crispy fall weather

Happy World Vegan Day!

And Happy Birthday to Hello Kitty today! She is 35 years old. I have lots of Hello Kitty things, unfortunately I had to return this Sigg yesterday because that series was found to have BPA in the liner. I got a new one but it doesn't have kitty on it.


Yesterday was Halloween so I made a Star Trek dress to go out in. Lieutenant Pink Vegan, Library Officer on the Starship Enterprise!


I used this tutorial:



Sienna was in town and stayed with me for a few days, she did some crafty shopping!



We did lots of fun things when she was here, including the Church of Craft night of Hyperbolic Crochet:

Swedish Cinnamon Bun Day! (Oct 4)

Sunday was the 10th annual Kanelbullens Dag in Sweden, so I baked up a batch. Mine were vegan of course. It took a lot longer than I expected, you have to let the dough rise, twice! So give yourself half a day if you want to make some. Totally worth the time! Apparently the whole thing got started as a way to encourage people to bake at home more.


I used this recipe, mostly. I didn't have any vegan yogurt, and I didn't get cardamom because it cost $10/bottle. And I couldn't find pearl sugar. Have you seen it in Canada? It's just sugar, but it's in bigger chunks than granulated so it looks nice sprinkled on top. I'll have to get some next time I'm in Stockholm. They look prettier with the pearl sugar, and maybe I'll try a recipe with a glaze next time. And I guess I should shell out the $10 for cardamom next time!

I got my guy to take a picture of the pearl sugar (pärlsocker) at his grocery store in Stockholm, I was curious. He baked cinnamon buns on Sunday, too, of course!


Over there at ICA, the ingredients to bake cinnamon buns were on sale: "bake your own buns and celebrate cinnamon buns day on Sunday":

love me two times, Sweden two times

Long time no blog....again! I've actually been to Sweden twice since I last blogged. I went for a week at Easter. I landed early in the morning and was greeted with fresh baked bread at his place.


The spring weather was a glorious 15 degrees every day. (Did you know it was a Swede who came up with centrigrade, by the way? It was a guy called Anders Celsius.) I rented a bike for a few days to zip around, that was super-fun.

I love this bike, which was not to rent...it was just ornamental, outside the Gudrun Sjödén store:

I'm cut off in this picture, but I still love it, it was a good day:

I gave him this awesome bike bell but it got stolen :-(
I loved it because it's a map of Toronto and it shows the Danforth, and we met at the Danforth Music Hall.

There's lots of guerilla knitting in Stockholm:

Then I went over again for almost 2 weeks in August. The weather was lovely then, too...about 20 degrees every day and no humidity! The climate in Stockholm really suits me.

Magnolia and Bobbie Dazzler liked to read Pippi Longstockings. Pippi is their favourite Swedish role model for adventure and sass:

We went to see the history of IKEA exhibit at Liljevalcjhs, that was really great!

I liked the denim room best:

But the kids craft room was fun too!

And all the old catalogues:

And a hex key mural:

Did lots of other things, didn't really take many pictures though.

long time no blog

Wow, I haven't blogged in nearly a year! Since NXNE last June.

I've been trying to see more than 100 bands a year for the past few years, success again in 2008 ... I saw 110. (I met a really great guy at one of those shows!) Here's the list of bands I saw.

I went to Sweden in the fall .... that was super-fun. It's so clean and stylish there. I was in Stockholm and in a small town outside Stockholm. I'm slowly learning to speak and read Swedish. Here's a collage I made of some of my favourite trip pictures:

Magnolia and Bobbie Dazzler came too, they loved it! I just got Bobbie in August.

Föda! Here's a collage of some of the really great food I ate in Sweden and on my flights. I was so excited that there was a vegetarian food fair when I was there! I had no trouble eating vegan there at all:

I got a really cute pink mini computer! It's on Linux and it's 11"... teeny tiny, and PINK!

I had lots of visitors last year and went to a few weddings, still doing school, sort of still doing crafts. Hurt my ankle, which interrupted my Wii Fit fun.

I'm off to Sweden again, for Easter. So excited! I was bummed to learn that the Easter Bunny doesn't go to Sweden. But there's still candy though, there is always candy in Sweden!

A couple weeks ago I went to Påskbasar, an Easter fair at the Swedish Lutheran Church in Toronto. I've been poking away at learning to speak Swedish since August, do you think that when I got there I could remember how to say anything other than 'hi' and 'excuse me'? Now I know, next time I go to something like that I'll have to prepare a few sentences from scenarios that might come up so I can practice on Swedes. Hopefully I'll get to practice my Swedish in Sweden next week! But they all speak English so well.

