Some scenes of our trip to Montreal for Christmas. Date night with my sweetheart, Old Montreal lit up for Christmas, snowy Lizzy and looking at the display in Ogilvy’s window on Ste. Catherine Street. It was lovely to spend the holidays in a place that makes them so festive with lights and food and wine and quite a bit of wonder thrown in.

Joyeuses fetes!

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep…” Robert Frost

This photo from a snowy walk in Montreal during our Christmas trip up north.

Wishing you a Happy New Year, everyone. See you in 2012!

What better way to spend the last few days of summer vacation than by making pompoms? The girls rediscovered the pompom maker and spent a quiet Sunday afternoon wrapping and wrapping.

“I love making pompoms!” said the soon-to-be third grader.

And the kindergardner-to-be just kept winding and winding, remembering long summer days that would never end, just like this one.

Art camp this year with the amazing Amanda was a big success. Here Lizzy is modeling her creations from the week devoted to “Fantasy Shoes.” Catherine’s creations were just as spectacular.

The weeks the girls were there, art camp included altered photography and sand casting at the 57th Street Beach. The kids’ creativity was just bursting — doing spins and spirals and overflowing into the dining room here at home. I felt the aftershocks of this camp for weeks!

And it all finished up with a lively art show and shadow puppet theater performance. Happy days.

just had to share one more picture of the rain painting. just try it sometime. It’s quite magical.

Blessed chilly summer — I know you’re about to change tomorrow (hello heat wave!) but so far, it’s been a knitter’s summer.

This is the newest in my ever-growing shawl wardrobe: The Age of Brass and Steam shawl. Is that an evocative name or what? And the lovely, lovely Malabrigo silky merino, color Arco Iris, makes it kind of brassy and iridescent in the best way!

Hoping there’ll be more summer nights, full of fireflies, good friends and chilly weather, so I can pull out the summer shawl.

Titanic rainstorms (and hail the size of golf balls) have been churning through our part of the world lately. The bright side of all the rain has been experimenting with rain painting — wetting the paper with rain and then adding paint. Or putting on the paint and then taking the paper out in the rain to see what happens!

This is what I love about summer — time to have a crazy idea like this — can we paint with rain drops? Yes, we can!

Happy Summer!

Oh, the long-awaited Hyde Park Quilt Show! I love this event every year — it’s such a Hyde Park thing. Such a neighborly, friendly and beautiful ritual of springtime! People bringing old quilts and new, ones to sell and ones to keep. Like a huge Easter basket of color, such a bright contrast to the still-gray skies and sidewalks outside.

Here are some snippets of this year’s show:

Thinking about Kelly’s recent post, also reminds me that time flies at even timeless events like the Quilt Show.

{Catherine at the Quilt Show in 2008, just a bit taller than the pews!}
quilt show 2008 a photo by blooming heather on Flickr.

{Lunching at the Quilt Show, 2009}

{with her friend and her 7th Birthday Quilt in 2010}

{Catherine in 2011, reading through the program on her own}

What fun we’re having in this luscious, long-awaited springtime!

But I’ll let Spring speak for itself….