A lot of treasures.

Today, during spring cleaning, I found a small box in my apartment that I must have missed unpacking. This was a great find because inside were a bunch of little things I'd had while traveling in Australia and New Zealand, including my 4 GB SD card that I've been looking for all year.

Other than that, the rest of the items were mainly souvenirs and trinkets. This is inspiring me to finish putting the rest of the pictures from both my southern hemisphere trip and my Yukon trip up.

When I was in Auckland, I found the coolest Japanese import store. I could only buy a few little things including these pencil toppers with teensy little impractical fruit-shaped erasers in the end. I usually keep the berry one on the end of my pencil.


Various soy sauce and mayo containers.


The monkey mayo container opens and has a tiny little banana spoon inside.


A pretty pottery spoon from a store in the art deco town, Napier, on the North Island of New Zealand.

A 20 cent coin from New Zealand. All of their money is this pretty.


A pen for writing on porcelain or metal. I think I actually bought this in Ottawa. I haven't tried it yet, but I really want to this weekend. I think I'll go to the thrift store tomorrow and find a mug to decorate.


A tea towel from NZ with all of the breeds of sheep on it. I brought back some tea towels for my friend and this one for me.


And, my favourite Australian Swallow Casein knitting needles (made from milk protein!) that unfortunately popped on the plane once we got to a certain altitude and crumbled into a lot of pieces. If you look closely, all the breaks happened at the little air bubbles. I guess those are weak spots and maybe the air pressure change was too strong for them. These needles are great though, kind of bendy and warm. I bought them at a wool store the first week I was in Perth that took me about two hours to get to, and used them to knit navy blue merino gloves for my mom's birthday. And then continued to knit with them throughout my entire trip.


Annnd, some NZ fridge poetry. Which is now punched out and on my fridge in a random pattern. Mainly I really like the sheep magnet.

Cheese update!

Today I fixed the over-salted cheese. I poured out all of the salt brine, washed off each of the cheese twists, and refilled the jar with garlic, dill, pickling spices, a normal amount of salt, vinegar, and water. I just tried a little sample and it tastes really good already. I am really happy that I didn't waste $14 on a jar of salt cheese that burns my mouth.

Also, tomorrow in my kitchen I'm going to try sprouting onion seeds again. I've been trying all winter, but this house has cold spots and is exceptionally dry, so it hasn't worked out. Now that it's beginning to warm up here a bit, I think I'll be more successful. I've collected a nice set of jars over the winter too.

Mini mug rug!!

One of the woman in my knitting group is the fastest crocheter in the east. She produces clever, detailed items constantly. Last week at knitting group she brought me a gift! She had made these little mini mug rugs to give to all of the members at Christmastime. Unfortunately, I was out of town and missed the party, but she brought some for me last week.


The mug rugs are based on a rug design that she uses to make life-sized rugs out of leftover dishcloth cotten. All you do is make a chain however long you want the rug to be. Then you work rows of single crochet, slipping the yarn through the last stitch in each row and leaving a short tail. You work the same number of rows on either side of the centre chain. When the rug is wide enough you just stop adding rows. There's no finishing at all. I think this is a really cool idea and I might make one myself to use up a bunch of dishcloth cotten that i am never going to make into dishcloths.

A local delicacy.

Awhile ago I noticed an interesting new food product in my local grocery store. It's a twisted cheese preserved in brine. Now, generally when I find something like this, I don't hold back. I just pick it up and put it in my basket and take it home to give it a try. This time, though, I've been fairly intimidated by the size and appearance of this product, so even though I've noticed it on every single shopping trip (it is displayed quite predominately in the deli section) I hadn't actually purchased it.

This weekend, this cheese was just on my mind. I told my friend all about it. I devised a plan that included stopping by the grocery store with my rental car to pick it up. That didn't end up happening. I got some anyway, and lugged it home.


I tried to eat some. This cheese is perhaps the saltiest thing I have ever tasted. I woke up this morning feeling dehydrated and my tongue felt a little bit burnt. I just don't understand how people eat this, or what they eat it with. I'm going to do some more research and ask around about it. I think I might try to save mine by rinsing out the salt brine and making a new pickling liquid with spices and vinegar and much less salt.



Pickled cheese definitely has some potential. Especially when it is hand knotted like this little twist.



To me, the most interesting fact about this cheese is that it is manufactured locally. This region is not known for its local products. And I really want to like this. I just can't eat it as it is. Even though this hasn't been the greatest culinary experience of my life, I'm still on the look-out for the pickled sausages.

Old times.

p.s. sorry about the tacky lime green superimposed lyrics.

And then I organized a bookshelf by colour.

This is surprisingly easy to do when you have so few books. Since I really consider this collection to be an item of furniture in my sparsely decorated living space, it also makes things look neater and more organized. Generally, I would only organize books by topic, but this is so much nicer to look at.

Paint a Painting.

Last July, I took an art course at the Haliburton School of the Fine Arts. It was a week long course in impasto watercolour printmaking. Bronwen was also at school that week, taking a book-binding course. We stayed at a cottage and had a great time. I'm going to apply for another course for this summer, but I can't commit to anything yet since I don't know where I'll be.

My favourite print, and my class friend's print on my wall in Cornwall.


Close-up of the friend print.



Two of my little square prints near the window in Cornwall.


My giant pile of paper and a week's worth of prints in my portfolio.


And now, for some process shots. This is what it looked like when I was carefully peeling a print off of our 3000 lb per inch printing press.


Myself and one of the instructors, at the press in the hallway of the school.


Some of our work drying on the felt drying boards.


On Thursday, we all walked around and saw what people were making in the other classes.

Weaving was right across the hall from my class.


Bronwen's bookbinding class was at the highschool in town.


Her mini book.


A wooden bird from the birdcarving class, which I greatly admire.


All kinds of amazing art supplies everywhere.


Things to shape jewellery in silversmithing class.


Glassblowing class.


And some of their creations.