Rinda’s Scavenger Hunt–Adventure in the Rocky Mountains

We spent 2 weeks in August motorcycling round the Canadian Rockies!  We were on a guided tour,so that meant everything was booked up for us, including rental of motorbikes, hotels, etc, and there was a back-up van for our luggage!  We met some great people on the tour and saw some awesome scenery. 

I decided to try and do the Scavenger Hunt while we were on our trip.  I didn’t get them all,but here’s what I did get:

1 a wild heart

2 foot print or paw print.  There must be a paw print somewhere in this quilt- mustn’t there?

3 skeleton bone or x-ray

4 book or magazine read in 2016

5 porch or deck.  We were lucky enough to have lunch on the patio/deck at Banff Springs Hotel, and the weather was perfect!  Must be one of the most scenic places in the world to have lunch!

6 camper or RV.  I was fascinated by the HUGE RVs!  They were everywhere!  We stayed overnight at this RV park – we had a wooden cabin – in Clearwater, BC.

7 family gathering.  These guys were brilliant!  They certainly felt like my family while we were on the trip.

8 drawing art journal scrapbook page etc made by me

9 someone playing in or around water.  Canoes on Moraine Lake.  So pretty!

10 bicycle.  Rental bicycles in Vancouver.

11 fresh produce.  Granville Island Market in Vancouver

 

12 window. I found this window in the Chinese garden in Vancouver’s Chinatown

13 the moon.  How about this moon face on one of the totem poles in Stanley Park, Vancouver?

14 buffet of food.  Maurice felt like he was eating a whole buffet of food when he was served this humungous burger at Whistler, BC.

15 team logo.  The Whitecaps FC team store in Vancouver.

16 map showing trip

17 twins.  Maurice and Stewart hired the same BMW motorbike rather than a Harley.  They are BMW R1200RT’s with twin cylinders.

18 supermarket trolley full of groceries

19 seasonal cocktail

20 someone laughing.  We really did laugh a lot on this trip!  Here’s a great picture of Aussie Pam laughing(who rode her own Harley Davidson Fatboy!)

 

21 photo of me with newspaper or calendar from period covered by hunt

That’s it for this year from me!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  A look back into 2015, and forward to 2016

Hope I am not too late in wishing you all a very Happy New Year!  I hope you have all had a relaxing and peaceful Christmas.  We had a lovely time celebrating with friends and family, and now I feel rested and looking forward to what 2016 brings!

This is Christmas morning.  Lucy wanted the little plastic drawer set for her cupboard, so we filled it with presents instead of her stocking.  Nicholas had a loft ladder, so that he can get up in his enormous loft, and you can see it under his pile of presents!

Looking back on 2015, my word ADVENTURE served me well, with 3 big adventures!

Holiday in Australia and New Zealand – a holiday of a lifetime and overcoming my nervousness of flying.

Welcoming our new puppy Barney into our lives – putting in the time to train him.

Setting up my Etsy shop selling vintage sewing items – and making some sales!

Looking forward to 2106, I’d like to build on these 3 adventures, and so I have chosen 3 words: GROW, DEVELOP and FLOURISH.

I am in the process of going through some exercises in a  little book on Life Coaching to enable me to get a better understanding of what I want my life to be like, and therefore write some goals for 2016.  I will keep you posted!

Have you chosen a word for 2016?

My Garden in July and update on adventures

Oh gosh!  It is rather a long time since I last blogged!  I have been busy with my 2 adventures: puppy and Etsy shop.  I’ve set up a sewing blog to go side by side with my Etsy shop.  It’s here if you want to pop over and have a look.  I’m really pleased with the blog header, but not so pleased with the photos in the blog posts!  I need to get husband to take some better ones.  All I need now is some readers, so I have been avidly commenting on sewing blogs.  If you are interested, there are some great blogs in the side bar.

Anyway, my garden is looking fabulous this year after replanting the south facing border last year:

I’ve managed to do a fair bit of gardening this Summer, even though I generally have a little helper:

 

He is pretty good at ‘helping’ with the housework too!  Here is is having just jumped onto the sofa!

We are taking him out for short walks now and he is very friendly with people and other dogs.  Puppy training classes start tonight, wish us luck!

Sewing wise, I am making a dress from one of my Vintage patterns, a 1969 shift dress.  I’ll show you when it’s finished. 

