A Stitch in Time

Photo Credit: Life

It occurred to me last week that it might be time to join the esteemed ranks of those women who are always knitting. I usually pick up a craft each winter to keep me busy in the evenings and I felt the knit-itch following my first visit to a local "Craft n' Chat" group. I had brought some computer work to do, but everyone else was knitting away. Of all the crafts and needlework that I can do, knitting is the one task that has always eluded me. I don't know why, but I have never been able to master it in the past.

So, with some doubts about my abilities, I headed to the yarn section of Michael's and after spending about 25 minutes scanning through all the different types of yarn they have there, I broke down and asked a couple of ladies who were shopping in the same section for their advice. They helped me to pick out a fat, easy to work with yarn and the right needles for making a scarf. A basic, idiot-proof scarf...I hoped!

Thus armed, I turned to the internet and found these great videos online that show exactly how to get started:

Knitting:

How To Cast On

Knitting:

How To Knit The Knit Stitch

The result? So far, pretty good. The instructions online and the help I got in the store did work out for me and I'm a fair way into an easy scarf. I only wish I hadn't made it quite as wide as I did.

Photo Credit: Filia Artis

This was made with a pair of #9 metal needles and two balls of Lion Brand, Wool-Ease Thick and Quick yarn. What I've learned so far from the gurus is that it's all about tension, even tension and not knitting too tightly, and that you need to learn to knit, unknit and knit again. There is apparently no project that doesn't need to be unknit at some point.

If you enjoy crafting and your fine motor skills are decent, this could be for you. I was surprised that I finally got this to work out for me but probably wouldn't recommend it to someone who hates fine work.

DIY Rating: 6

An easy scarf was actually pretty easy, 

but this is an activity for people who like crafting.

Pot-Luck Lucky!

Photo Credit: Filia Artis

As I mentioned earlier today, we hosted a gathering this afternoon to celebrate the birthdays of all the babies that were in our Baby's pre-natal preparation class more than a year ago. None of us fully knew then what the outcome would be, but everyone ended up with wonderful, healthy children and they have had a chance to play and grow together on a few occasions over the past year.

Festive Buffet Table - Mix n' Match

You might ask how on earth one goes about preparing for a party with a little one running around and without going totally crazy...The key here is pot-luck. Each family brought one item, so it was just a matter of tidying up the house - we did the set up and decorating a day ahead of time - and to clean up, we just popped everything into the dishwasher and give most of the toys a bit of a wipe down (there was a fair amount of communal toy chewing!). The total clean up time was 15 minutes and the food arrangements took place over email. 

Photo Credit: Filia Artis

A nice mix of home-made and store-bought treats made for a lovely lunch buffet. The only cooking that I did was to make a super-easy pizza that took about 15 minutes to make.

Photo Credit: Filia Artis

One mom, S., brought these awesome cupcakes she'd ordered with each of the children's names on them!

Photo Credit: Filia Artis

Much fun was had by the birthday children.

All in all, it was a wonderful day and we couldn't get over how easy the pot-luck aspect made things. I would definitely consider doing this again.

DIY Rating: 8

Though I'm typically a fan of catering and restaurants for larger parties, organizing a pot-luck party made hosting at home a breeze.

If you are a guest, don't feel daunted by having to make a masterpiece, something simple or store-bought can be a great addition.

Quiet Before the Storm

Photo Credit: Life

Thankfully, Hubby volunteered to take Baby out of the house early this morning to pick up some groceries for the week leaving me at home with a few minutes of quiet.

I'm always ambitious about these precious moments, "Oooohhh goody! I'll get the whole house cleaned and bake some bread and make up the pizza for the birthday party this afternoon!"

Five minutes later and I find myself relaxing on the sofa with a cup of coffee catching up on my blog reading...

I think I find blog reading so relaxing because it lets me into the lives of other women (and one man) out there for a brief moment and I feel that I am not alone in my quest to juggle all the aspects that life as a parent/homemaker/career woman/artist brings. 

One of my newer blog interests is at A Laborer in the Vineyard authored by one of my former classmates at St. Joseph's College at the University of Toronto. I am impressed with A.'s beautiful crafts, beautiful daughters and reflections on life and childbearing.

The reason I've titled this "Quiet Before the Storm" is that a group of eight wonderful one-year-olds and their parents is about to descend on my house later this afternoon for a birthday party. It will be an afternoon of crazy toddler fun with the group of parents that we met at our childbirth preparation class last fall. We've stayed in touch now for over a year and since most of the kids have their birthdays in November/December, we decided to just have a big party to celebrate everyone's birthdays.

Maybe wasting a bit of time enjoying the  quiet of this morning isn't such a bad idea after all...

DIY Rating: 10 

for taking a few minutes out of the day 

to just do nothing important at all...

Confessions from the Upper East Side

Dear Reader,

I confess that I am a follower of the tv show Gossip Girl. For all its fluffy plots and repetitive drama, I somehow love seeing the scenes of New York and the glamorous characters and their outfits.

If you are not already a fan, you may not have met the two characters pictured above: the handsome Nate Archibald and his mysterious new girlfriend Juliet. In this week's episode, Nate ran a bit of a sting operation with his sometimes friend, sometimes enemy, Vanessa to find out what exactly Juliet has been hiding behind all of her thin lies.

It turns out that she does not live on the Upper East Side, like the rest of the characters, but rather inhabits a small studio somewhere around 126th St. Her big confession is that she takes the metro north bus to shop at Woodbury Commons twice a month, does her own hair and has an apartment with fluorescent lights full of IKEA furniture that she had to put together herself! She keeps the tags on clothes that she wears so that she can return them. In the photo above, she is arriving as a penitent to the NY Ballet opening night wearing a dress from Woodbury Commons instead of a couture piece like her "frenemies" Serena and Blair.

