Let's go to the EX!

Let's go to the EX!, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Oh my goodness it's the CNE!
this seems more important to me because... I had never been! I know.. but the idea seemed pretty exciting..
It kinda wasn't.. a lot of carnie games and rides and bright flashing lights.. and people.. a lot of people.
But the experience of going was worth it... and there was a lot of food...horribly amazing food!
JD (flatmate) and I headed out with the express purpose of eating terrible food.. I had heard the rumour of deep fried oreos and we both were curious...
I only wish I had gotten a picture of our first food item.. chocolate covered bacon.. that was amazing.. possibly because bacon is amazing... we followed that up with a deep fried Mars bar (kinda disappointing) and deep fried Oreos (mega good) really it was a tie between the bacon and the oreos for best food of the night... mmmmn I can feel my ateries clogging as I remember...
Yum Yum

CNE.. home of greasy food... take 3, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Tomatoes!

Tomatoes!, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

I grew these.
It's my first time growing tomatoes and I think I did ok. some of the plants now have a fungal or mold infection on their leaves.. i think because it's been a really wet summer. Other than that I've gotten quite a few lovely cherry tomatoes from my 3 little plants. Ya!

Quilting week three

Quilt week three, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

So this week we sewed the pieces together and attached a border with a mitered edge.. not hard work as it was all sewing in straight lines. This is the first picture of the quilt top all assembled.. the lighting is pretty poor as I took the photo at night but I think it looks pretty good!!!!Last class tomorrow.. backing, binding and starting to quilt it ..
WOW!

Quilting... week two

thread, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

OK so a lot got accomplished this week. we took our sewn arcs and appliqued them onto squares we cut out. then we cut out corner pieces and sewed them on..
I opted to make a larger quilt so there is a lot of homework to do. But got it done! ya ya ya! this is just some of the scrap thread from the sewing extravaganza that occurred this week.

The arcs are below.. they'll be assembled into intersecting circles this monday!

Quilt squares, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Finally, this week I also chose my backing and border fabrics. The backing fabric I'm going to keep a little bit of a secret for now, but trust me it's awesome! The fabric below is the border fabric.. it reminds me of Andrea.

Anna Griffin - Flora Collection, originally uploaded by the workroom.

Quilting... aka I might be insane

Quilt doubles, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

So I signed up for a double wedding ring quilting class at the excellent Workroom just down the street from my house.
I got super excited about picking fabric for the rings and am all excited for class... but I'm just going to say it..
It's a ton of work.
I want to make it big enough to fit on my bed but ummm... I was hoping to have a life this summer. the teacher would like us to make a 4x4 quilt... I have enough patches to make a 6x7 quilt.. almost triple the size...
I don't know what I've gotten myself into but here goes nothing.

sewn arcs!, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Iceland and Denmark - that's all folks!

Denmark - Lego at Kronborg castle, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

man! it took me forever to get all these posts up! but here they are. YA! man looking at all this stuff makes me wish I was back there right now.

Blue Lagoon, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Tivoli

April 10 - In and Outside of Copenhagen: Castle, Museum and Tivoli

Denmark - Kronborg castle, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Just outside of Copenhagen stands one of the best known castles in Europe. Kronborg Slot in Helsingor otherwise known as Hamlet's Castle. We spent the morning exploring the castles many rooms and, while I can't speak for Mary, I was reciting bits of Hamlet the whole time (Ah! Yorik! I knew him well Horatio...). After a traditional lunch of Smørrebrød(open faced sandwiches) we headed back towards Copenhagen with a stop at Louisiana. Louisiana is the Danish MoMA - but bigger. It is set on a lovely sea side property donated to the modern art museum and named after the donors three wives all named Louise ... yes he married three different women with the same name.

Our last stop was Tivoli, the amusement park near the centre of Copenhagen. It is amazing. It is no wonder that Walt Disney based Disneyland on it and the Michael Jackson offered to buy it. We went back twice, once for dinner and the second time to see all the lights on. Tivoli is the perfect mix of rides and carnival games and food. There really was things for all ages.. fine dining next to candyfloss stands, carni games and rollercoasters.. and lots and lots of flowers in bloom! Mary and I got wonderful fresh brewed Chai tea and if we go again I will insist on gelato..mmmmn.

Denmark - Kronborg castle, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Denmark - Kronborg castle, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Denmark - Pulpit Kronborg castle, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

April 9 - Museums, Castles and Waterfront

Copenhagen - Botanisk Have, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

We started the day a little late so that we could fully use the 72 hour Copenhagen Card. The card gets us entry into almost every museum in the city as well as free rides on all the city transportation. We wandered up from the hotel and into Botanisk Have, the botanical gardens. We came across the Palm house and took a look inside. I wasn't brave enough to make it up the circular viewing platform but Mary was. The plants in the gardens were really lovely and it was cool to see things like cinnamon and orange trees.

