Get your sunglasses

I took part in another vintage knitalong. This time we were supposed to do something from the 1950s, so I looked at some lovely sweaters but decided on this quick 50-row doily.

It is meant to be done in fine crochet cotton, but I used dishcloth cotton and 4.5 mm needles, so I knew it would turn out huge.

It was going to be a giant purple thing, but then I ran out of purple. Then I ran out of red!

Luckily I have the perfect green bowl to sit upon it.

Eye Candy Friday

So many eye candies here!

Once upon a time, my dad took a million pictures. Even in the days of 36-exposure rolls of film, he stood there and used up half a roll at the Grand Canyon. Or the Brighton Pavilion or some beach in BC.

I became the holder of all these slides. My sister mailed me something like 4 or 5 moving boxes full of carousels of slides. Years and years ago! Eventually I got my dad's projector, too, so I can watch them easily.

The task was enormous and way more time-consuming than I had originally thought,  and I ignored it for quite a while.  We have a system now, and I have also hardened my heart so that I don't keep all those pictures of the Grand Canyon -- just the ones with my mom, or the rare ones she took of him! I must say that the family camping trips and so on keep getting put to the bottom of the pile because I know they will have lots of keepers!

We have a frame and a holder and we take a picture of the slide with a close-up lens, and then keep the real gems in archival boxes. If no one opens those boxes in the next 50 years they will self-destruct.... if only!

The ones I don't scan, I put in that bin if they have paper frames. One day I will finish the lampshade I once started.

Some have plastic frames, and they get just thrown in the garbage! I still can't believe I do that, but I have indeed thrown away thousands of pictures of Canadian university campuses in the 60s, pretty autumn-leaf colour in New England, waves crashing on beaches and Italian Renaissance architecture.

My mom and sister in Stanley Park in Vancouver, sometime like 1972... Note the groovy poncho my mom made. I had a purple one.

Some flowers

I am back from a slightly interesting holiday (to the shores of Lake Huron, where we went canoeing once and walking in the woods a few times, but mainly read and knitted in the air-conditioned, suburban "cottage").

Wandering around town here, I find I take a lot of pictures of other people's gardens, so I will show you a few flowers today.

Bee balm. I used to think this was the bergamot used in Earl Grey tea, but there is also a much more flavourful citrus fruit called bergamot. You can boil up the leaves of this, but it is not very exciting!

This is in my very own garden, a chive flower. Must catch it and spread the seeds around, before they just all fall on the deck.

Ah, daisies.

Day lily... everyone has these rusty old things, including me.

Very exciting here, a milkweed beetle on a day lily. Now that's something you don't see every day. In fact, I don't know that I have ever seen a milkweed bug anywhere before, and I had to ask my go-to bug guy for an ID. Now I shall have to keep my eyes open for more!

Very soon there will be some knitting to show!