Blogtoberfest Day 29: Work in Progress

Back in September, in preparation for the urge to nest and craft with the cooler weather, I sanded, primed and spray painted these wooden office organization pieces. I needed to prepare the surfaces for decoupaging them with pretty papers. Unfortunately, I forgot to photograph them in the intermediate step of paint only and launched into applying the paper today.


Here are some of the vintage wrapping paper I have found while thrifting in the last year or so. My plan for the storage pieces is to use a mix of pattern and I quite enjoyed choosing and cutting the paper today. I was so inspired by how the project was coming together that I went ahead and braved the crisp air outside and applied the the spray glue to the wood and stuck on the paper. Generally, I was pretty pleased with the results and went inside to let the solvents of the glue dissipate for a few minutes. I retrieved the pieces a little later to let the glue dry fully indoors but have ran into a frustration: the adhesive is not providing a consistent bond! I do not think that I can lacquer them if there are parts of the paper not sticking to the wood, I am not sure that I can try white glue or 'modge podge' when there is already spray glue applied and I do not have enough paper to start again. Help!!! I do not remember having these issues the last time that I tried something like this and I am not sure how to rectify this situation. Any suggestions?



On a more successful note I was very happy that I had brought in all my geraniums and fuchsias into our sun room the other day as we have had frost at night. The sun room is only a three season room and the plants will need to come inside for the winter but it does serve as a quarantine zone where I can apply insecticidal soap and make sure that the plants are pest free before I expose them to my houseplants.

My Creative Space: Desperate to Garden

The new Volkswagen Beetles have a bud vase; our minivan has a holder for small tropicals. Actually, the cup holder was the method of transport home for a new plant to add to my indoor garden. The objective is the creation of a new dish garden. We have received several dish gardens as gifts, but invariably, the plants grow at uneven rates, or one of them fails to thrive. To remedy the situation, I have bought a few new plants, fresh potting soil and cleaned up one of the previously used containers.








While I know winter will soon be over, seeing blogs from locations where Spring has already sprung, or speaking with my Mum who lives in British Columbia have made me desperate to get my hands dirty and work in the garden. It is my hope that these indoor substitutes will hold me over until the soil warms up enough to work. These are only the before pictures of my dish garden. Like many projects, I thought I was prepared, but ultimately forgot to get any moss or top dressing of pebbles as well as gravel or other material to provide enough drainage. Has anyone tried using styrofoam packing peanuts at the botton of container plantings? Just like I am frustrated by snow still on the ground, I am frustrated by forgetting essential materials. Maybe I will finish tomorrow...arggh!

Other creative spaces at Kristy's blog may have completed projects.

My Not So Secret Cache

Living with a long winter and loving flowers the way I do, it is absolutely essential that I have a large collection of house plants, especially flowering ones. I also occasionally spoil myself with cut flowers but I find that flowering plants tend to last longer and require slightly less maintenance to keep them looking good. This post is not about indoor gardening but about how to complete the look. Most flowering plants can be bought at the grocery store and are usually (relatively) locally grown in greenhouses but their plastic pots are dressed in a colourful foil or plastic sleeve which might be acceptable presentation in the store but does not work for me in my home. Just as a fashionable outfit requires the right shoes and purse (I would say hat too) to complete the look, potted plants need the perfect cache pot to show the plant to its best advantage. The cache pots available along side the plants at the grocery store are usually uninspired and expensive so this is where the beauty of thrifting comes into play.

For some reason there often seem to be a plethora of beautiful cache pots in the various thrift stores that I frequent. Many of them are vintage and beautifully made. I can also rely on quite a few Ikea examples which always provides a good selection of colours and simple designs. The hob nail milk glass makes a perfect match with the pink hyacinth and even improves the supermarket metal cache pot behind it. The pair of pots (in the photo above) holding the daffodils are just the perfect shade of light aqua, are marked West Germany and are lovely counter to the yellow of the mini daffs.