I don't know much about Swedish Easter yet, but they have a soft drink especially made for Easter, called påskmust. And kids dress up like påskkäringar och påskgubbar, which are witches who fly to the mountains on broomsticks. But the kids don't go to the mountains, they draw pictures on cards and give them to adults, who give them candy or money. Sort of like what we do here for Halloween. There were kids at the Easter fair singing songs and walking around with brooms and collecting candy:

Here are some cute little folk art Easter witches I got there:

Whoever lives in this house must be really fun! I saw this while walking near Corktown last weekend:

Glad Påsk! Happy Easter!

eNn eX eNn eEe

I caught 21 shows in 3 days! Pretty much all of them were great. Here are the terrible-quality pictures I took:

1. Steve Poltz
He was playing Silver Lining when I got there.

2. Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
He's vegan and rocks hard.

3. moja

I wonder how many times they get compared to the White Stripes.

4. Machetes

5. The Wet Secrets
"It's a crying shame you don't know just how hot you are..."



6. The Oholics
Very young and lovely Swedes.



7. New Odds
It was the suit that got them the gig...



8. Major Maker
It suddenly struck me that Lindy looks a teeny tiny bit like Sean Tully on Coronation Street, if Sean were 7 feet tall and straight. But not really. But sort of.



9. Semi Precious Weapons
It costs a lot of money to look this good, so we should buy swag from them.



10. White Cowbell Oklahoma
Madness! How have I not seen them play before?



11. Camp Radio



12. The Superfantastics
Sweet melodies, cute lyrics and check out that drum kit!

13. ironic HUE



14. Hugh Cornwell



15. Julie Doiron
Sweet as ever.



16. Evan Dando



17. Mannequin Men
Loved these guys



18. Foxfire
Shiny dancey fun!



19. Grimskunk
Loved them too



20. Redd Kross



21. The Oholics
Still not tired of Swedish rock.



22. Hilotrons

photo meme

Yoinked from mjmknitting:

If you want to play too, here's how:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your Flickr name.

Earth Day 2008

Magnolia likes to take out the recycling!

Check out this bike shaped wreath. It was on McCaul, just north of Queen:

crispy fall weather

Happy World Vegan Day!

And Happy Birthday to Hello Kitty today! She is 35 years old. I have lots of Hello Kitty things, unfortunately I had to return this Sigg yesterday because that series was found to have BPA in the liner. I got a new one but it doesn't have kitty on it.


Yesterday was Halloween so I made a Star Trek dress to go out in. Lieutenant Pink Vegan, Library Officer on the Starship Enterprise!


I used this tutorial:



Sienna was in town and stayed with me for a few days, she did some crafty shopping!



We did lots of fun things when she was here, including the Church of Craft night of Hyperbolic Crochet:

Swedish Cinnamon Bun Day! (Oct 4)

Sunday was the 10th annual Kanelbullens Dag in Sweden, so I baked up a batch. Mine were vegan of course. It took a lot longer than I expected, you have to let the dough rise, twice! So give yourself half a day if you want to make some. Totally worth the time! Apparently the whole thing got started as a way to encourage people to bake at home more.


I used this recipe, mostly. I didn't have any vegan yogurt, and I didn't get cardamom because it cost $10/bottle. And I couldn't find pearl sugar. Have you seen it in Canada? It's just sugar, but it's in bigger chunks than granulated so it looks nice sprinkled on top. I'll have to get some next time I'm in Stockholm. They look prettier with the pearl sugar, and maybe I'll try a recipe with a glaze next time. And I guess I should shell out the $10 for cardamom next time!

I got my guy to take a picture of the pearl sugar (pärlsocker) at his grocery store in Stockholm, I was curious. He baked cinnamon buns on Sunday, too, of course!


Over there at ICA, the ingredients to bake cinnamon buns were on sale: "bake your own buns and celebrate cinnamon buns day on Sunday":

love me two times, Sweden two times

Long time no blog....again! I've actually been to Sweden twice since I last blogged. I went for a week at Easter. I landed early in the morning and was greeted with fresh baked bread at his place.


The spring weather was a glorious 15 degrees every day. (Did you know it was a Swede who came up with centrigrade, by the way? It was a guy called Anders Celsius.) I rented a bike for a few days to zip around, that was super-fun.

