Well, that didn't go as planned

Here I am, running around getting ready to leave town again.

I meant to provide you with a blow-by-blow report of our last holiday before now, but can just show you my lovely mini-shawl, with its first row of blue.


I will take socks for Afghan children to knit on the plane and while sitting on the lanai watching more breathtaking sunsets.

See you in September!

Back safe and sound

We just had a sunny, sandy, surfy weekend at Southampton, and we are now back home again, washing the clothes and beach towels in preparation for another holiday next week.

There was a sunset or two:



beach fun:



knitting in high places:



and those eternal fashion questions. Who bought this man's shorts?


More later!

Cottage country

I've lived in Toronto for many years now, but still am uneasy about what happens when one goes beyond the end of the subway line. This weekend, if we don't fall off the map as we pass the last station, we are heading off to the shores of Lake Huron, for sun and sand.

Ha! We are packing sweaters and raincoats, as well as a beach towel or two.

I need car knitting and beach knitting and simple knitting!


I'll take the rainbow sock (I started the heel on the second one the other day in the park) and my (ahem) new project of the weaver's wool mini-shawl.


This is what I will use my Rowanspun for. I notice in the instructions we need 350 yards of dk weight yarn, but 6.5 mm needles. Well, I am not using such gigantic needles, so maybe my mini shawl will be even more mini than most. Oh well.

As you can see, it is very mini right now.

Will I come back next week with a finished sock and more of a shawl?? Who can tell?

I'm not used to beaches without tides, having grown up on the west coast. What's the point of a sandcastle if the tide won't come in and fill your moat, and then wreck your castle!? Perhaps we'll learn.

Book swap package!

Once upon a time, I took part in a book and bookmark swap. I had fun finding a pre-1960 book with a knitting reference in it, and greatly enjoyed finding pink beads for my partner, which I probably wouldn't have bought for myself, but which were, if I do say so myself, very lovely!

And now, thanks to the joint efforts of the Royal Mail and Canada Post and some camels and sloths, I bet, I got my package!


The book is I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith, which I know nothing about, and which, I hear, has no knitting in it! But I am assured that it seems like the characters should be knitting, and they probably are, but we're just not told. I look forward to reading this! The bookmark is a shimmery fabric one -- it looks very complicated to li'l old me, layers of fabric held together in some magic way.

My swap partner was Katie, who is master of many crafts!

She made buttons (the pin kind, not the sew-on kind) of old paper pictures, and envelopes (not cards, as I had first thought) made from pages of old kids' books! You can see the beautiful fronts, and the backs with flaps. There are stickers to address them, but I think these might get used for secret correspondence, tucked into gifts or other such things.

Let's see, what next?! A skein of Rowanspun DK, just what I needed! I started thinking of a shawl last night, and got out my white Rowanspun, and another bit of dk wool that turned out to be not quite right. Now with this, another 200 meters of the same yarn, I am happy as can be. (We'll talk later of the wisdom of even thinking of starting this project before finishing the 274 projects in line ahead of it...) A book of Rowan patterns for felted bags, slippers and so on. A bar of lavender and wildflower soap. And a card of the painting of Katie in her studio that you see in her blog's banner!

Thank you so much, Katie, for the wonderful package, and Zoe, for organising this swap!

Oops, forgot to mention the chocolate! You can see its opened and crumpled wrapper in the picture! Delicious milk chocolate!

Wow, I heard this at 4 am

This morning at 4, a blast of air came in our window and rattled our heavy venetian blinds. We leapt out of bed, thinking those scary thoughts that come into your brain when you are jerked awake by loud noises at 4 am.

There were thunderous booms, and after I realised the tree had not fallen on our house, I assumed we were in for another thunderstorm. But, no hail, no rain, no more wind after that first blast.

And the thunder was weird, too! Just distant thumps, and lots of them. And, hey, lots of sirens, too, which we don't usually hear. Something seemed to be exploding. We live near the train tracks and remembered the accident that once occurred on them. We got up and looked outside but could see nothing.

So, this morning we learn there was a fire at a propane depot, about 5 miles from here, as the crow flies. It sure made a heck of a noise! The news report says there have been injuries, but no details. I bet there will be lots more coverage of this story!

Wait, there's more here!

And of course, there's video on YouTube.


And you know I don't like to post without a picture and I don't have pictures of fireballs, so here's my "things I'm working on/thinking about" pile by the side of the bed.

It only looks like there have been explosions here!

Don't you love my old Coleman cooler I rescued from the trash? It's full of sock yarn.

Knit on, with no more explosions!

That long pointy thing, and some knitting

A number of you have commented on my long pointy thing.

We have "sail making." Eh, but why so long? Why pointy on both ends?

"Suturing." You would not want to be sutured with this baby, lemme tell you. Perhaps suturing together a dead elephant... Which leads us to "leather needle." Maybe, but still, why so long? Why pointy on both ends?

Our last suggestion is "a rug needle," which might work, but... I dunno.

So, I did a bit of googling around, and found that it probably is a leather needle, but I still don't know why you'd need points on both ends! And you know, if you google something about needles with points on both ends, you end up with knitting stuff! Surprise, surprise.

We'll file this away for future research...

I haven't just been spending my days fretting about long pointy needles, you know. I have actually knitted some stuff, too!

This is the denim yarn. I couldn't resist casting on... even though I have a very muddled idea of how this will all turn out. This is Sleeve #1 (a pattern from the Learn to Knit Afghan Book) and Sleeve #2 will not be identical. That much I know.

Then there will be a hodgepodge of pattern and colour in between the sleeves. Sorta like this -- scroll down to Narvik. Here it is on Ravelry. Of course, I haven't got the same yarn, the same colours, the same gauge, and I think I will knit it in one piece from wrist to wrist.

So, not really like that at all....

Some pretties for Eye Candy Friday

We got a new camera. So we've been taking pictures...



Delphinium. My, this was taken quite some time ago, and these flowers are now finished.


Breakfast. I love these little egg cups, but we hardly ever use them.


Oh, and Arthur, having snatched away the Basalt tank!