For the Birds....

My Cal Gal
(notice the Charles and Diana mug - very timely of the recent Royal Wedding!)

This past week has been a flurry of fibre, tea, pastries, animals and sewing.

None other than Madame Cal Patch of Hodge Podge Farm was FINALLY "up here" in Toronto visiting me and teaching in her amazing pattern making techniques and embroidery too! (as one of my fellow students said, "Add an "m" to Cal and you get calm.") Her teaching is amazingly calming and laid back and I certainly learned a lot from her that I can apply to my teaching as well as just learning a lot of technique that has left me itching to dust off the old sewing machine! If you haven't got her book, "Design-It-Yourself Clothes" yet - what are you waiting for?!

There's so much to talk and share about her trip - I'm going to have to do so over a few posts...

Something I am going to share on this post is about birds, well a bird... All winter a beautiful red cardinal has been stalking my parents. Every time we looked out the window - there he was staring back. My mom and I even thought that maybe it was some reincarnated relative checking up on us. One morning when I was staying at my parents' place, I opened the blind and there he was! It was like a horror movie!


Fast forward to May... it turns out he was casing the place in order to build a nest. His mate has built a beautiful little nest in the thick bushy vines on the front porch. There are three little eggs in it. In a way it's a funny place for a nest... the post carrier, my family, neighbours are always passing by and getting dive bombed by daddy bird.


Oh, and the behaviour of peering and snoopervising all winter - he most likely thought there was another male and could see his reflection. Cardinals are very territorial. Thank goodness for Boomer who explained all this (she's kind of an expert since her degree is in Ornithology and Animal Biology - it's always good to have several types of nerds in the family).

I was reading about how the female builds her nest and basically it's very complicated weaving. Did ancient humans learned to weave by watching birds? Is the drive to make things part of our DNA? It just struck me as a wonderful thing...


Here are a few finished projects. My Granny Square skirt and my Orenburg Lace Sampler complete with crocheted edging.