Our get together also fell within days of my birthday, and Katie made a batch of super retrotastic Ice Cream Cone Cakes decorated in gummy bears and mini M&M’s.

It’s now official, summer is here! Let the fun and games begin!

P.S. Thanks girlies for such a wonderful birthday celebration! xoxo

Last fall, I was offered an amazing full-time job that I just couldn’t turn down, and what started as a little break from my blog turned into a several month hiatus.

The truth is, I miss having a blog and the interaction that comes along with it. I’ve missed getting feedback on my ideas and all the comments and questions. After several months of hemming and hawing, I’ve decided to revamp my site and get back into the swing of things. I made the switch back to *Crackers + Honey*, which I just totally love. I’ve been sewing up some cute new items, and there’s a bunch of drawings just waiting to be drafted into patterns and made into purses. I hope that you guys are as excited as I am!

Thanks to everyone who has nudged me back into the groove with your sweet emails and “where are you’s?”

The beautiful warm fall weather kept the Lake warm enough to go wading. It was impossible to resist, especially since it’s probably the last time to enjoy the water until next summer.

I hope everyone had a beautiful Thanksgiving, and will be able to have a little bit of respite before the whirlwind of Christmas strikes!

I’m sure everyone remembers last week’s heatwave, when we were in Philly, the temperature reached 110 degrees! We spent a whole day on South St., and we almost sweat our bums off — I can’t ever remember being sooo hot.

I accomplished everything I wanted to do in Pennesylvania, including eating at Dalessandro’s, known as one of “Philly’s best Cheese Steaks”, and I have to agree that they make one killer hoagie!

I visited more knitting shops than I can count, but didn’t really find what I was looking for. I did get “both”:http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1931543771/ref=nosim/karissacove-20 “volumes”:http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1931543895/ref=nosim/karissacove-20 of Vogue’s Stitchionary though. Really, the whole trip had so much shopping that I can honestly say “I’ve shopped till I dropped”!

For more photos and Penn/Philly details “check out my Flickr account”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/karissa/sets/72157594224517455/!

I’m really looking forward to trying Philadephia specialties, like Philly Cheese Steaks, Tasty Kakes and baked pretzels, but the one thing I’m most excited about is is hitting up as many yarn/craft stores as possible. I spent some time this week rooting through the “Craftster forums”:http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?www for places to go, and I think I’ve got “a”:http://www.tangledwebb.com/home.html “few”:http://www.buffaloexchange.com “places”:http://www.fabricrow.com/ “picked”:http://www.southstreet.com/ “out”:http://www.artstarphilly.com/index.shtml. If you have any other Pennsylvanian suggestions, please let me know!

I hope everyone else has as much fun this week as I do! See you in 7!

She’s such a ham!

In order, back row first, from left to right: Lavender, sage, basil, thyme, coriander, oregano, lemon mint, parsley, ginger mint, pineapple mint, spearmint, and chocolate mint.

I’m really excited about the chocolate mint, it smells exactly like a Mint Aero Bar and I can’t wait to see how it tastes as a tea. Yum!

I think it’s gotten to the point where I have to either hire a sewer or teach Kevin how to do it…ummm, I’m leaning towards hiring a sewer. ;)

I’d be making it mostly for practice though, I’m planning to make a king-size quilt this summer, and I need to work on my quilting skillz.

When she broke it this weekend, rather than rush out and purchase a brand new leash, I decided to get crafty — I removed the lanyard off the broken leash, sewed a band of fabric to 6 feet of heavy webbing and made a handle at the other end, and voilą, Rosie’s new one-of-a-kind super leash:

(I wanted to make a pink one with heart fabric, but Kevin said that he would be embarassed to walk her with it! hee hee)

I feel a lot better today, though, and raring to get some work done!

On Friday night, Kevin and I were out Mac window shopping at Best Buy, and ended up with a “cute little Mac mini”:http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0926INGFS10064692&catid=22154&PCName=ClearanceHome&logon=&langid=EN.

We named the little computer Lucky because that’s what we were, someone had just returned it, so we got it at even better than sale price and who could pass that up?

Saturday, I got my first pedicure ever — I was pretty nervous because I don’t like getting my feet touched, but the pedicurist understood my woes and assured me that she would take it easy, and it was a total success:

Mix in seeing a snake with the puppies and a Sunday evening knitting session with Erin, and I’ve got to wonder, why did this weekend have to end?

I woke up bright and early this morning, scooped up my mum and away we went to the “Port Colborne Market”:http://city.portcolborne.on.ca/visitinghere/attractions/farmers_markets/ to see what the locals had to offer.

There was only a handful of vendors, a lot different that during peak summer season when there’s more than forty but there was some new faces, so there was still a lot of new variety. The best was sampling a variety of different cheeses at one of the booths, we tried mustard & ale gouda from Wales, cumin spice gouda (which was my fave!), Dill Havarti, which was the kind we we ended up purchasing along with a small brick of aged Cheddar from Quebec. Cheese is something I don’t have very often, but I always enjoy it.

What else did we get? Three boxes of Pansies, one loaf of focaccia bread, and tub of Mango Honey — which made for a most-delish lunch on the back porch in the sun. Yum!

As soon as I saw this mixed package of vintage fabrics at Value Village my mind started swirling with ideas — Would I make a “hobo tote”:http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=6043.0 for the summer, or a circular needle roll-up, maybe even a bibbed apron?!

Too bad once I got home and opened the bag, all the fabric and already been cut into and all I got were sloppy seconds. :( I guess there’s enough to make a mini-quilt or some patchwork pillows, but I was pretty disappointed.

Let this be a lesson to you!