I know that many people force bulbs very successfully but it is not yet something that I have tackled. The crocuses were in the planter a few weeks ago and now they have died back ready for me to put them in the garden. The bulbs can be quite short-lived indoors in the winter as a house is just a little too warm for them. I hope that the spent bulbs will be able to naturalize our flower beds and eventually bloom again. I like the idea of stored potential in a bulb and that something that has given me mid-winter pleasure will have a second life in the garden.




Bulbs are not the only flowering plant I like in my indoor garden. African violets never fail to tempt me with their many varieties of leaf and options of blossom colour. I am particularly drawn to the sugared quality that the flowers have. I am not so much an aficionado as to belong to a club and propagate them but I do find the ignored orphan varietals that turn up on the supermarket shelves impossible to resist. When I have nursed them back to health they get to enjoy a prominent location in a beautiful cache pot like this mid-century Toperhof Keramik made in former East Germany.



As the days and nights are getting to be almost equal, the blooms on this Christmas Cactus are about to open. It is looking lovely in this sweet pot that was made in Japan for this Los Angeles based company for known for Head vases than cache pots or other ceramics. I can't believe that I turned down my Grandma's lovely examples when she was distributing some her things to her granddaughters because I was fascinated by them as a child. I was especially partial to the elaborate hats found on the glamourous Head vase ladies.




To be desirable to me, the pots do not need to be marked or even vintage but to be of an appealing colour or shape. This aqua one is unmarked but a lovely colour and form that compliments the white hyacinth. It also happens to be a perfect foil against the lovely vintage tablecloth with pussywillows and birds(!) and a fabulous squarish basket in the same shade of aqua. I have other cache pots that I have already blogged about and certainly will find more. Just like shoes, hats, and purses, one can never have too many!

My Creative Space: Patience or four more sleeps

Patience is a great skill for creative people to acquire. Sometimes we just need to trust that all the work and preparation will lead us to our desired outcome especially when we are not sure what the end product will be. Years of gardening has nurtured the skill in me. You would not bother to plant something without the belief that it will grow but the speed and habit of that growth are never absolutely known. This peony is a case in point. This is our ninth summer in this house with much of the present garden already established by the previous owners of the house. The garden possesses another peony just outside our dining room window that has produced a profusion of blossoms faithfully every summer. There was this other plant that we were fairly sure was another peony but we had yet to see it bloom. The condition for peonies were being met in its location so it was somewhat baffling that it had never bloomed and we could have given up on it. I decided that I would give it one more year in its spot before I would move it. This year we have this beautiful solitary bloom. Definitely worth the wait!


I am pulled away from actually making stuff this week: I am processing an unfruitful appointment with a specialist about a chronic health problem, my daughter got a body cast today that will stay on for six weeks this summer to help correct a spinal problem and I am preparing for the trip to England with the Choir. Of course, I am still planning new projects and am always doings some of the mental preparations for a multitude of plans. Active creativity this week is to be found problem solving and making family meals to suit our sudden heat wave. I like to prepare food that is seasonal and the ingredients pictured here make a salad that I wait all year long for. I love fresh strawberries but would never dream of buying them out of season. We have some developing plants in our veggie patch but not enough for this salad yet. The recipe for the dressing is simple: 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 3 Tbsp. oil, 3 Tbsp. water, 1 Tbsp. sugar, 1 tsp. sesame seeds, 1 tsp. Poppy, 1/4 tsp. paprika, 1/4 tsp. Worcestershire sauce 1 chopped scallion. Whisk the dressing up and toss with spinach, sliced strawberries, and almonds or sunflower seeds. The two smaller pyrex dishes are recent thrifts and go with the Butter print bowl that I already have. I will keep my eyes open for the lids and other pieces of refrigerator sets. The cheerful prints and colours make me understand why there are obsessive collectors of pyrex.

I could not believe that I found this Emma Bridgewater Biscuit tin for $1.99 with the sugar tin inside it for free. I am sure that whoever donated the tins did not understand how desirable Emma Bridgewater is. Tucked in behind is a lovely camisole from Jacob and a blue enamelled cast iron dutch oven that I believe to be Descoware as it is marked made in Belgium and I have done a little research as to its shape and colour. I am particularly excited about this find and feel it will clean up brilliantly. More about it in a future post except to say that a enamelled cast iron dutch oven has been on my wish list for quite a long time and I really had never expected that I would find it in a preferred colour and at thrift prices.

