tania howells

clothes pegs

It has been rainy on and off for a while now which is good for the ground.
On the weekend I decided to paint the back patio and for some reason it caused me no end of stress! The cement patio was chipping and horrid, I mainly wanted to seal it up for the winter months. I swept it, hosed it down, scrubbed it with TSP, hosed it again and then had to wait for it to dry which never fully happend. We tried to dry it with a hairdryer and then a blow torch (care of our sweet neighbor)! I painted it anyway and it has rained so I can't coat it with sealer yet. I wonder if this coat will even last the winter? Anyway, I of course I had washing out drying at the same time and had to gingerly take it down halfway through, leaving the clothes pegs where they lay. In the rain I thought the pegs along the wall looked so nice.

It is nice to think that many of us share a few favorite things, that are comforting or homey, cozy and pretty.

-clothes pegs all lined up
-a cup of tea and a nice tea pot
-family
-a cup of coffe with friends- fika!
-cats curled up
-lovely books to read
-pretty baked things
-wonderful patterned fabrics
-a cozy husband and a place to call home
-silly wiggly dogs
-fresh notebooks full of promise

These things are basicly what my whole blog is about! and judging by my flickr favorites, it is all I think about. More truthfully, they are the things I cling to when I need a bit of comfort. It doesn't take much!
Time for another cup of tea and perhaps a nice biscuit!

fantastic graphic

I've always loved La Vache Qui Rit cheese. So campy, so cheerful! Nice spread on a cracker as well.
I have treated myself to a morning off today, I baked a banana cake and toasted up a nice big batch of granola and I have been reading a big fat juicy novel I grabbed at the library yesterday. I think it may be time for another tea, a slice of cake and some more reading before I head off to work. My crazy fall/winter schedule at my job began this week and I don't go in till later, giving me tons more time to work here at home. I kind of overdid it tuesday and now my wrist is a bit stiff. All the more reason to enjoy a bit of down time.

mitten galette tea

This weekend I knit a bath mitten! How cute. It was a pattern on the label from some yarn and was super easy. Also, this weekend I made a pie! A galette really. I have wanted to make a pie for oh, 9 years, and finally finally did it! I went the galette route after seeing Amy's yummy version. I have been eating it for breakfast. Is that wrong? We also managed to squeeze in a baseball game! Paul got free tickets so we didn't feel bad only staying till halftime. It was fun, just don't ask me who won. I have no idea. This is actually a tea picture from last week, a tea break mid morning on my messy desk. I will likely re-create this scene over and over this week too!

Happy Monday to you!

friday means pie!

It is that time of year again! My Granny neighbor has harvested her grapes and given them to all the neighbors. You may remember the great grape debacle of 2006? Well, I decided to pass the grapes along to my knitting neighbor this year instead of making something myself, and she made a pie! A grape pie, who ever thought? She brought over some for me and it was lovely and delicious. How nice!
Here are some more fruits of granny- bless her. She gave me tons of seedlings at one point and here they are finally blooming. Lovely!
Also enjoying these library books - Cath Kidson's in Print and Cables Untangled, even though I haven't tried to knit any yet.

Have a great weekend everybody!

red red red

Another soup!
It is Lamb and white bean. Poor lamb.

This weekend was spent taking all the books off the shelves, painting the sitting room vermillion, and then putting all the books back on the shelves. I took the opportunity to try a little color coding! The red is VERY red but I think it looks quite nice. It turned a previously dull room no one really knew what to do with into a destination, if I may be dramatic. Good idea Paul!

Oh the exitement.

We have a gang / herd / flock of stray cats in this neighborhood. I wish somehow they could be rounded up , fixed and set free again to live out their days. They use the land as their toilet and like to torment our sad deprived indoor cats. That actually is not true, they ignore our cats, but ours yipper and squeak when the strays come near the window. It is one grey outdoor house cat who likes to torment them by sitting very close and casually cleaning his paws looking very blase. Paul shot this photo the other morning.

Thank- you all by the way for the kind words about my last post! :) So nice to hear and get some feedback about stuff.
I am not crafting up a storm in the way I was there, making lots to sell, juts this and that when the mood strikes me, and good thoughts are always appreciated.

aminal

This little guy - donkey? sits on top of my airplane art by the back door, opposite the good breakfast poster. I love him because he is so odd. I found him at a thrift store years ago and couldn't leave him behind. His eyes are just two little stitches and he only has one ear which is falling off. He is leaning forward as though going somewhere. Cuteness!

