Well, June 2nd, 2022 found me celebrating the day, forty years ago, that I walked down University Avenue in Toronto to register my business…Carolyn M. Barnett Designs…how imaginative…NOT! However, I thought that ‘Jumpers’ just wouldn’t fly in Canada (the Brit word for sweaters) so I went with my name. That’s worked well in that when…
Twenty twenty two has been an interesting year! With vaccinations we’ve been able to get out and about more and feel a wee bit less afraid, also, after two years (I’ve lost track) we’ve been jonesing to congregate, get together with family and friends, also, in my business, to let loose in craft fairs. Artfest…
I can’t remember when I started collecting bags (shopping…not handbags)…I do know I was already in my twenties as, before that, I didn’t even carry a purse. Not having enough money to do much shopping outside Zellers and Woolworths there weren’t many bags I’d want to hang onto and start collecting. It’s not really a…
‘Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Kitty Fisher found it’. We all remember that nursery rhyme…sounds cute, fun and, of course, old fashioned. Well, on a sunny outing to cruise our downtown shops with take away lattes in hand we dropped into Novel Idea…a locally owned book shop. I’ve been ordering books from them for ages…if I…
Well, earlier this year I got an email from the San Francisco Opera telling me that one of the hats I had done for Cosi fan Tutte had made its way into their June production of Don Giovanni so they need another one. The pattern is from a 1947 knitting book and had been faxed…
Before COVID set in I had been approached again by the San Francisco Opera for some knitting work they needed for a future production. Everything ground to a halt so I didn’t think about it as I did more slow stitching during lockdown and knit more socks and shawls. The socks and shawls were for sale without…
I have taken on a whole pile of knitting machine ‘stuff’, two knitting machines and a bunch of tools and equipment to go with them. I’ve listed some on Kijiji which anyone can pick up to augment what they already have for their Singer/Silver Reed machines and also for the Brother, but I also have…
This phrase has taken on so much more meaning in the past 16 months. At first we all thought we’d be locked down for a few weeks then things would get back to normal or would die back…but no and working from home, ordering groceries in or venturing out early in the morning to shop…
I decided this spring that I have a love/hate relationship with nature. What brought this to a head: Live plants…dead birds. We usually have a nest somewhere around our house each Spring, used to be on a folded back screen on an upstairs balcony door…we took off to North Carolina, something we’d been doing since…
No…I’m not talking about how cats talk but a living situation that has endured and changed for about 500 years. I first became enamoured with this kind of housing decades ago when I watched Roger Moore as Simon Templar in ‘The Saint’ TV series….back in my English teen years in the ’60’s. At that time…