After that we made our way to the Satens Museum for Kunst. We saw some excellent Titians, Magrittes and Picassos as well as quite a number of Danish contemporaries. Right across the street was Rosenborg Slot, a summer castle for the monarchy that now is a museum and the housing for the crown jewels.

Copenhagen - Rosenborg Slot, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Copenhagen - Rosenborg Slot, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

The castle was beautiful - almost all of it containing thee original furnishing from Christian IV including his bloody clothes from when he lost an eye in a batttle. It was very impressive, I especially enjoyed the tapestries depicting the Dano-Swede naval battles.

Copenhagen - Anglican Church, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

We wandered up town but were unfortunately too late for the medical museum and too early for church service. we wandered around the battlements near the Anglican church for a while and then decided to walk along the water to go get dinner.

Copenhagen - Lagkagehuset Bakery, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

We ended up stopping at Lagkagehuset one of the oldest and premiere bakeries in Copenhagen. It all looked so delicious so we picked up desert.

April 8 - Copenhagen Shopping and Boat Tour

Copenhagen - fisherwoman, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Being Easter it is opening weekend for Tivoli! We were greeted in the morning by the boys auxiliary (?) band playing outside the entrance to the amusement park.We carried on .. there was a lot of shopping to do and the shops would be closed thursday and friday for easter holidays. We did manage to sneak in a canal tour in between hunting for wool and the latest Danish trend.. crazy scarves. We ran into the band again while shopping, this time in a little parade down the main pedestrian street.

Copenhagen - Tivoli parade, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Easter in Copenhagen

Europe knows how to celebrate Easter. Not only is every shop decorated with bunnies and eggs and chickens but they get Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Monday as stat holidays.

April 7 - Copenhagen and Spring

Copenhagen - houses, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Mary and I were pretty excited to arrive in Copenhagen. Iceland was wonderful and the weather despite the gloomy forecasts was lovely. But Denmark is full of spring, we arrived to a flower market in the square beside our hotel, bikes everywhere and warm glorious sunshine.

Copenhagen - tulips, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

We even ate dinner outside (with blankets wrapped around our legs) at the terrific RizRaz.

Copenhagen - Riz Raz, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

April 7 - Skyr!

Iceland - Skyr!, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

we thought it was yoghurt.. it's actually cheese. It's really tasty- all the flavours of yoghurt but not too sweet. delicious!

oh and watch this : It could be worse: Iceland

April 6 - Gullfoss and Geyser

April 6 - Thingvalier

April 6 - The Golden Circle

the Golden Circle - the road to Thingvellir, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Today was our big "tourist day"; we rented a car and started out on a tour of the major geographic sites of the Reykjavik area. Before we hit those we made a very important stop at the Alafoss Outlet Store and bought unspun wool, something you can't buy in Canada. Then we were off. The countryside is a lot like northern Canada.. low tundra and snow capped mountains; except these mountains are volcanic.

the Golden Circle - Pingvellir, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

We stopped at Thingvalier for lunch and a walk around. It's the sight of the first Icelandic Parliament (the oldest in the world) and also marks the boundary of the North American and European plates. The split between the plates has created a rather dramatic looking rift beside a swiftly moving river. The plates are slowly moving apart and cause Iceland to grow by about 2 cm per year!

Oh, I mentioned lunch. It was here we decided to try some Icelandic "delicacies"

the Golden Circle - mmmmn.. haroifiskur, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Haroifiskur: dried fish with butter
Our verdict: a bit chewy, but good

Pingvellir - mary tries hakari, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Hakari: fermented (rotten) shark..
our verdict: I thought it was chewy and tolerable..like a very strong cheese. I could grow to like it.
Mary couldn't even swallow it.

the Golden Circle - on the way back to Reykjavik, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

We continued up the road to Geyser... yes the one that named all other geysers.. well actually we were more interested in Strokkur which is active - Geyser stopped being active many years ago. Further up the road the sleet started .. but being good Canadian girls, we still managed to run out and look at Gullfoss the waterfall nearby. The sleet and snow was pretty miserable so we didn't stay long. We drove home via Sulfoss in the south which is near where we went horse riding before. It seems Sulfoss has the worst weather (but does have pizza with bananas!).

April 5 - Reykjavik and the Blue Lagoon

Reykjavik - Hallgrimur church, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Sunday and we made it to church. Well... not an english service, that's actually really hard to find. but we made it an Icelandic service in the beautiful Hallgrimur church. After that we cruised around to some museums. We saw the original Sagas written in Viking times chronically the exploits of Erik the Red and Leif Errikson. Many of them are still in Copenhagen, claimed by the Danish when they ruled over Iceland but a few have been returned. The Culture house had a good display of them as well as exhibits on Icelandic film and housing some of the Natural History Museum specimens.

