a sober thought

It's not often when I can wake up from a late night spent storming the dance floor, jazzing to retro tunes, crawling into bed at 4am with a gigantic smile and sense of satisfaction, and say that alcohol was not involved. But in light of my recent flirtation with stone-cold sobriety in the company of the charmingly inebriated, I though I would share a few need-to-be-said observations.

1. Ladies wearing shirt-dresses and tights make beautiful wallflowers, but the moment they start getting frisky, that shirt-dress becomes a shirt, and those black tights become your bottoms, and your bottoms are mostly transparent (you do to the math).

2. Any girl worth her stripes can sport a boy on the prowl from a mile a way. He, entertainingly, has a harder time spotting her disinterest.

3. I like enthusiastic dancers, but not the bruises they leave on my feet.

4. Birthday requests can be fun, but Sunday Bloody Sunday is not a very danceable choice.

I suppose there's a lot more you'll let slide when you've had a few drinks and things start to become peculiar. Maybe it's a rule that you write it off, maybe it's instantly forgotten, or maybe it's just something that's not to be talked about because what happens in that dirty-hole-in-the-ground-go-to-bar stays in that dirty-hole-in-the-ground-go-to-bar. If so, please forgive my momentary lapse in etiquette.

filled with holiday cheer

I'm not a christmas person, but who can say no to a homemade buffet, open bar, and a turn or two around the dance floor?


There's no better way to spend a chilly Saturday night.

factorybynatalie!

I am finally opening up shop on etsy under the name factorybynatalie. The profile isn't active yet (because all of the knitwear I've posted has been claimed), but I'm working on some new patterns and hope to have some items up for sale by Jan. 1 2010. If you want to make a special order, you can contact me at factorybynatalie@gmail.com.

p.s. thanks for the support char

yarn overboard

have my heart on a string

This was my lesson in conquering one-sock-syndrome. These are 100% wool, in size 6 - 6 1/2. It's an original pattern of lace knit hearts.

sweet reminders

The first snow falls and I suddenly have a desperate desire to add flowers to everything. I always preferred tulips to roses, but this pattern has me by the heart.

get your head on straight

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99 days of suburban living

I grew up on the West side of the capital. It's your typical dying suburb: a relatively unknown patch of the former Nepean, that connects the local mall to more important parts of the city. It's basically a through-way - a single four lane strip of pavement lined with banks, fast food, and a few name-brand gas station. It's packed during rush hour, but empty the other 22 hours of the day.

I don't know any people who stayed here post highschool graduation. I escaped at 19, and coming home at 21 was like being delivered into a nightmare. I lived in a town within a town, and my neighbourhood lacked the most basic spirit that defines a city, a community - there were no people. There are plenty of cars, double-door garages, and parking lots packed with row upon row of minivans. But the sidewalks were bare, and the only time I saw a body was as it was staggering from store to 4x4.

Without people, this place seemed cold and soulless. It was as though nothing beyond the Tim Horton's frachises survived, and it was depressing to notice how the people aspect of community had been swallowed by big box grocers and coffee conglomerates. I don't bear any ill-will towards my hometown, but it's a place where the (non-childbearing) under 30s flounder. My defense has always been to stay indoors, but that habit is becoming dangerously comfortable as the winter winds approach. Hopefully, in the sweet by-and-by, something good will come.

because chivalry is dead

Why wait for a man to buy me flowers? I am in love with floral patterns that remind me of things my grandma would knit. Matching scarf and mitts?

how to keep toasty

As a belated (soon to be loved) birthday gift, this is a double layer neckwarmer made with an eco-friendly Peruvian black wool. It's soft, simple, and easy to wear.

naughty or nice?

Cute with heels, and good for sliding down the hall in oversized mens' shirts (à la Tom Cruise).

I posted these ages ago, but just now got around to adding the finishing touches. Hello, party socks!

roots

America’s attic, Alaska’s babysitters, the land of 1000 Jim Carreys - Canadians are like the Pillsbury dough boys of the western world - no matter how hard your jab, we’ll smile, laugh too hard, and probably apologize for Celine, SARS, and the fact your boyfriend watches too much hockey.

But beyond our passive-aggressive excuses/thinly veiled criticisms, our collective lack of a national self-worth is spawned from our brief and disparate histories. Arnold Edinborough said that “Canada has never been a melting-pot; more like a tossed salad,” and while I always chalked up my heritage to some basic European country, it wasn’t until today that I unearthed a manuscript detailing the history of my family.


In a scrapbook of meticulously hand-written pages and sepia-tinted photos, my grandmother has outlined the pedigree of my mother’s side of family. It’s a mélange of Clerics and Doctors, marriages and second marriages, children lost in infancy, births, deaths, and even a distant cousin who, by sheer coincidence, was baptized with the exact same name as my sister; their stories are all set to page in her impeccable scrawl.

