Jananas

I’m very lucky to have an awesome (almost) sister-in-law. Kerri and Chris just moved out to a small farm, which came with a barn! Of course, we started discussing livestock and we may have purchased two lovely Border Leicesters who may have arrived last night…

Blogoverse, meet our sheep! First up is Beatrice, named because all of her kin are also named after the Royal Family. She has a lovely (albeit dirty) rear.

Next is Sweater! My intentions are obvious (thankfully I didn’t name her lamb chop!).

Lastly, the two lovely ladies hanging out together. Even crazier is that two alpaca brothers (Pete and Prince) are arriving on Wednesday.

We’re heading down to Ohio this weekend to get some last minute wedding related stuff sorted out (like licenses, ha!). I’m stoked to get to see Kerri and Chris, hang out with our nephew Harper, and play with sheep!!

For Christmas, Jason’s sister gave him this lovely quilt. I might get the story a little wrong (feel free to correct me Kerri!), but I believe that Jason’s grandmother started this quilt for him when he was little. For various reasons, it was never finished. When Kerri was helping clean out their grandpa’s house last year she came across the mostly finished quilt pieces. As a Christmas gift (or miracle), she had a local quilting group finish assembling the quilt and gave it to Jase for Christmas.

Its been on our bed ever since. Which means that we have two handmade blankets on our bed – how crazy is that?

How Erudite of Mitzy…

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last two weeks spinning. I’ve been doing a pretty major spring cleaning/overhaul of the house and had started to get a little overwhelmed by my fiber cupboard. The best solution? Spin like a mad woman! I think any point in time when you spin pounds of yarn in a one to two week period qualifies as crazy.

One of the difficulties with indie dyers is that you often end up with 4oz of a beautiful colourway. Because I don’t have fantastic yardage I end up with little skeins. Partly because I wanted more yarn and partly because I’ve been inspired by all the lovely yarns I see spun up on Ravelry I decided to play around with some combos. Excuse the photo heavy post – imagine how much work it would be if I included all the yarn I spun. Below (at 12oz of fiber, or one pound) is about half of what I spun up – eek!

First up is Hello Yarn in Minerals (shetland) and Juliespins in Amish Rainbow (targhee). I think that this is just lovely and it makes for a springy, dense yarn. Lovely, lovely, lovely! I also ended up with two giant skeins of yarn!

Next up is Spunky Eclectic’s Storms of Jupiter (organic merino) and Hello Yarn’s Icing (superwash merino). I’d originally hoped to ply Storms of Jupiter with Minerals (both are red/blue/white), but the colours weren’t complimentary. I think that this mix worked wonderfully!

A friend of mine is working for the Map & Data Library at U of T. They are doing some crazy work, funding the digitization of old fire insurance plans (which become public domain after 60 years). She’s come across a couple of my neighbourhood (Dundas & Dovercourt in Toronto) that she’s sent my way. In fact, she’s been given permission to start blogging about some of the maps she finds, so check out the Map & Data Library’s blog to see all the awesome things she’s uncovered.

1884

I love that Dufferin is the western city limit on this map. And that what used to be the old elementary school on Dovercourt north of Dundas (torn down now to make room for a new police station), used to be an orphanage! Also, our house didn’t exist. In fact, our road didn’t even exist. Crazy.

1890

My road exists now, although its spelt a little differently (there’s an extra ‘A’ in there now). In fact, my house exists now – and we’re one of the first ones on the block, which is pretty cool. Its funny to see churches where the Remax building is now. Oh, how times have changed. The current Roman Catholic church at Dovercourt and Argyle apparently started life as a Baptist church. And that Garrison Creek is still visible (there are even bridges!). And just how empty it all still is.

1910

This map is less detailed, but all the houses are here. Apparently the Baptist church also had a Memorial Hall and Sunday School attached. And for some reason Lisgar was referred to as North Lisgar.

Looking at these maps makes me wonder what the deal was with the architecture of the time. The houses are all designed to look very similar, with the narrowing at the back. Was there a functional reason?