Here is another view of my kitchen. You can see again the curious choice of tiles which cover any lower half of wall not occupied by equally curious cupboards. They were here when we moved in of course. It is not a great shot, the light is hard to work with. The main attraction here is my awesome "good breakfast" poster which I >ahem< liberated from an elementary school I taught a workshop in once years ago. I also have a great big cardboard sunkist orange and a poster called "how to judge a good product" which discusses how to know when your sponge cake and scones are ready. The room we were teaching in was once a home ec class I believe. Also I like the colored row of ball hooks I put up last week which my brother gave me for xmas. I keep my mittens etc, in the bag as we have been using the back door. Plus the wonderful hyacinth I got at the grocery store on sunday. I had to have that.
And thats what I look at when I have my tea in the morning.

ps- this is top secret, but I turned off the typekey sign in option in the hopes that by now the spammers have moved on the bigger and better things and will not inundate me with 200 spam comments a day. Of course writing this is really rather daft as who ever they are could read it too- I assume they are robot aliens who can't read english though.
Anyway, now anyone can leave a comment again. We'll see how this works out.

well! I hadn't planned a wee break but there you are. We suddenly decided to paint the hall. Paul has the week off and it was good timing. It is the whole main floor, stairs and upper floor and I just finished rolling the second coat this morning. You can see the remnants of the freshly painted, but unfortunate browny/caramel color someone thought it would be sensible to paint. Ah, that feels better! My hands feel like curled sore claws and my shoulders have felt happier, but boy it feels nice to paint your own home. I don't even mind that there is an odd patch we can't reach right at the top wall on the stairs. Good enough! Maybe I will tape a brush to a broom handle and slap on a few coats there. For now it is white, nice and clean though there are mutterings of a fresh spring green and pale blues. In thrifting news, behold! A special teapot. This was another moment when I gasped, snatched the teapot off the shelf and looked around me suspiciously to make sure no one else had their eye on it. A quick check - no chips, no muck - and it was in the basket. I also grabbed two of the saucers to match, but foolishly left the sugar bowl behind. If only I could turn back time.

I end up eating sushi quite often and everytime I go or Paul and I both go we say we should have brought our own chopsticks instead of always using the throw away kind. After saying this for over 3 years I finally put together a wee chopstick case to keep in my bag. It folds up and you can tie a ribbon around it to keep it shut. You can't see the ribbon because the girl cat would not let me photograph it without playing wth her first. That is just the kind of girl she is.

One really cool thing that we did this weekend was go the to the archives to research our house. I was in microfilm overdrive, speeding through years of city directories to discover who lived at our house for each year of this century! It was fascinating, truly. Most interesting to me were two women whose names appear at two different times. Mary Grimes lived here from 1924 to 1925 only and a Mrs. Anderson in 1942 (?) for only one year. All the rest were men, who may have been married or not. Only head of household names were recorded in those records. A different set of records will tell us the number of family members, religion and occupations. What was Mary like, living here alone? Was she alone? I would love to find more about these people. I am curious about how these women lived, did their cooking, washing. Were they happy? Did they sew or knit?

Merry Christmas people!

I hope everyone has a safe cozy warm holiday. I am officially in vacation mode! The coffee is brewing, my mum is here and the knitting is poised. One last crafty item, I made these wee creamers for my co-workers (and the tea pot for me and Paul for now). I drew on them with that Porcelaine pen you can bake to set. One last housey item, this jolly cabinet someone was tossing out! It was just what the kitchen needed. It's a bit ratty and beat up which we quite like actually. It didn't even have a wierd smell or anything. You can see the strange tiles on the wall a bit and the floor too, which were here when we moved in. The picture isn't the best, but you can also see my cool "autolite batteries" sign that has hooks for hanging junk on.