It’s not a distinctly Canadian history, but it’s these small details that made me feel more attached to this hateful wasteland of frozen tundra than ever before. Frankly, I never cared much for the stories of the settlers, or the fur trade, but suddenly knowing that H. Nelson Jackson, my (to be determined number of greats) grandfather was the first person to cross the continent in a car (nicknamed Vermont) means a whole lot more than how we torched the White House in 1812.

image via ffffound

'tis the season

for really cute moccasins.

anchors away

this little piggy

babies and burritos

It's no secret that babies terrify me. There's just something about being loud and breakable that sets my senses on edge. In 23 years, I have only held one baby, that was forced upon me during an eleven-hour flight from Dar to London. He was a nine-month-old ginger named Rufus, with heartbreaking blue eyes, and he crawled across me to get a peek out the window as we passed over the Libyan desert. Then he vomited on me a little. 1-0 Babies.

But Jessica's baby may be the exception. She's bright and charming, and has a wardrobe I would kill for. Her first words should definitely be 'thanks, mom.'

funnies

at a loss for words

I've taken to counting the letters, listing off the words on the page, and saying them out loud, as if their sound will set off a spark. I make notes of clever things said, and written, by those more inspired than myself. I count the minutes spent sitting in a quiet stupor, staring blankly at the taupe-coloured walls of the coffee shop. Waiting, willing for inspiration, and waiting some more.

What do you do when you've run out of things to say? You're scared. It's death or embarrassment, and all that dribbles out are rambling passages about the weather and other desperate things. You've lost your rhythm, and you're scribbling about nothing and wondering about everything.

I'm looking for direction. And counting.

c'est l'halloween

The only time of year when it's acceptable to dress up your pets.

how far is too far?

I am knee deep in a sea of flannel, scrap yarn, and glitter, and I'm starting to feel I bit off more than I can chew. Does anyone have tips on how to fashion a homemade jumpsuit?

making the most of unemployment

After wasting much of my days glued to the flatscreen watching hours upon hours of american justice and foodtv, I've decided to begin conditioning my soul for a more productive lifestyle. Mission one: retraining myself in the art of french everything.

pet projects

If absence makes the heart grow fonder, than the distance I've forced between me and my computer has hopefully generated a strange kind of appreciation - me for the machine, and the machine for my life outside of the matrix. (And for those that dismiss whether the machine really cares about whether I go out for coffee, or meet friends for sushi, I contest, that on principle, nothing precious should be left lonely, to grow dusty, unloved and outdated). But with vapid amounts of spare time, I've lusted after computer-free ways to pass the hours. These are the results.

xmas gifts

weekend wear

3,200 stitches later

guilty pleasures

As the October chill sets over the city, I can't help but relish the task of riffling through my winter storage to resurrect the plaid scarves and woolly mittens of seasons past. As a yarn harlot, I have enough knitwear to clothe all the elves in Santa's workshop, and my collection just keeps growing. And as the leaves turn orange, I'm more than happy to curl up in my moccasins, with a hot mug of apple cider and a VHS (tonight's is The Witches), and knit and purl my way through the next fuzzy project.

Soon to be a lacey hat with a scalloped hem. Pattern courtesy of Bronwyn Lowenthal at http://www.ilovelowie.com/

me vs. the mouse (part II)

So after four days of actively avoiding the yellow tv room, ignoring it, except for my daily site check to make sure my barricade is in tack and fully mouseproof, I saw him again. I had just warmed up my morning coffee, wandered over inspect my structure, when I saw him. I choked on my sip and just about sent my steaming cup of brew flying across the room. He seemed darker this time, sitting on the rug by the door. My shuffling and sputtering must of scared him, and he took off to some corner, out of sight.

The good news: he's still in the family room.

The bad news: I'm pretty sure he's made his home in the couch.

mouse-capades

What do you do when there’s a mouse in your house?

It was just after twelve and I was curled up on the couch, channel surfing through early morning tv, when I spotted the small, furry, pad-footed intruder, scurrying across the hearth of the fire place. I froze, crushing my eyelids together, hoping it wasn’t real…not now, not when I’ve got nowhere to go, not when I’m the manliest person in the house with the gumption to deal with this. What on earth do I do?

This isn't the first time I've had run-ins with fuzzy houseguests. In my student home there was William and Elizableth, two garbage hoarders that our pacifist cat Jack liked to catch and release. Then there was Edward, the two-inch ball of white lightning that lived in the living room couch in Tanzania (note: custom-made roadside furniture often comes with inhabitants). And now Jean-Marc, the first mouse bold enough to risk squatting in the house of the most musophobic (look it up) woman I've ever called Mom.

So like all good pacifist, vegetarian, city girls, I did a panicky little dance and then barricaded the doorway between the den and the kitchen with a card-table, some 2x4s, and electrical tape. Mum and dad get home in four days.