The photo here is of the thyme carpet starting to grow in the spaces of some rather ugly cement pavers on the east side of our house. I started planting the space between the pavers with thyme three years ago with replanting when some of the plants did not survive the winter. We now have a beautiful destination in the garden that smells delicious where once there was an eyesore. The patience gardening has taught me has allowed me to know to wait for things our family uses until I can find them second-hand and give them a second life. In parenting, I know that even when an expected chore is not always initiated by my children, it is right for me to continue expect that it eventually will be.

I need this kind of patience when I tell myself there are only 4 more (three when publishing this post) until I leave with my two younger boys for their choir trip to England. I know that I will experience many inspiring sites and sounds that will fill my creative space for a long time. For other creative spaces, check out all the other posts linked on Kristy's blog

Six (un)important things I love

I have been tagged by Katherine with the following rules:
Pick 6 unimportant things you love
Mention & link to the person who tagged you
Tag 6 of your favourite bloggers to play along
(don’t forget to comment on their blog to let them know they’ve been tagged!)

Well I have changed the title a little bit because everything I love is important to me even if it is not that important in the grand scheme of things. Apart from life's essentials anything can be important to someone. I am not including my family in this list because they are essential and come before sleeping and eating if needs be. After that:

1.Music
For me music has inspired how I look at and respond to the world and even how I think. As a little girl, music made me dance and my days were filled with song. I loved standing by the piano at ballet class with my hand on the sound board. I was able to identify songs and ballet music and at a very early age was fascinated by anyone with the ability to play an instrument. It should not be surprising that most of my formal education prepared me to be a flutist. This path was derailed by a serious hand injury and my Father's early death but was not completely abandoned. I am married to a full-time musician who played violin professionally for the first twenty years of our relationship and has added the viola for the past two. He also conducts a community orchestra that I usually play in.
With his multiple disabilities, Number 1 does not seriously study an instrument but has benefitted from music therapy and enjoys experimenting with a variety of instruments. He is happiest when listening to music. Number 2 started to play the 'cello at four years old and became skilled enough to be learning some of the Bach Suites for solo 'cello a few years ago. She started to play the french horn at eleven in her school band and it has become her principal instrument and of course, she loves to sing and sings well. Number 3 started the violin at six and endured his lessons for a year. He was never satisfied with how it sounded and asked to learn to play the harp at eight. This past year he also started percussion in the school band and singing in the Choir of Men and Boys. Number 4 has yet to start formal instrument training. We have suggested violin or piano as we have those instruments and the ideas have been met with no sustained interest. He heartily enjoys singing in the choir and has expressed the desire to play the trumpet. Number 4 will likely start lessons on the cornet (related but slightly different than the trumpet) when we return from the choir's trip to England.
While I grew up listening to and still enjoy almost all types of music, I inevitably have favourites. If I found myself on a desert island with an old fashioned phonograph (desert island -no electricity or batteries) and one record to last me all my days, I would pick one with a Mahler symphony on one side (maybe number 4 or 5) and Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs on the other. I have done a little you-tube surfing but have yet to come up with the specific recordings that I might want.

2. Books
Books, and more importantly reading have been (along with music) a salvation in my life. As a child, I suffered from chronic poor health and experienced more than a little social isolation. Both of these situations were made manageable by the reading of books. The physical act of looking at books engaged me long before I could read and some of my earlier memories involve the illustrations in my favourite volumes. We lived in a remote community but my house had a rich library and books were often treasured gifts. Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series was a childhood favourite that helped me connect to my own Grandmother and develop my love of history. By the eighth grade I became a lifelong fan of Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy. I still do not quite understand my love of Hardy at that age but the Austen makes sense. I am not capable of picking a favourite but a small library of favourites contains many of the classics of English Literature, some more contemporary fiction in addition to as many art, design and other reference books as I can afford and store.



