From Canada to India

Not me, but one of my quilts. Over the weekend, I put together a small baby quilt to contribute to Craft Hope's Project #3. Craft Hope is a love inspired project designed to share handmade crafts with those less fortunate around the world.

I came across Craft Hope in my daily blog reading and wanted to contribute. My quilt will be going to help the babies at an Indian orphanage.


I wanted the fishy fat quarter to stay intact so you could see the large fish pattern, so I simply surrounded it with colourful squares.


Instead of using batting and creating a quilt that might be too warm for the climate, I simply sewed a snuggly flannel backing to the cotton top of the blanket and I'm happy with the light, yet cosy, result.


I'm sure the good folks at Craft Hope have more ideas and I'll be keeping my sewing machine at the ready for future projects.

Our wedding tree over the years

On July 7th, 2002, we planted a redwood tree to celebrate our wedding the day before. The tree started out at waist height and is now well over our heads seven years later. We've taken an annual picture with the tree and today I put together a series of these photos for your enjoyment (note the arrival of Sophie in 2007). Unfortunately, I didn't have digital copies of the photos from 2002 and 2003 (the dark ages before we had a digital camera!), so they're missing from this compilation.

Aunt Kristi was kind enough to babysit for us tonight so we enjoyed a lovely dinner out and a long walk on the beach to celebrate seven years of marriage. I love you, Deano!

68. Convince Dean to recycle box of old Peaks.

Ever since university (I graduated in 2000 and Dean in 2002), we've been lugging a cardboard box of student newspapers from apartment to apartment. They've survived four moves and each time I've wondered why we were keeping them. I didn't read The Peak even when I went to SFU, and I only occasionally thought the student-drawn comics were funny. Finally, this March, in a fit of culling, Dean decided he was ready to part with the Peaks. Thank you, Deano for helping me to tick a goal off my 101 Things list!

93. Train for and participate in the Sun Run.

My dear friend Janet convinced me to join her in the Vancouver Sun Run this year and I am proud to say that we both ran the whole 10 kilometres in one hour and 12 minutes! I started training in mid-January and followed a great program that gradually increased my running segments while decreasing the amount of walking I was doing. I kept to a 3 runs/week schedule and did many runs with Sophie in the jogging stroller at the beach.

Here we are on race day, gathering with the rest of the 55,000 participants:


The crowds were amazing, a sea of people in every direction:


Dean, Sophie, Mom, Dad & Kristi (taking this photo) came to cheer us on at the 5.5km mark:


The 45 second video Kristi took while running alongside of us:


Runners coming over the Burrard St Bridge:


Minutes after completing the run, I think we look pretty darn good!:

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!