Cook from the books, again

I picked out these cookbooks for this year's explorations. Some are certainly repeats. Some I have ignored in the past and some I really want to cook out of every day. We will see what happens, since we have two longish trips planned for this year. We will make it up somehow!

Here we are at the end of January, and this month I have browsed through the Superfast Weeknight Dinners magazine. The last recipe we tried was pasta with gorgonzola and spinach. Delicious. It was "light" because you use evaporated milk instead of cream in the sauce, and we used pasta with some extra fibre. But it was a tad decadent-seeming! More cheese than one should eat at one sitting, perhaps. A couple more days in the month; we might come up with something else to try. 

I'm not sure what we will do for February, but I'm leaning toward the other magazine, a Soups and Stews issue. Stay tuned. 

I am knitting, and have made 6 squares on my book blanket. Next week I'm taking a trip to a yarn shop to get a couple more colours, so I can incorporate movies as well. If I want to make a blanket for a single bed, I need.... 165 squares! Can that be? Not only is that a lot of books and movies, but an awful lot of squares! A lot more than 6. We'll all just stay tuned for that and see what happens. 

The scarf

I think this was the last finished object of 2024, and we are still waiting for the first of 2025. It is light and warm and sort of surprisingly coloured. Dotted Rays is a great pattern I have knitted more than once. 

Obviously I am out of practice taking pictures of knitting, as this looks like a picture of a couch. 

I have a plan for 2025, sort of like a temperature scarf. I will knit a square for each book or movie I finish. And a "real" movie, in a theatre. Different shades for fiction and non-fiction? Who can say, but I have already finished one non-fiction book and seen two documentaries. 

Yet another new year

This year, 2025, will be the 20th year of Knitting on the Cam, believe it or not. It has certainly peaked, but we're not dead yet. 

For example, I have to list my yearly photo themes here for easy reference through the year. 

• January — Books
• February — Dishes
• March — Forms in nature
• April — Hidden
• May — Jobs
• June — Lights
• July — Numbers
• August — PIles of things
• September — Raindrops
• October — Tombstones
• November — Vegetables
• December — Yellow

Right now it is dark so I can't show you the finished shawl -- that blob of garter stitch I showed you in November is now done! If we are all very lucky, I'll be back shortly with a finished picture. 

November again

Well, hello.

I will not attempt to make a whole sweater this NaKniSweMo, but I do have some things that I mean to work on steadily. And I will not promise to post something every day but if I get anything done, I should make the effort to post a picture. 

This is the "before" picture of my Dotted Rays. I have made a couple of these before but gave them away. This yarn is two strands of laceweight held together. I do so love the idea of fine, delicate knitting, but I don't really enjoy making it. This will be much nicer when it's all spread out, finished. 

A recent knit: 

I made this summery, sporty shawl for my brother's partner, Lorna's birthday. My first knit for her, and she seems to be knitworthy! 

Hot summer's day

It's not quite as hot as it has been, but still, it's the middle of summer, and it's pretty hot out. 

So I decided to sew in the ends -- approximately 9,043 of them -- on these two scrappy projects. 

They both were started as quick carry-along projects, to use up spare balls of yarn, keep me busy in a line-up or on a journey. The hat's been finished for some time now, and I just finished the scarf yesterday.

Both will go in the charity bag, not because I don't like them but because that was also the idea, when I started out. 

I often think I'll just whip up a bunch of hats for the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre or some such thing. And then it takes me months and months to finish a hat, instead of a week. 

We were on another Gulf Island last week and, of course, I started a scarf with some yarn I stumbled upon. Now that's another thing I have to finish up, but since it is only one ball of worsted, it should not take too long! Haha ha ha ah...

It'll be done any day now. 

We went to Saskatchewan

Our first prairie sunset

My cousin and I at our grandparents' grave

It sure is flat here. This is a dam at Lake Diefenbaker

If we hadn't taken a wrong turn and gone off on an hour-long detour, we might have missed this amazing rainbow

Modern grain elevators

This is the view from our motel. The edge of town

One day there were big puffy clouds

For the textile and crafting crowd, I saw this cross-stitch at a yard sale. Did not buy

Eye Candy Friday and more

There are lots of things that might make interesting photos in the Downtown Eastside, but I am not bold enough to take pictures of them. I was down near there for Doxa films, and found this painted wall, which was much easier to capture. 

I also found the big W from Woodwards! There is a bright red W in the sky, but the original is on the ground in a courtyard near where I was watching movies. 

Great movies seen since I last wrote: Singing Back the Buffalo, about, uh, the return of the buffalo to the prairies of both Canada and the US. Red Fever, so good! About the influence of Indigenous people on fashion, sport, politics and environmental issues in North America and beyond. And, a bunch of shorts, especially Am I the Skinniest Person You've Ever Seen? and The Archive: Queer Nigerians.

This is the problem with blogging: I spent all day watching these movies, and I just don't have the oomph to do more than find a link here. But, you should really try and see Red Fever, it was good!