Originally posted November 23, 2010 Winter Dreams from Red Bird Knits On Sunday I bought Susan Boyle’s new CD “The Gift”.  I wanted to keep her dream alive!  And so it seems do a lot of other people, apparently, her new CD sold 318,000 copies in the first week of its release.  It also topped […]

Originally posted November 22, 2010 Duck Sweater Based on M.C Escher’s morphing images I read the other day that they (great thinkers, scientists, surrealists) have been able to stabilize anti-matter for about 10 seconds – long enough for science to study  it.  Anti-matter, apparently was there at the “Big Bang”. It was the universe as

Originally posted November 20, 2010 I always love it when knitting becomes some big time in your face “thing”. I love knitting “bombs” and I love it when advertisers use knitting in their pitches.  Years ago Campbell’s soup had billboards with knitted cans of soup and knitted radiators shown graphically in yarns of their iconic

Originally posted November 20, 2010 My youngest – the soon-to-be-18 year old (male) is taking fashion design at school.  This wasn’t necessarily by choice – but, because he tends to dress as a “fashion plate,” his guidance teacher suggested that fashion design might suit him – no pun intended. His response, as usual, was –

Originally published November 19, 2010 This may very well be the last rose of summer. It’s also the title of a very beautiful, yet very sad Irish folk song. The Irish may, in fact, be one of the few cultures that have turned death into an art form. Here’s the link for the song, sung

Originally published November 18, 2010 I saw this slogan printed in very large letters on the side of a truck the other day.  It sounds like one of the great euphemisms of life. But that company certainly has brought a lot of life to, well, fungi! Now, if you thought knitting companies had difficulty finding

Originally posted November 17, 2010 November 16 was Button Day, so I am told. I am not sure whose idea this was. Most days of real significance have their origins in historical or cultural occurrences. Somehow, to have a day for buttons seems a little frivolous. A quick Google search led to this blog and

Originally posted November 16, 2010 What’s a Pawpaw? Actually, it’s a tree that grows well in the Toronto area, which is rather amazing given it’s unique name and even uniquer (is that a word?) fruit. Pawpaws yield fruit in September that look like small clusters of round green bananas, which apparently taste like a cross

Originally posted November 15, 2010 My daughter called from university today to ask for an Advent calendar.  These are the rather large, but quite thin boxes that hide chocolates under numbers, which count the days before Christmas. It’s also a very clever way to sell chocolates and to count the days before the day when lots

Originally posted November 13, 2010 Lucy Neatby posted to my Facebook wall that she was off to teach a class on 3 scarves – Sea Lettuce, Falling Leaves and Mirror, Mirror and her comment was..”a nice knitting cocktail!…” Lucy is an amazing designer. She may even be considered a knitting acrobat. What she does with