3. Flowers and plants
For beauty (and practicality), plants are the winners. I cannot really describe my appreciation of and for flowers and other plants. Working beside my Mother in her greenhouse as a school-age child contributed to it as did observing my Father keeping bees but words cannot fully express my admiration for the plant kingdom.


4. Useful things with history
Aprons, tablecloths, kitchen utensils, buttons, sewing notions, travelling trunks, pillowcases, utilitarian furniture -difficult to specify all but if it was a useful object that shows its age and could be used as originally designed or repurposed I want to rescue it and find it a home. A careful line needs to be walked here because I could wind up with a pile of junk. My husband requires me to state a very strong case for said object and such scrutiny usually leads to something pleasing in the end.




5. Tools for creating My sewing studio, sewing machine,fabrics, notions,my batterie de cuisine, my laptop, camera and everything else involved in the creative process delights my senses and sparks ideas for new projects. For me,whether it is mending kid's clothes, making a meal, or working on a long dreamed about art piece, a creative life is essential and the correct tools help make that possible.



6. Sparkle with patina
This last thing is a little newer to me than the other (un)important things. I have always tended to wear very little jewelry and have slightly understated clothes but in the last few years I have often added a vintage brooch to whatever outfit or outer-wear I might have on. I have a few new pieces made in a vintage style that I use for winter coats, etc. but I really enjoy the vintage brooches best. I like that I am giving new life to something that was previously enjoyed and they just make me smile when I look at them.
Here is just a few of my collection.

I would like to see what these other bloggers love:
Fine Hand
Little Lovelies
Tweed Thoughts
Two Pink Possums
Thrifted Treasure
Fuzzy Dragons

Brighten up the day

We have had a fair bit of cool, wet weather lately which with the anti-climatic feel after a concert and a bit of a head cold has been getting me a little down. The rain has made the garden lush and the cool temperature has prolonged the bulbs. Trillium are Ontario, Canada's Provincial flower and a stylized bloom can be found on all sorts of official Ontario documents. While the plant is protected in many parts of North America it is only protected in provincial parks and conservation areas in Ontario. The plant is very sensitive to being picked or transplanted so we leave the one under our lilac tree well alone.


When I went back to take another picture, the white petals (bracts actually) had started to turn a mauvy pink. We have a large, irregular lot with quite a bit more garden than is the norm for suburbia. Despite having so much space devoted to flower beds, I tend to leave the blooms in the garden. There are beds along one side of the house that contain the herb garden and the beginnings of a cut flower garden but when I see the plants flowering I find it really difficult to pick them for the house. I do, however, pick all the violets and johnny jump-ups (miniature violas)that grow through the lawn before it is mowed and display them in little cream jugs that I like to collect.

Pretty aprons have the ability to brighten my day. For everyday I tend to wear a bib fronted apron but I find more lovely half aprons when thrifting than full ones. This lilac one is perfect for spring and I have had it hanging in my kitchen since just before Easter. The trim of a striped fabric is pieced and perfectly mitred at the centre front point. The tie is also pieced with both solid and striped fabric with the striped fabric in the last half of the ties and showing as the tails if tied in a bow. On each side of the body of the apron there is are gathered panels which add to the grace of this apron. This little number manages to be flirty while still possessing elegance.


Here is another hand-made apron than has lovely details with the most striking being its composition of panels and the solid pink under panel contrasting with the print of the upper panels. The pocket is bound with the same pink bias binding the panels of the apron. Tie One On is a great resource for all things apron-y including links to vintage aprons on flickr. The Apronista was my first blog source of all things apron and introduced me to some of the great books. Apron•ology is a great publication which I have been enjoying that features newly created aprons and is available in a giveaway at Julia's blog.


My garden has many of these Lily of the Valley so I had no problem bringing a few blooms into the house to enjoy the heady scent. After enjoying the the Trillium, aprons, and Lily of the Valley, my day has definitely brightened up and it looks like the weather will improve later in the week.

Mummy glow

Today is a basking and recuperating day. After a very successful day of performances by my younger two, we are all trying to recover from all the effort leading up to and including the day. Like many families, our household buzzes with the many creative outlets that children enjoy. Our younger two boys are involved in some slightly out of the ordinary activities for eight and eleven year olds. They both sing in the Men and Boys' Choir of Christ Church Cathedral were they are immersed in the tradition of Anglican(Episcopalian in the US) Church music and they are also part of the professional ballet training programme at the School of Dance in Ottawa.