The purpose of this letter is to let you know my shock in learning that these tendencies (minus the tags on the clothes!) were deemed such reprehensible sins! I would like to inform you that I myself do not live just off Park Ave., only recently shopped at Woodbury Commons (a designer outlet mall about an hour north of Manhattan) and also have a house full of IKEA furniture. I also have to do my own hair regularly. It was very hilarious to see Nate extend his "acceptance of others" and forgive Juliet for these "low-class" tendencies.

For the Big Confession,

check out: Much Music

Clip 2, 5:45

xoxo

Filia Artis

PS. Does this mean no more Dollarama for me?

Greeting Cards

Remember back in grade school how you used to make cards for your mom and she loved them, no matter how they turned out???

It has been raining non-stop here for a couple of days, so I have been trying to find ways of entertaining myself and Baby in the house. We had a birthday party to go to today for one of Baby's friends and yesterday I thought it might be a fun time to try out my new craft area in the basement and make a personalized card. 

Baby had fun signing the card herself and washing off the crayola marker from her hands was pretty easy.

Some of the best cards I have ever received have been home-made ones. My friend Ise made one that I decided to frame above the diaper changing table.

If only I could find the birthday card a friend, KvD, once made me that was based on this image from a medieval book. The image depicts the owner, the Duke Jean de Berry, seated at his table with many of his actual possessions and courtiers present.

My version showed me at the table with drawings of all my friends standing around the table. Sadly, it is filed away for safe keeping somewhere and I'll probably un-earth it in about ten years!

If you are less than crafty yourself, there is a program you can use called Smilebox that I have been using for the past year. You can create all sorts of cards and invitations and either print them or email them out. It allows you to add photos from your own computer as well. Here is an invite I sent out for Baby's baptism this past spring:

Create your own invite

So next time you have a chance, try making a card either by hand or on the computer. It doesn't have to be Martha Stewart perfect to be cool!

DIY Rating: 7 for making your own card

Lots of fun and very personal if you have the time!

PS. A special Do-tique shout-out to K.G. who threw an awesome birthday party today for her little boy!

Good Housekeeping

Photo Credit: Getty Images

I will begin by admitting that I grew up in one of those homes that had rooms that remind some people of a museum. They were immaculately clean, everything was perfectly displayed, the furniture all matched and was never used and woe be to the child whose footprints were detected on the area rug. Some of my classmates' mothers even kept plastic on the couches to ensure that they were suitably preserved for all eternity.

Needless to say, I can be a bit of a clean freak in my own home. There are no display rooms, but I do get a certain sense of peace when things are clean and tidy. The problem is that many of us don't have the time anymore between jobs, family, activities and traveling to keep up with housework, which we all assume is a DIY project.

So today, I want to put a question out there to my readers. It goes something like this:

If you are busy with anything you love more than sweeping, mopping and doing toilets and you can find room in your budget to hire help...
WHY are you wasting precious time cleaning your own house???

When I was 4 months pregnant and too ill to do much of anything, I had to make the painful admission that I was unable to help with the cleaning and Hubby was too busy working and writing a book to keep things up to my standards. Hubby stepped in and hired a lady to come twice a month to take care of dusting, sweeping, mopping, the kitchen and the bathroom. It was a godsend. Even before my pregnancy, we would spend every precious Saturday cleaning the apartment when we could have been enjoying some leisure time together instead.

The options here are to hire a cleaning company or an independent individual.

The advantage of bringing in a company is that they should have insurance and do background checks on their employees. From my experience, they tend to be more expensive and one company I sought a quote from requires that you have them in for one or more comprehensive deep cleaning sessions (for a fairly high charge) and then they come regularly after that and maintain your home.

We decided to go with an independent woman who had been cleaning the home of one of our friends for a while. We had the reference from that friend and references she provided from a few of her other clients and we have been happy with her work. We discussed what I wanted taken care of each time and she provided a flat rate based on that combination of tasks with the size of our home in mind. She enjoys it as a retirement job where she gets to be her own boss and work at her own pace.

Knowing that every second Thursday of the month is cleaning day helps me to relax a bit more during the week because I know when the mess will end and I don't have to stress about doing it all myself.

DIY Rating: 2 for picking up that mop and bucket yourself!

Shop around, you might be surprised 

to find that you can leave this one to the pros!

Fightin' Words!

Photo Credit: The Vibe

I have been hearing about martial arts for about a year from my horseback riding coach who has become addicted to Jiu Jitsu. I've been thinking about joining up and trying to get in shape for a while now and decided that last night would be the "maiden voyage" to the dojo for a ladies' drop-in kickboxing class.

Overall, it was a fun work out and there was a good vibe with the other ladies that were there. As someone who often has trouble with "right" and "left," my general lack of coordination didn't hinder things too much. The Sensei was good with helping me pace myself as a beginner. If you're looking to get into shape, this is a good overall workout.

If you're a little more hard-core, they have all kinds of activities involving serious martial arts and  fighting. For now, I think the only knife seminar I'm up for is one that involves making stir-fry!

If you're in the Kingston or Belleville area, the dojo is located in Odessa:

Sensei Stan Chisholm

Martial Concepts

119 Main Street Odessa

613 449-3828

Women's Fitness Kickboxing - Wednesdays from 7-8pm

$10 per session

DIY Rating: 8

Since I don't believe in running and 

prefer a social fitness activity, 

this is a good fit for me and may bring me 

closer to fitting back into my pre-maternity clothes...

You will hurt in the morning!