[Happy Anniversary to my Folks!]

Hi friends! Happy Holidays. Hope you've been able to relax and make shapes in the snow.

I have to say, I was very lucky this holiday. Among the incredibly generous gifts that my husband gave me is a letterpress course that I'll be taking at Snap and Tumble this month. I can't wait! What should I make?

 

I took a little break from making things for a few days, but that break will need to end soon. Here are some little kitchen linens I made as a gift for friends, hand embroidered with xx's and oo's.

I may make a few of these and sell them in my shop soon.

Oh, and I almost forgot! I've got a few items featured in the latest issue of Wedding Bells. Our wedding is featured in the issue as well. A special thanks to Roseanne Dela Rosa for her creativity and support!

Happy almost new years, everyone!

It's nice to be part of something.

I'm pretty chuffed to have my little holiday cards included in Fieldguided's Shop Local Gift Guide. Thank you to Erica, who took the beautiful photo and made the suggestion.

If you like them, you can pick some up at the wonderful Coriander Girl in Parkdale.

Holiday shopping today. And then I'm going to make these. Mmmmm.

Poor Diana.

I've been spending a bit of time with the photos I took during our honeymoon. I didn't realize it, but I guess my trusty Diana suffered some sort of a severe bumping and so all of my photos basically stank. It's no fun getting a bunch of stinky photos back from your honeymoon, trust me. Anyway, these are the best of the bunch.

We've been gearing up for the holidays here. We had some lovely guests stay with us last weekend, which always makes for a great opportunity to eat well. We visited Torito and finally had the courage to try their Tongue & Cheek dish. While I didn't love the tongue, the braised cheek was delicious. Have you been there? You should totally go.

Many exciting things happening lately, I'll post about them soon...

I am too romantic, and other things that happened today.

Every now and then I visit Toast's website, and then I spend quite a bit of time idealizing English country life, and then I think about how I should really prioritize that trip to visit my husband's English family. And do some shopping. Some very expensive shopping. And then I sort of snap out of it.

Anyway: the clothes, they are so pretty! And the housewares, too.

Pretty Paper. By Me!

So you may know, or you may not even know, that I've got a little line of stationary that I've been developing. And I've finally started to sell it through my etsy shop. So if you know anyone who needs invitations for an event, send them my way! I'll be adding more to it in the next month or so.

And I've just started selling these little notecard sets, made with some of my watercolour illustrations.

We spent this past weekend in Oakville at a lovely wedding on the lake. The groom was one of Chris' oldest friends - they met in the fourth grade!

We packaged some treats up for them with their wedding gift. I really want to try that mustard. I feel like a spicy zing with every meal lately.

A few nice things for a lovely November day.

* A little glimpse of some work I'm doing for a client.

* A baby quilt I made for a special (pregnant) friend. Ready to send off!

* Forelle pears. Yum. 

* Just about the prettiest tea packaging I've seen. From Clipper UK. Tastes wonderful too!

* New Books! And they're fantastic. Rebecca Solnit's Storming the Gates of Paradise, Maira Kalman's And the Pursuit of Happiness and Bruce Mau & friends The Third Teacher.

We started reading And the Pursuit of Happiness last night. It's so delightful and moving. And we saw Bruce Mau speak last week and were compelled to buy this book afterwards.

* Dinner last night. The un-healthiest salad ever, with a side of zucchini. My specialty.

So much yes.

Yes yes yes and yes! And so much more to daydream about here.

Also: please get out and vote today! It's so very important. xo

I may have ordered this sweater.

Because it was on sale! And I love a wrap sweater! And it's so cute.

If you haven't seen J. Crew's fall line, take a look - it's really nice. Here are some of my favourites. I am especially in love with the boots. I think they're bee-yoo-ti-ful.

Oh, and I should say that I kept watching Sister Wives last night, until the husband used this line to talk about his first wife's resistance to in vitro fertilization:

I haven't heard 'no' in a serious enough fashion yet to believe it means 'no'.

This, of course, wasn't the only problematic issue I had with the show, but it does identify the moment when I almost barfed.

Why am I watching Sister Wives?

I've been trying to convince myself that it's research for a project I'm working on, but that's such a lie. Oh Sister Wives, why are you so likeable and offensive at the same time?

In other news, we made some delicious cauliflower risotto the other night. And I'm so taken with the heirloom carrots we bought at Jean Talon. A huge bag for $2.50. Seriously!

A fistful of delicious.

I can't believe how quickly autumn is passing. But it's been so beautiful, hasn't it?

Thanks Montreal. We really needed that.

We had a last minute free & fancy hotel room offered to us on Friday for this past weekend, so we left Friday afternoon and had one of our best weekend trips. The weather was perfect and we ate so well. We were especially happy to discover the restaurant Lemeac, and its unbelievable Pain Perdu. It's pretty much worth going to Montreal just for that dessert.

We strolled through Parc Lafontaine, visited some galleries and just explored. Oh Montreal! Thanks for being so fun and nice.

The fantastic men's & women's shop Rooney. Such a great space.

Jenny Holzer exhibit at DHC-ART.

Jean Talon Market. My favourite market of all markets. A perfect outing for Thanksgiving day.

A lot of meat on one plate at the Main.