4. Make Sophie a skirt using Oliver + S's lazy days skirt pattern.

I'm very excited about this cute skirt I made for Sophie using the free Lazy Days Skirt Pattern by Oliver + S. I found the 70s style ABC trim for $1/3m and couldn't resist! This is the first garment I've made for Sophie and it came together in about three hours. It was so satisfying to make that I've got another one in the works!

Thanks to Soule Mama for the inspiration to do this project. You can see other items people have made using Oliver + S patterns in their Flickr group.

I'm glad I'm NOT the girl in this book!

I had to share this blog post that Janet shared with me that has pictures of the entire book, "I'm glad I'm a boy!: I'm glad I'm a girl!" by Whitney Darrow. It's so bad you can't believe it and the worst part is that it was published in 1970!

I think I'd better go read Sophie "The Paper Bag Princess"!

Holly's Red Bike

I feel that it is well past time that I introduce you to my bike. Seeing as I called this blog "Holly's Red Bike", I really have been lax in talking about biking. However, I only started writing this blog in rainy November and I haven't been cycling lately.

My bike is my "engagement ring". When Dean and I got engaged while SCUBA diving (another story I should blog about sometime!), I gave him a diving watch (since I was the one doing the proposing). Sometime afterwards, he took me on a hike up First Brother mountain in Manning Park, presented me with a bike catalogue and said I could have my pick. A bike in lieu of an engagement ring. Perfect! My shiny red Norco Monterey was my first bike since the one I bought when I was 12 with my allowance money. Riding my bike makes me happy and I love living one block from the bike route.

I just got my bike tuned up for spring last Friday. On Saturday (when this photo was taken), we went on a family bike ride to "Bike the Blossoms" as part of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival. Vancouver has hundreds of beautiful cherry trees and Saturday was a lovely sunny day. A good time was had by all and it felt fabulous to be back riding my red bike!

11. Knit or crochet a hat.

This soft and sweet hat was delivered to a sleepy little three-week-old boy today. The pattern is called "simple hat" from "baby knits for beginners" by Debbie Bliss. I used US size 6 needles (4mm diameter) and just under one 50g ball of sage Rowan cashcotton dk (doubleknit) yarn that had 18% angora and 9% cashmere in it to make the hat super cosy.

I started this hat on double pointed needles about five times. I wasn't getting the results I wanted and I still haven't figured out how to use dpns. However, when I pretended the dpns were regular needles, all went well. I made the 6-9 month size because this baby was 9lbs 7oz at birth and I figured he'd be growing fast.

Now I can't wait to start another knitting project! (but I've got a quilt and a hanky in the works, so I'd better finish those up first!)

Hooray for pysanky!

For years and years, I've been writing pysanky at Eastertime. For those not in the know, pysanky are Ukrainian eggs decorated using a wax resist method. It requires patience, attention to detail and a good dose of persnickety-ness to do them well. Fortunately, I have all those qualities in spades (granted, the patience is an on-again, off-again thing with me!).

I made the egg in the above photo in March 2008 and I can't wait until Good Friday to do a new batch. I bought ten different coloured dyes from the local craft store and I just know some fabulous eggs are ready to be created!

Just in case you haven't seen enough pysanky yet, here's one with a rooster design that I did back in 2005 to share with my primary students. Yes, I have even taught pysanky to five-year-olds!

In 1492...

Today, I taught a Gr 4/5 class that was preparing for a test on explorers. I was teaching basic studying skills; how to predict questions and write out flashcards (surprisingly, not all of them got the concept of question on one side, answer on the OTHER side!).

One boy was preparing a few key facts about Christopher Columbus (country of origin: Italy, area explored: Bahamas, Cuba) and he got stuck on date of exploration. "1497?" he guessed. I told him he was close, but said, "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." "That's what the sub we had last week said!" he exclaimed. What a coincidence!

22. Replace annoying blinds in front room.

Our old cloth vertical blinds that were too long for the window and dragged on the sill every time you opened the blinds are finally gone! Goodbye annoying blinds and hello beautiful new wooden horizontal blinds! The new blinds are stylish and functional. Blinds that actually block out the light of the streetlamp that's directly outside the bedroom, what an idea!

The front bedroom before (note the gap-tooth effect where one blind had broken):


The front bedroom after:


Master bedroom before (note the two different types of blinds):


Master bedroom after (ah, consistent window treatments!):


Sliding glass door before:


Sliding glass door after (sorry, I didn't get a shot with the blinds down):