due! The other thing I bought that I planned to photograph to show you was a pair of pink jeans. I've been dreaming about pink jeans for a long time now, and found a great dusty rose pair at Urban Outfitters. However, I chickened out of modeling them for you all. Maybe another day...

Saturday, April 2, 2011

busy day

Today was a beautiful day, and full of activity. We took advantage of the weather (sunny and mild) to do a LOT of pruning in the backyard. I also ventured out on my bike to do a bunch of things (more about that when the sun rises so I can take some decent photos in the house). I brought home the best roti in the world for dinner, and now I'm editing some new mineral photos that I took last night. I plan to start a new painting of one of these tomorrow. It feels good to be productive. Maybe I can manage to pry myself out of bed before 10 in the morning (yeah, right) so I can get even MORE done tomorrow.