Both boys had a 7:45 am call to be at the warm-up and dress rehearsal with other students from the School of Dance who were guest performers in the National Arts Centre Orchestra's Family Adventuresconcert. A series designed for families with young children. Number 4 even got to give flowers to the event's narrator, former prima ballerina, Veronica Tennant. They each had two performances as there were 1:30 and 3:30 shows. The boys have had to learn some very important skills in performing for the public and one of the most important is the waiting that goes on before it is your turn. While I was able to watch the boys from the audience sitting with their older siblings, my husband had the honour (while doing his job) of playing in the orchestra behind them. He has played for many great dancers over the years but this was pretty special for him and his colleagues who have seen the boys grow from infancy.



After their dance performance, the family hopped in the van and drove to Ottawa's Christ Church Cathedral for a concert of English Church Music. The boys were fed and watered and readied for performance while the parents and guests participated in a English pub-style dinner. The concert started at 7:30 and even the parents and others who hear them every week were transported by the music. The concert was being recorded for broadcast on CBC's Choral Concert on Sunday,June 14. The concert and fundraising campaign are leading up to the choir's upcoming trip to England in July. The men and boys will be staying at Cambridge with a Concert at Selwyn College on Canada Day and then at week in residence at Ely Cathedral. The tour will also involve some sightseeing and will finish with Evensong at St.Paul's Cathedral. I am very excited to be accompanying the boys as one of the parent chaperones. I feel so fortunate that the boys are able to benefit from being part of this tradition and sing music that can take them to a higher place. They enjoy working hard learning the music and singing together; they also enjoy playing floor hockey games before and after rehearsals and of course being boys quite a bit of food.



Today was really a day just to enjoy (and catch up a bit on tidying) and reflect on yesterdays beauty while I looked at today's flowers. As a parent, all we can do is provide the right environment and encouragement. Just as in a garden, you can only provide what the plant needs and encourage its natural habit of growth. We are back on the horse tomorrow with rehearsals, dance classes and school. Thursday will bring a fundraising concert that my husband is organising for the trip. It will be a concert of chamber music with some of his orchestra colleagues, my son's harp teacher and our daughter will be singing. She has been singing in the Cathedral Girls' choir for five years and is now one of the two head girls for the choir. The girl's choir tradition is much newer but it has been an excellent musical and learning environment for her and has given her some of the opportunities that can come from an all-girls environment. She is just starting to branch out a bit more with her solo singing but has already been asked to sing in next season's programming for Ottawa's Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra. So I will be doing a little more basking later this week.

Mother's Day

My view from breakfast in bed. It is a good thing that I had something blooming inside because today was cold and grey. The African violet and Christmas cactus are in recently found thrifted cache pots. The pot with floral decoration is marked Japan and improves the look of the cactus that will not bloom again until Autumn. I guess because my house plants need a little dressing up I have been finding ceramics lately. I have limited knowledge about where they come from or when they were made but buy things that appeal and are reasonably priced.


I chose this little bowl because of its sweetness. The gold has almost worn off and the surface shows signs of wear. The mark on the back is Alfred Meakin Ltd. and would suggest that it was made between 1907 and 1930. I do not think it worth a lot of money but I enjoy having it. I have photographed it on a tablecloth that my Mum embroidered before she was married(or maybe just before I was born) and used when I was little. She gave it to me early in my marriage and I love the colour combination. While I remember her doing crewel work, I do not remember her doing any other embroidery. I guess she was influenced partly by what would work in her house (modern Danish) and how time consuming young children and home keeping can be.

My Mum found this Lloyd Loomchair at a second hand/antique store. She bought it for me when I was still a child and it is of smaller proportions. I remember that she saved for a long time and paid for it a little at a time in a way that businesses do not seem interested in doing these days. It has proved to be a good investment that I still enjoy. The pillow with the church was made with a panel of Nottingham lace that was given to my Mum by one of the members of the Nottingham Youth Orchestra that we had hosted in 1984. I made the bargello pillow a few years earlier.