Anyway, all the best to you all! :) see you in 2007

xoxo

Here are those great tea towels I have mentioned! Click on them to see a nice big view. Karina got me them in Amsterdam this summer and they are just so nice I can't bear to use them. My tea towels just get too grundgy for some reason. As you can see, it is grey and dark outside. I have the day off today because of Remembrance day. Only some people get it off though, so sadly Paul had to work. We did manage to go the 50% off sale at the Value village but had no heart for it due to the crowds of people. It was nuts! I did find a couple of nice stripey turtleneck sweaters that I had spied the last time I went so that was good. After that we went for eggs at Maggies, a yummy breakfast place. Now I have the same below teapot, cup and tea on the go in my afternoon studio time, and of course the obligatory cat on the knee.

Here is a lovely package I received last week in a trade from Malene, who has this lovely shop Tinglingelater in Denmark! It is a very pretty shop and the package was lovely too! I love the miffy buttons ofcourse and the wee notebook cover she made.I love the puffy hearts- they are hanging in my studio doorway! Thank-you Malene! Here is her post about my package!

true loves Wednesdays

I liked the idea of this topic, seen here. I often begin to start these things, like Mati's grateful Fridays, etc and usually drift off after a few tries. That's ok though, and for true loves, I am starting with an easy and obvious one! Tea and biscuits. That is my latest favorite cookie the Voortman Almond Krunch. It is perfect for tea time, krispy and sweet I love it. This was my tea break last friday afternoon on my day off. I am never in my studio working in the afternoon so this was nice but I was cold and tea was what I needed. I even lit a candle because I get lonely in afternoons at home and a candle makes me feel warmer and cozy. The tea pot is Paul's special one. He has a pot of rooibos vanilla in it every morning to put in his thermos for work. I had Chai tea ( from Krissy!) in it with milk and sugar and worried the taste would carry over into Paul's next pot of Vanilla, but it didn't of course. I washed it. Oh and those are sketches for my Xmas cards there at the side.
Visit other true loves here.

I know today is Monday but-

Ahh Saturday is my favorite day! For some reason Paul woke up early (for us that means 8:45) and brought the paper and tea up to bed! We opened up the blinds and looked out onto a beautiful fall day. We have a great big linden tree out the window which is all yellow and losing leaves. In the sun it looked great. Also one of my favorite parts of living here right by the railway tracks is the vista! We have one, in downtown Toronto. This is unheard of if you ask me, with all the condos going up, but because of the tracks we have a lovely view of just sky and the greenery growing along the tracks. I love it. The tracks also seem to attract birds, like my beloved everything bird. Anyway, I digress. Flipping through the paper, imagine my happy surprise to see this card I did. The Children's Aid Foundation is using it as part of their holiday card fundraiser this year, among some other lovely cards. I'm so happy to be a part of their effort. We met our pals later for the best dim sum ever. It was just so tasty for some reason and we all had a great time laughing about silly things. Later I went to value village and found this nice mixing bowl to carry on my pyrex quest. It was a bit more than I usually ever spend on stuff - $7.99 - but I liked it and I am tired of my chippable earthenware mixing bowl. These guys are very sturdy. I hope you all had a fun weekend too. I am ofcourse leaving out the parts where I scrubbed down the bathroom, did laundry, got groceries, stepped in cat barf and all that other wonderful stuff.

:)

bunting!

My sister in law gave me this bunting in the summer when she and my brother came home from London. Aren't they pretty?
I have seen a lot of bunting images on flickr so they seem popular over there in England. They are sadly living in a drawer for now. I wanted to put them in the hall, but we still have to sand down the plaster areas where we filled in electricians holes and then paint over the dull browny wall color -it is all in the main level hall, all up the stairs and all in the upper hall! It was freshly done and I wish they had just picked white. Then I wanted to put it in the yard, but it rained so much this summer/fall and then I thought how cute they would be in a baby's room... ahh but no baby in the house!
:)
Next, I have been dying to show off my tea towels Karina got me in Amsterdam. One for every day of the week! Cuteness! Ofcourse, first I would have to iron them and then wait for a good light day. I already photographed them all once, but they were so grey. ah chores. I suppose vaccuuming and stuff should come before all that... Anyway, tommorow is another day off in exchange for working on sunday. I plan to head to the Japan Foundation library and try and score the 4 craft books Jen and I got them to buy. I hope they are in!
Then I get to visit Natasha and her twin babies! woo! I think a visit to the value village should be in the cards and later on its drinks for my friend swati's birthday.
I am exited- it has been pretty dull around here lately and we need a bit of fun.