Reykjavik - hot dogs!!, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

We wandered back to the Flea Market to get me an Icelandic sweater (ya!) and ate dinner at the famous Baedarius Beztu hot-dog stand. I don't really know what was on our hot-dogs what we guessed was: raw onions, cooked (crunchy) onions, ketchup, mayonnaise with pickles??? and gravy??? Despite the unknown condiments they were quite good! We had to eat early becasue we were off to the blue lagoon.

Blue Lagoon, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

The water really is blue, but amazingly it didn't smell terribly of sulphur (like the surrounding area did). we slathered the white silt on our faces (sorry no pictures!) and lounged around in the warm waters. when it started to get dark we hopped on the bus and headed back into Reykjavik.

Blue Lagoon, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

April 4 - Reykjavik - Weekend Flea Market

Reykjavik - Weekend Flea Market, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

We were supposed to go to the museums today but spent the day shopping. We cruised the flea market which is not to be missed. from the stalls you can buy all sorts of things, from locally designed jewelry to junk jewels; icelandic sweaters, delicacies such as dried fish and shark. We ate lunch in the small cafe area and listened to a group of friends playing Beatles tunes on their guitars.

April 3 - Reykjavik and Around

Reyjkavik -, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

I was shocked when my sister didn't put up a fight when I suggested this activity. Mary is not a fan or horses but Saying the magic word PONIES! many many times somehow convinced her. We couldn't have picked a worse day for it.. blowing sleet for half the ride. Thankfully the riding company we went with had snow suits and rain gear for us. The rain stopped as we crossed over some low mountains and it was a pleasant ride from there on but both mary and my butts are sore an I think I will be trying to make up for this excursion for a little while.

Reyjkavik - the Perlan, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Back in town we decided to go for a walk around town and found our way up to the Perlan. The Perlan is the storehouse for a lot of the geothermically heated water supplied to reykjavik. Actually almost 90% of houses in the capital are heated geothermically. The Perlan is also a museum and a cafe that sits on the top of a mountain overlooking all of Reykjavik. There was some lovely views and some bunnies spotted. The bunnies apparently survive the winter by snuggling up the the hot water pipes. After all the riding and walking we opted for a relaxing swim at one of the 7 swimming pools in the city. All the pools are minimally chlorinated (so you have to shower before you enter) and geothermcally heated.

April 2: Reykjavik

Reykjavik - The Grey Cat, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

What do you do after not sleeping on a red eye from Toronto to Reykjavik? I mean besides wondering what the smell is (sulphur) and stopping in the duty free to impulse buy vodka and salted licorice (and then put the super salty thing in your mouth and reel back).. no, after all that you eat breakfast. yummy yummy breakfast at the Grei Kotturinn (Grey Cat) my new favorite little cafe. it was a big breakfast in the oddest little relaxed shop.

Reykjavik - Sun Craft, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

So we have arrived. and have the pictures to prove it. We did a little walking tour that ended at the suncraft sculpture down near the harbour.

Iceland & Denmark

Reykjavik - Leif Eríkson, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

If you came for posts on our trip.. they are coming... My computer ran into a little power problem in Reykjavik and we have no wifi in Copenhagen so I have been forced to shun the internet. But I have been keeping a little bit of a diary and taking a ton of pictures so I'll have a lot show you all very soon.
Back in Canada on Sunday.

Easter Eggs

Jars full of dye, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

I have never been so on top of things. This year I have finished 5 eggs! .. I managed to finish off the last two yesterday while I was waiting to go to the vet.

red background, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

fleur, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

I'm not entirely pleased with how the first 3 came out.. all on brown eggs.

diagonal, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

48 triangles, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

The last two turned out well..I can't believe I had never done a 48 triangle egg before

Ayalah's Egg, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

My friend Ayalah even came over and made one too! I love this. She's defiantly inspired me to do a non-geometric design.

Happy St.Patricks Day

St.Patricks Day, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

An excellent pin from mom and some Guinness for the holiday

Cinnamon roooooollllls

Cinnamon roooooollllls, originally uploaded by girl from finito.

Been doing more baking and cooking as of late. These have been made twice. They are really good and - learning to be a bit more patient - they have risen and worked out really nicely. ahhhh hot fresh cinnamon buns. lovely. They have one extra step which makes them a bit more unique than others - when you roll out the dough you fold in a layer of cream cheese and then re-roll.. oooh so tasty.
The recipe come from Saveur magazine.. yum!

Things of note.. today

firstly..

look at what's coming to the iPhone/ touch...
YES! This game (and the slightly more awesome counterpart Cross Country Canada) was a big part of me getting into computers. I cannot wait!



And on a rather sad note. Craft magazine is the latest victim of the economic downturn. Hopefully the website and blog will live on.