My Mum made this crazy quilt pattern with the last scraps of a Laura Ashley fabric used in my curtains and bits of lace. The creative use of luxurious and precious fabrics has always made me love crazy quilting but I have yet to try it. I do have quite a few precious scraps...




These two pillows are embroidered with my Mum's Viking #1 sewing machine. She has become very adept at using the designs available in ways that serve her creativity well. The fabric she used for these cushions was from I skirt that I owned back in the '80s. She was up cycling before it was the thing to do.



I hope all the mothers you know have had a great day.

Cultivating Creativity

How do you encourage creativity? Provide a rich environment, protect from harm, encourage strong growth with selective editing, allow for cross pollination from exposure to others, support a little risk, acknowledge the set backs, shower with love and allow to bask in admiration. These conditions are ideal for creativity which thrives with nurturing just like a garden. Just like the master gardening that she is, my Mum encouraged my creativity to bloom.


My parents provided a safe and stable environment and while given a fair amount of freedom I was not allowed to go weedy. My Mum responded to my interest in sewing, cooking and gardening with gentle teaching and lots of opportunity for practise. My interest in drawing and painting was encouraged with lessons and materials. A love of ballet and music led to many hours of classes and lessons and miles of driving to get me there.


If my gardening analogy can be further indulged, parenting is like creating foundation plantings which will establish future habits of growth. It seems that any creative activities I partake in now have their roots in my childhood. With that in mind, I wish to thank my parents for having the vision that all gardeners have when it came to nurturing their children.





A special thanks today to my Mum with love and best wishes for her birthday and Mother's Day. Thanks for allowing creativity to germinate and bloom.

My Creative Space: Completed WIPs and a seasonal recipe

Which one is the weed? Obviously the dandelion you say. Not so fast I say! The recipe mentioned above is not for dandelions. We have tried them but we really did not like them but maybe one day we will try them again. When the kids were little they would enthusiastically present the dandelions they picked just for me. For some gardeners the violets would create a lovely carpet of spring colour. The point of my photo is that in my garden, both of the pictured flowering plants are weeds. No matter how carefully I try to remove the violets (making sure that I have all the roots) they keep coming back and in the actual flower beds, choke out the plants that I am actively cultivating.

There are some wonderful things about Spring gardening: blossoms on the trees, waves of bulbs and the freshness of it all. It is rather difficult to be getting creative in the sewing studio when the garden beckons and seeing the violets in the lawn reminds me that I should try to get them out of the flower beds before they take over. So with limited crafting time and better weather, guilt becomes a strong motivator. The detail of the bulletin board is now evidence of a complete WIP. It really does not look any different than yesterday unless you look close up. After over 16 months it is finally varnished and ready to use.

The one above is for Number 4 and the one to the left is for Number 3. This was a project that was given as an incomplete Christmas gift to all three sons. It stayed an incomplete and unused gift. December weather interfered with the final finishing. I was afraid of using brush on varnish over the images and concerned about using spay varnish indoors. Even though I have a nontoxic spray varnish, I am much happier using it outside. The first two boards have copied images from the boys' favourite books: Graeme Base's At the Water Hole for Number 4 and Dragonology for Number 3. I did use copy written images so you could only do this for your own use and it would be preferable to use actual pages from the books. Being a book family, we would find it difficult cut up a book unless it was already irreparably damaged.

This the one for Number 1. I used purchased stickers that are reproductions of vintage travel stickers. In decorating his room, we gave it a vintage travel feel which helps in its use as an occasional guest room. The first two bulletin required a lot of careful, detailed scissor and glue work so the sticker were a treat to use. It is funny how when interruptions to the process (lack of time and weather in this instance) can lead to a dropped project. Of course, mother guilt eventually will put it back in play and I am pleased to say that these bulletin boards are ready to use.
More spaces of creativity can be found at Kristy's blog.