Ask and the value village provides people! Well, partially at least. The first bowl I DID find there yesterday, which was nice because I love the pattern and have tea cups and saucers with a mini version of it. Now I will just have to hunt down the sweet butter dish to complete the circle-partially at least.

Taking that one bowls' photo inspired me to go ahead and have a show and tell of all my favorite bits and pieces. It is one of those Saturdays.

1. see above
2. This is the groovy mug I found last week at a church jumble sale
3. My handsome milk jug, found at the sell off of props from the set of "king of Kensington" at the CBC.
4. My tea jar! I love this one and I found this at a garage sale 2 years ago in the annex. I do recall I was feeling mean and didn't feel like lugging it around and Paul bought it for me. Aw.

5. These were Paul's before I met him. What great taste!
6. These were also Paul's and oh how I love this tea set. So pretty!
7. This is a small thing I found at the St. Vincent de Paul last winter on our fun trip to Ottawa.
8. This was found a few years ago at my same old Value village and is norwegian-♥

9. The best, this was part of a set my parents must have got in the 60's which I always found horribly ugly during my snooty formative years. I must have developed some taste because I rescued this one thing from our last garage sale when I was 21 and they sold the family house.

Last week when I had my ladies craft night, Krissy had brought along a pretty bag. When she was leaving, she did not take the bag with her and said it was for us, insisting that it was "really nothing". But look! It was this AMAZING teapot, plus 4 matching mugs and a box each of chai and camomile tea! Nothing indeed. i *LOVE* it. It is such a pretty shape and has a comforting pattern that reminds me of my childhood in the early 80's while still having a groovy retro feel as well. Thank- you Krissy! I had been dreaming of a new tea pot just for this new home and this is perfect.

-gratuitous cuteness ahead - warning-

the great grape debacle of 2006

The granny next door has a grape arbor and gave me PILES of grapes, so I decied to go all martha and make jelly. Little did I know, as I happily boiled them last night, that an outrageous smell was being generated. Only when Paul arrived home into the fog of it, did I realise what I had done. I went outside and came back in again. Sure enough, the smell was pretty awful. Needless to say the grape juice, lovely as it was, got poured away and no jelly was made. Sad really. Paul even has a cold and found the smell shocking. I was going to make spaghetti squash for dinner and found that all the seeds inside had sprouted. I assumed this meant you can't eat it, though I am probably wrong. So I made regular pasta. Despite all these annoyances I later sewed a birdy on a sweater I have. It turned out a bit too chunky ( like an overweight pidgeon perhaps ) on the stretchy fabric, but gave the desired effect of sprucing up the plain sweater.

it's a disease

Advertising works on me! Amazon Japan sent me an email to tell me this book is now out.

Can you guess what I rushed to do? Yes, I ordered it pronto. I didn't want it to be lonely so I also ordered this book.

It must be older because I was able to order it super cheap as a used copy.
I did only recently get this book which is lovely lovely. However, my lack of babies makes me slightly less into it. Kitchens turn me on, what can I say? Especially now that I have my own. Our kitchen is in good condition, it just is not the condition I might choose if I was a millionaire. The first thing we can do is get new cupboard door handles for our oak cupboards which I am told are really good so I am trying to love them. I might love them more under a coat of white paint, but that is for later when I have more energy. We did however, put the white round table in there two weeks ago and put the grey rectangular melamine (?) fifties one in the basement, which made all the difference to the mood of the kitchen. I would also love to get a snazzy quiet energy efficient fridge that didn't buzz and hum all the time when you are trying to fashionably sit reading the paper, having your tea. Oh, and a stove that doesn't need to to be lit with a match on three of the four burners. Good enough is good enough, however and I am quite content with things for now.

Things I did this weekend.

♥plucked a few little tomatoes and lined them along the window

♥yummy brunch at Maggies
♥ sat and watched Paul get all his hair cut off and look super cute
♥scored a cozy red blanket at VV
♥felted a pink sweater to craft with later
♥made a skirt out of some old jeans I never wore
♥ read the paper
♥did laundry
♥made a yummy dinner (ate it two nights in a row)
♥got groceries with Paul