I love this bike, which was not to rent...it was just ornamental, outside the Gudrun Sjödén store:

I'm cut off in this picture, but I still love it, it was a good day:

I gave him this awesome bike bell but it got stolen :-(
I loved it because it's a map of Toronto and it shows the Danforth, and we met at the Danforth Music Hall.

There's lots of guerilla knitting in Stockholm:

Then I went over again for almost 2 weeks in August. The weather was lovely then, too...about 20 degrees every day and no humidity! The climate in Stockholm really suits me.

Magnolia and Bobbie Dazzler liked to read Pippi Longstockings. Pippi is their favourite Swedish role model for adventure and sass:

We went to see the history of IKEA exhibit at Liljevalcjhs, that was really great!

I liked the denim room best:

But the kids craft room was fun too!

And all the old catalogues:

And a hex key mural:

Did lots of other things, didn't really take many pictures though.

long time no blog

Wow, I haven't blogged in nearly a year! Since NXNE last June.

I've been trying to see more than 100 bands a year for the past few years, success again in 2008 ... I saw 110. (I met a really great guy at one of those shows!) Here's the list of bands I saw.

I went to Sweden in the fall .... that was super-fun. It's so clean and stylish there. I was in Stockholm and in a small town outside Stockholm. I'm slowly learning to speak and read Swedish. Here's a collage I made of some of my favourite trip pictures:

Magnolia and Bobbie Dazzler came too, they loved it! I just got Bobbie in August.

Föda! Here's a collage of some of the really great food I ate in Sweden and on my flights. I was so excited that there was a vegetarian food fair when I was there! I had no trouble eating vegan there at all:

I got a really cute pink mini computer! It's on Linux and it's 11"... teeny tiny, and PINK!

I had lots of visitors last year and went to a few weddings, still doing school, sort of still doing crafts. Hurt my ankle, which interrupted my Wii Fit fun.

I'm off to Sweden again, for Easter. So excited! I was bummed to learn that the Easter Bunny doesn't go to Sweden. But there's still candy though, there is always candy in Sweden!

A couple weeks ago I went to Påskbasar, an Easter fair at the Swedish Lutheran Church in Toronto. I've been poking away at learning to speak Swedish since August, do you think that when I got there I could remember how to say anything other than 'hi' and 'excuse me'? Now I know, next time I go to something like that I'll have to prepare a few sentences from scenarios that might come up so I can practice on Swedes. Hopefully I'll get to practice my Swedish in Sweden next week! But they all speak English so well.

I don't know much about Swedish Easter yet, but they have a soft drink especially made for Easter, called påskmust. And kids dress up like påskkäringar och påskgubbar, which are witches who fly to the mountains on broomsticks. But the kids don't go to the mountains, they draw pictures on cards and give them to adults, who give them candy or money. Sort of like what we do here for Halloween. There were kids at the Easter fair singing songs and walking around with brooms and collecting candy:

Here are some cute little folk art Easter witches I got there:

Whoever lives in this house must be really fun! I saw this while walking near Corktown last weekend:

Glad Påsk! Happy Easter!

eNn eX eNn eEe

I caught 21 shows in 3 days! Pretty much all of them were great. Here are the terrible-quality pictures I took:

1. Steve Poltz
He was playing Silver Lining when I got there.

2. Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
He's vegan and rocks hard.

3. moja

I wonder how many times they get compared to the White Stripes.

4. Machetes

5. The Wet Secrets
"It's a crying shame you don't know just how hot you are..."



6. The Oholics
Very young and lovely Swedes.



7. New Odds
It was the suit that got them the gig...



8. Major Maker
It suddenly struck me that Lindy looks a teeny tiny bit like Sean Tully on Coronation Street, if Sean were 7 feet tall and straight. But not really. But sort of.



9. Semi Precious Weapons
It costs a lot of money to look this good, so we should buy swag from them.



10. White Cowbell Oklahoma
Madness! How have I not seen them play before?



11. Camp Radio



12. The Superfantastics
Sweet melodies, cute lyrics and check out that drum kit!

13. ironic HUE



14. Hugh Cornwell



15. Julie Doiron
Sweet as ever.



16. Evan Dando



17. Mannequin Men
Loved these guys



18. Foxfire
Shiny dancey fun!



19. Grimskunk
Loved them too



20. Redd Kross



21. The Oholics
Still not tired of Swedish rock.



22. Hilotrons

photo meme

Yoinked from mjmknitting:

If you want to play too, here's how:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your Flickr name.

Earth Day 2008

Magnolia likes to take out the recycling!

Check out this bike shaped wreath. It was on McCaul, just north of Queen: