Cotton Time

This is the May issue of Cotton Time I picked up on a side trip to Toronto this weekend.


bag and room shoes. Several people have asked if I can make these in adult sizes so it's good to have a pattern to work with.

apple blossom wreath with felted green apples.

I really love this style, but I fear all the layers would make me look far too dumpy.

Peach-headed panda bear

another bag and more room shoes

I really paid far too much for it, I still cringe when I think about it. It would have been cheaper to order it from Amazon.jp and pay the express shipping. We were vacationing in Niagara Falls and on Sunday drove up to Toronto to check out the Pacific Mall and J-Town. It was a trip where everything that could go wrong, did.

First, I had a bit of a hangover. Little too much vacation celebration the night before. As a result, we got off to a later start than I had hoped for. We got lost on the way to Toronto, when Brian stopped for gas and directions, he discovered he had left his bank card at the Denny's in Niagara, where we had eaten breakfast. I had my card, but I can only use it as a credit card, I can't take out money with it. I kept meaning to go to the bank and take care of it, but dragging the girls in seemed a major inconvenience, and since I could still use it to shop, I'd been putting it off. So we had about 10.00 cash on us.

We arrived at Pacific Mall, parking was horrendous. We got inside and both girls had to use the bathroom--long line. Miranda wanted to shop for toys, but in a mall with 400 stores, we had to walk around quite a bit to find any toy stores. Then, both girls had a huge food crash. We'd stopped for breakfast but they really hadn't eaten that much. I should have bought snacks, but I was figuring after eating breakfast, did we really need anything for a hour and a half trip. So now it was nearly 3 and they were both starving. And nothing looked good to them, they wanted McDonald's

At this point, I had just about had it. Nothing seemed to be going right, and I had two girls about to stage a mutiny if we didn't feed them soon. I have to admit I didn't handle things very well at this point because I was just so disappointed that neither of them were enjoying the excursion. We finally found a place that sold something they liked--Vietnamese beef on sticks, a sort of chicken salad and rice. Fortified, we set off to explore and went to a few stores, but it really was too overwhelming for them. It would have been better if I had come alone, but then that sort of defeats the purpose of a family vacation, doesn't it? And armed with only a credit card, we were restricted to shopping at stores where we were going to spend at least 10-20 dollars, depending on the store. No quick little purchases here and there.

By now it was 4:30 and I knew J-town closed at 6 so I wanted to head over there. Once in the car, I realized I didn't have the address. I had forgotten to write it down. I knew it was on Steeles, same as the Pacific Mall, but couldn't remember exactly where. We drove up and down the Steeles three times--have I mentioned how wonderfully patient Brian was through this whole thing? Finally, I spotted it. The bookstore was the place I really wanted to go to, hoping to find some kids books, but they didn't have any. They did however have magazines and when I saw the Cotton Time, I grabbed it. At that point, I didn't really care about the cost, I was just determined to have something to show for all my pains...