♥admired lovely new plate L got me as a housewarming gift

♥slept in a bit
♥english muffin with jam
♥enjoyed having S over for coffee this afternoon ( labour day monday!
♥loving reading "Anybody Out There?" by Marian Keyes with cat on my lap
♥saw "Prairie Home Companion" with Paul and Sam at the Bloor cinema and had a fresh bit of exitement at being in a real old movie theatre now that they are almost all closed.
♥ate buttery popcorn
♥enjoyed biking home in the cool evening streets
♥had a coconut bubble tea without the bubbles
♥worked on some difficult drawings for the book
♥had a hot bath

While I don't doubt that under the correct, supervised circumstances meeting an opposum can probably be a nice experience. Perhaps even be considered a cute experience. However when you pop outside to sit on the porch steps after 10 at night for a breath of fresh air and hear an almost inaudible stirring beneath the steps, only to see slowly emerge a huge grey furry rat like creature with the beadest eyes, it's not quite an ideal first meeting. He didn't even seemed scared when I leapt up and shuddered loudly in horror, but merely carried on slowly shuffling about and then, in no apparent rush, wandered off to the neighbors yard.
My goodness, the wildlife! We were only... lets see... 5 blocks east of here and living on the main drag before but it's like another world. Racoons cheepering in the tree at night, the odd cardinal, squirrels and an unidentified shouting bird that flies around, a pack of untouchable roaming stray cats, oh and cicadas and the blissful chirping of crickets all summer long. The last I so enjoy because we had no nearby trees at the apartment. Only the roar of traffic and men at the bar downstairs spitting and yelling and singing at the occaisional Portuguese karaoke night.
But still, an oppossum? Bizarre.

Paul found these awesome leaf dishes this weekend. Does he know me or what? I had found a lone chipped sugar jar once with this pattern, but never anything else. I love them! He found 2 dinner plates, 2 side plates, one bowl and then this teeny one with an even cooler leaf pattern. All six items for $1.62 total. wow. The neatest part, was the lady at the store had wrapped them up in an old sewing pattern sheet, which appears to be for a fabric house and doll set! When I am feeling more energetic, I will investigate it further and report back.

I am knitting a jute door mat from the combined threads of two balls of dollar store twine. I have been liking the rugs I have seen here and here so much, and had this thought in my mind for a while - to knit one from rough twine. I want to try some ones later with thrifted towels etc. I have a few places that need a mat!

I just lost a USB port! I took my camera cable out and plugged my tablet cable in to that same port, too quickly perhaps? And it told me the port was taking too much power and would be deactivated! Agh! I am hoping it will be back after I restart, but if not, does any one out there now about this sort of thing? I have never seen the like before- and I need that port. humph. Nevermind! The restart fixed it- yippee!

P.S. The pussycats are back! My mum had them for their holidays in the country while we packed, moved and got settled. At first, they slunk about looking quite worried but they are right at home now, shedding and sleeping like they have lived here all their lives. A house is not a home without them.

new obsession

(image stolen from the POMME.JP website - click on image to go there) I had seen cups and things with this pattern in the Stockholm's Kitchens book, but it wasn't until two days ago when I saw an article on Stig Lindberg in the paper that the light bulb went off. Then I did a google image search which revealed the full goodness of this ceramic designer from Sweden! Ofcourse there are lots of lovely Japanese sites that showcase this stuff too. The leaves! Of course I love the leaves pattern - can you imagine coming across one of these at the goodwill?? I sort of doubt that will happen, but a girl can dream.

rain, rain go away

We have lift off! I am on the air. Of course there are issues with my outgoing mail so I cannot send mail from my taniahowells.com address. sigh. At least I can receive it for now.
Here are 2 quick images of my window sill in my new work room. Some fancy ladies from mexico, gazing wistfully at a pair of teeny tiny birdies. Also a tea cup or two, a nice white rabbit and my favorite knitted balls c/o jess hutch. cozy! Also, rain. Lots of it - pooling between the houses because the ground slopes inward not out, and me sweeping it to the road in a futile effort of woman against nature...
I'd better run! I spent so long on the phone with rogers trying to get my email going that I am running late. phooey. Why can't places embrace Mac? She gave up on my problem saying they do not deal with the mac Mail program. woe.
bye! more tommorow!