I am slowly taking photos for Rinda’s scavenger hunt, need to get a move on with this! 

Two more Adventures–Number Two

You will all know that I have rekindled my love of dressmaking in the past year or so.  I have loved reading the sewing blogs and have discovered a whole world of independent pattern designers, sewing tips and tutorials and pattern hacks.

 

 

I found that there is quite an interest in vintage patterns.  See Marie of ‘A Stitching Odyssey’ and Kerry of ‘Kestrel Makes’ Vintage Pattern Pledge.  I began to search in local charity shops and on eBay, and have amassed quite a collection in a very short time.  I adore the vintage illustrations, they are so cute!  The glamour of the 1960s is my favourite at the moment,  although I love a good 1970s sundress, or a 1980s ‘Lady Di’ haircut! It’s fun to see the sort of patterns I might have made in the 1970s and 1980s!

So to my new adventure - I have opened an Etsy shop selling vintage patterns and vintage sewing notions and haberdashery.  I love the cards of buttons, and the old wooden cotton reels!  And the little cards of press studs and hooks and eyes! I am hoping that other people will share my love of vintage sewing notions.  Please do pop over to Etsy and have a look.  I would love to know what you think.

Two more Adventures - Number One

You may remember that my one little word this year is ADVENTURE!  Well, after our epic adventure in Australia and New Zealand, I am about to embark on 2 more adventures!

Number One: Meet our new puppy!  He is an English Springer Spaniel, and in these photos he is 6 weeks old!  How cute is he??? We are going to collect him in just over a week's time.  So we are busy getting the house and garden puppy proof!  As yet he doesn't have a name.  We like Oscar, Charley, Bobby and Monty.  Any thoughts?  Or other ideas?  As you can see he is mostly black, and has the cutest face ever!

I have uploaded these photos via my phone, and have had to use blogger instead of live writer for this post, so the layout might look a bit different.  First picture is Lucy holding the puppy.  Third picture includes the other puppies and his mother, Pearl.  In the fourth picture you can see how black he is.

Expect this blog to become rather doggy over the next few months!  Can't wait!

Some big Adventures and some January finishes!

Oh dear!  I seem to have got right out of the habit of blogging lately.  Not sure what to do about this – perhaps I should just blog intermittently for now.

But here’s some fabulous news!  My one little word for 2015 is ADVENTURE.  In fact, it is a really BIG word, as I have 2 BIG adventures to look forward to this year. 

In just over 3 weeks time, we take off on our holiday of a lifetime!  We are going to tour New Zealand on a motorbike.  It is something we’ve dreamed of for some 10 years or so.  Some old motorbiking friends are coming along too.  We had to wait until we didn’t have our dog anymore, and they had to wait until their youngest child had grown up.  Well, it has all come together now!  We join the tour in Auckland and tour the north and south islands for 18 days.  We are stopping off in Australia on the way out there to visit my cousin in Adelaide and Maurice’s nephew and family near Sydney. Very exciting!  I can’t wait to show you some of the wonderful scenery we are travelling through.

My second ADVENTURE is to get a puppy when we get home!  We are researching breeds and fancy either another flat-coated retriever or a springer spaniel.  I warn you, this blog may become very doggy!

I think as my word is ADVENTURE that I should do my mini-adventures again, and I may well do this in September.  Anyone fancy joining in? 

I intend to continue ADVENTURE into my crafting, and hope to challenge myself and try new things.  I want to continue dressmaking, crochet and scrapbooking.  I’d really like to make some money from my crafting interests, that could become quite an ADVENTURE.

Finally here’s a couple of items I’ve finished this month:

Ripple Baby blanket for niece’s baby boy.  The pattern is by Lucy at Attic24, and I bought the kit.  I made this one small, so I have loads of wool leftover to make another one for myself.  Aren’t the colours lovely? There are 15 different colours of Stylecraft wool, which is very soft and feels lovely.

And here’s a jacket I have finished.  It is Butterick B5958.  I made it in a soft brushed cotton fabric, that has a tweed sort of pattern to it.  It’s lovely and soft, in fact, it might be a bit too soft for the jacket.  But I do love it!  It will be fab to wear in the spring and autumn.  Thanks to Laura at More Sewing for help with the fitting and construction.