So what do you feed your family when there are distractions in the garden or other creative spaces. I recommend this family friendly dish originally found in the Canadian Dairy Boards annual Milk Calendar. Country-Style Spaghetti is a family friendly meal that is ideally suited for limited time and in between seasons type of appetite. We are having outdoor grilling weather at one moment and then it can rather quickly be raining heavily or blowing the next. It even uses an ingredient that might have been slated for the grill.

Country Style Spaghetti -serve 4 to 6

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. salt
1 onion, chopped
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. hot red chili flakes (opt.)
1/4 c. chopped pimento or sweet red pepper
1 lb. sausages (sweet or hot Italian) removed from casing and broken up
2 Tbsp. flour ( or tapioca starch)
2 1/2 c. milk
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 lb. spaghetti
1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese
3 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley

1. Heat oil in a large skillet and brown sausage as you break it into chunks. When the sausage is getting brown, add the garlic, onions and hot pepper flakes. Drain off any excess fat.
2. Sprinkle meat with flour and cook a few minutes, stirring. Add milk and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and add nutmeg, salt, pepper and pimentos. Simmer gently for 15 minutes.
3. While sauce is cooking, cook spaghetti in a large pot of boiling, salted water. Cook until tender 10 to 12 minutes and drain.
4. Toss spaghetti with sauce, cheese and parsley. Taste and season if necessary.

Serve with any green vegetable and if you wish, garlic bread.

Prep. Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes



If you are looking for other recipes check out Randi's blogand see what else is in the Recipe Swap Box.

My Creative Space: More inspiration and the creative process

As I wrote last week, inspiration can come from many places. I also mentioned how inspiring nature and especially flowers are for me. Pattern on china is something I really enjoy. When I was in my early twenties I was especially drawn to geometric borders on plain white plates. I like the food to be the starring attraction so most dishes are best served by presentation on plain white china. Maybe as a reaction to the long winters in Ottawa or as a throwback to the Bunnykins of my childhood, I now enjoy pattern on my china. A simple cup of tea gives even more reward when I drink from a beautiful cup and saucer like the one here.

A single cookie is more satisfying on a lovely plate. Both china patterns are predominately pink and are beautiful in the sitting area of our bedroom. As I wrote last week, translating flowers to felt benefits from help in seeing artists renderings. It may be obvious by now that I am very inspired by blossoming trees. That love may come from my father's appreciation of Japanese gardens. Many family day trips as a child were spent enjoying the Japanese gardens in and around Victoria, B.C.

Sometimes we were able to visit the world renowned Butchart Gardens. It was expensive to visit even in the seventies so we tended to go only when we brought out of town guests. While many people think of the sunken garden or the Italianate rose garden when referring to Butchart's, I remember the Japanese Garden and the plantings of azaleas and rhododendrons most fondly. While thrifting I came across a souvenir book of the gardens that was published in the mid-seventies. Memories of Butcharts is also a memory in my husbands childhood. His love of gardens did play a small part in the development of our relationship and he is quite delighted that I have inherited some of my skills and love of gardening.
In Ottawa spring takes a long time to really arrive and then suddenly it is summer. In Victoria spring is a long season that gradually unfolds. The cherry blossoms are first and there is one street that sometimes has them blooming in February. Usually the colours and texture of the felted sweaters inspire what sort of surface decoration I create. Possibly because of the faint spring green stripe(between the thick brown stripes) is what suggested the cherry blossoms on this purse. I apologize for the poor quality of the colour in this photo. It was a commissioned bag that I presented to its new owner without taking a digital shot. Another person had a film camera and this is the photo scanned into my computer. The pussy-willows I had in a large pitcher in my dining room when I started this bag likely inspired much of the design.

My domestic surroundings seem to have a huge effect on what I create. Spring seems to suggest little tweaks to refresh our home. The two pieces of pottery are both Denby that I found at the Salvation Army, the ceramic bird is Danish and I bought it at the garage sale of a friend of my grandmother when I was a child. The pillowcase in the background was picked out by my husband (at a great discount) is the only new object in the photo as even the pillow form is an unused Ikea feather pillow form that I thrifted last year.
Be sure to check out what inspires others in there creative space at Kristy's

blog.