see you on the flip flop

One last crafty peep out of me for a while! Apologies for the gloomy photo. This is the shirt I made the very weekend I received the package and pattern from Tania. Yes, there is that sheet fabric again! What can I say? It was a queen sheet. I made this as more of a test to see if I could figure it out from the pattern shapes alone. Then on the following Monday, Tania sent me the instructions! That was a relief, I can next make a proper one with a zipper at the side. I wondered why I could barely get this one over my head. ( No I did not plan to have those two flowers so strategically placed. How saucy! )
And now, all my crafty things are packaged away, my sewing machine is sitting forlornly on the floor by the door, my knitting and books are sealed up in boxes. I have a feeling I will never be able to locate certain things again, but that's ok! We're moving! Tuesday we have a big van booked and a few strong like ox friends to help. If we don't get it all done, it doesnt matter because we have some time after that for the dribs and drabs of junk. Last to move is my trusty computer and the plants I suppose.... Oh well, I won't bore you with the details, just with the pictures of things that are pretty once we get there! See you soon!
xox

This here is the view from my soon to be new studio room! You can see two more here.

It was funny about yesterday and my desserts quote- When I got to work, there were leftover cupcakes from an earlier in the day party which we had for our tea time (desserts!) and then , even funnier, my co-worker down the hall gave me this book! He said his wife no longer needed it and would I like to have it? Would I? Again, desserts!
:)
I think the universe is telling me something.

In the spending money department, this weekend is an IKEA run for a couple of wardrobes and their $1 breakfast. Then a trip to Home Depot for many things including drywall - horrors- an outdoor light and some other boring things I won't go into.
I guess we won't have any time for beloved dim sum... oh well!
Have a great weekend!

Well!

Things have been a bit hectic around here as you can imagine. Over the weekend Paul and Sam opened up the dividing wall between the living room and dining room. There had been a passage way there originally, but it had been closed up. It's so much nicer now! Light comes through. I scoured the kitchen cupboards of all the old olive oil stains etc. On Sunday I went over to do something and it ended up with the grandpa next door pulling out his lawn mower and cutting our grass! He helped rake it up and the granny helped sweep and then gave me plants from her back yard for our garden. I was touched and baked them banana bread. It seems almost like a small town where everyone helps each other but also knows each others business too. We are hoping they won't get TOO cozy! I want to be able to sit out and read quietly as well.

Above is a sweet little lace doily I found in the tool shed! Isn't is pretty? It seeems like a good sign. There were a few things left including a massive 45 album / 8 track "stereo system" monstrosity which Paul loves. To the basement it goes! Now the electricians are in there doing their thing and I am trying to not have fainting spells when I think of the money slip slipping away.

stripey tee shirts are always a good sign

I had to pop over to the bank machine early this morning and I found this poppy, probably plucked by some late night revellers ( I think I remember hearing some yelling ) left on the sidewalk. I passed it on the way but could not leave it on the way back, I rescued it and put it in a glass on the table. How I love poppies. They are one of the many plants on my list for the new teeny tiny garden. On wednesday night, we rushed over after work and had pizza and wine on the porch, happy as a pair of larks. We have a nice Chinese family on one side and a sweet Portuguese granny on the other, ( I love Toronto's multiculturalism!) lots of kids around and probably stray cats. We aren't moving in for a few weeks to let the electricians get down to business without junk around. Both of us are busting to get in there though and I can envision the next weeks waiting for that being rather trying. Yesterday a dark panic settled on me at the jittery newness of everything, the unknown parts of houses, the dark basement corners and mysterious problems that tend to cost thousands of dollars when they happen at the worst times. TERROR! I am trying to focus on the things that make me so exited - the tree, a window in the bathroom, stairs, quiet of not being on a main street, sitting in the kitchen having my tea with light pouring in, baking a pie, sitting for hours on the front porch with my book. To also not forget that moving is a top big stress ( thanks for reminding me of that H!) and to just be there with that, not fight it franticly like I tend to do! Tonight my friend Isabelle has invited us for supper to welcome us to the neighborhood- she lives around the corner! ( that will be fun ) I intend to have a glass of red wine and enjoy the moment.

Have a great weekend everyone!

thankyou soo much for all the kind words from last post!

Oh and to explain the title, in the back and to the left, I spied stripey kids tee shirts hanging to dry in the yard of the house with bikes. That's always a good sign!

holy moly!!!

Paul just called from work to say the keys have been delivered! I feel like I just popped out the other side of the time space continue-um...(how do you spell that?) I can scarcely believe it. A house. GULP!!!!!!!!