I knitted

I finally dug out the blue sock and knit a few rows. I think if I practise moderation, I'll be okay! I am planning a 5-hour train trip in a month. Can I work it up so that I can knit, maybe for an hour at a time?

Start slow, take it easy, don't rush into anything. But, eeeeeee, so exciting!

More pics of Victoria

Today just a lot of pictures! Still these are only from one of the two cameras we had in action, but I think you'll get the idea.

The big draw this holiday, besides seeing relatives, was The Boat! Our first trip to the dock was in rather heavy overcast, and we just puttered around on the boat, looked at the mist and pulled our hats down over our ears.

The day we actually planned on our expedition it was much better, a bit warmer and even with a bit of blue sky!

This is my brother-in-law's newish boat, 42 feet long, with plenty of sleeping room and a saloon (or is it salon?) as big as my living room at home. Plenty of space in the fridge and we had a nice lunch as we tootled along. 

Due to an accident at the port in Vancouver, the waters were rather full of freighters waiting to load or unload. We circumnavigated one of them, the Bonanza. Rather large.

No Naked Flames!

Mt Baker in the hazy distance

Another day we went out to Sooke, where we had spent a week a few years ago. We walked out on the spit and found many delights. One was a swing dangling from a tree! Elaine was the only one small enough to trust her weight to it, and she had a great time! Look how low the sun is, and this is just maybe 2 in the afternoon.

Elaine in store-bought Chicken Hat

The view was incredible. These are the Olympic mountains in Washington. So gorgeous!

I couldn't leave a beach like this without a few pictures of rocks, now, could I? I hear that some call these ones with the lines around them "lucky rocks" and that's good enough for me.

This was my favourite, but I left it behind

These next few were taken on the day of the panto, as we were walking around town.

Cormorants, zoomed in upon

Elaine got a kazoo for Christmas, and here she is performing her debut at the Sidney Opera House, or whatever they call it. A kazoo is a fine thing, out of doors.

Nice old bit of wood on the beach

One day we went to Beacon Hill Park.

Did someone take a strip of bark off a few years in a row, or what?

rocks to clamber on

kids posing with large tree

Peacock just wandering around. Very good at posing for the camera

arty water

The sun did really, truly come out later in the week. 

And then it was time to put all our stuff in a heap and head to the airport.

My jacket and bag; Elaine's backpack

A diversion

I will show you more West Coast stuff in a day or two, but I just found this video of our neighbourhood triumph of last summer, the Porch View Dances. I can't see my jazzy hat anywhere in the glimpses of the audience, though I was certainly there wearing it.

 

It was a very fun afternoon!

A few pictures from our holiday

We went out to Victoria for the second half of the holidays, to visit Stephen's mom and sisters (and assorted spouse and children, as well).

First stop, of course, is the dining room table for a cup of tea. I made this cosy for the giant pot as a wedding gift when Arthur was a baby, so 14 years ago? Fifteen? Anyways, it is still just as lovely as ever, though used-looking and not pristine. The star dishcloth was this year's gift.

I also caught up with this old friend, a fair isle concoction I made nine years ago. It was tossed aside onto the guitar case in the heat of the action. Stephen's sister and niece were singing and playing guitar and generally whooping it up! 

Meanwhile, out the window, a pileated woodpecker was pecking. 

Our first real outing was to Sidney By the Sea, a formerly industrial town that is keen to be tourist-friendly. There is a beach
 

with much beach glass, as befits a place where they just threw waste on the shore in the olden days

and the Ocean Discovery Centre

with green sea anemones

and whale hand bones

and divine orange jellyfish in a spectacular blue tank

and a community centre complete with theatre, and we enjoyed them all. The afternoon was spent at the panto, a crazy Cinderella story. Here we have some of the stars of the show, after the performance, I believe. On the far left is the evil stepmother, except she was an aunt in this version. She was horribly, horribly, horrible. Then we have Lady Gaga, who was at the ball, and an ugly stepsister, except I think s/he was a cousin. Buttercup, her name was. You can just see the purple hair of Violette, her sister! Those two were really the highlight for me, I think, even dancing in high heels and showing off their hairy legs. 

And that is enough for now. The big fun involved going out on The Boat, a 42-foot cruiser, up the Saanich Inlet. That will be our next instalment!

A day at the museum

Not a textile, but a brick wall

Yesterday some friends and I went to the Textile Museum of Canada. The Toronto public library now offers passes to local museums, so I just signed out a pass with my library card and got free admission to the museum. Yay me!

There was a great exhibit called Perpetual Motion, dealing with reuse of textiles. There were the expected crazy quilts, but also a camel cover, rugs, a lovely little child's jacket.

This is a bedspread woven of strips of cloth. Very pretty, soft colours.

And then we get a bit bolder in the hooked rug. It looks like it could have been done by Kaffe Fassett, but it was actually, likely, made by someone sitting by the fire in Nova Scotia in the 1950s.

This is a crazy quilt made of all sorts of fine fabrics: silks, velvet, wool, and even badges of local groups. There's embroidery everywhere, and the colours are amazing. If you go here and "zoomify" you can see every little bit of it.

Another exhibit showed the use of different natural materials used around the world. Bamboo, cloth made of bark and various other bits of plants, things woven of grass, decorated with feathers and shells and beads.

This amazing creation is an undershirt made of little teeny bits of bamboo netted on thread.

This is a skirt of bamboo and bottle caps, which would make a nice jingly-shaky sound!

Brown, brown, brown. Does the richness of the colour come from mixing the different tones? I wonder if this would look so great without the lightest bits. Anyways, it is gorgeous: a skirt of raffia, dyed with plant dyes. You can zoomify this, too!

These are also made of raffia, and the fabric is textured, with velvety pile here and there. Fantastic! 

You can see the raised pile here.

Then it was time to play and learn! There was a spot with wool to card and spin -- we did not do too well at that. Once you've wound the wool around the spindle, how to you get it off, and how do you prevent it from untwisting when you do? We also tried our hands at weaving, and that was slightly more successful, but perhaps our greatest achievement was this laying out of Penrose tiles. "Achievement" used rather loosely... 

And then I went and got my hair cut. All ready for the festive season!

pink and lopsided

Now it's December

We decorated the tree. Please note Elaine is wearing Christmas stockings on her feet!

We put on our usual collection of oddments, including this "pearl" bangle-thing. I would never tire of taking pictures of things on Christmas trees, with the coloured lights and all.

For example, here we have the disco ball, the skeleton who seems to have migrated from the Hallowe'en box to the Christmas box somehow, and the souvenir ornament from Newfoundland. And most historic and sentimental, the garland made of gum wrappers, bottom left!

Although I have not been knitting, I did have a tiny stash of dishcloths, so took part in the dishcloth swap on Ravelry. I just got this package from Michigan. Two lovely cloths and a few extra treats! Nummy!

The kids have another week of school, then we will have a week of Christmas here before heading off to the warm and rainy shores of Vancouver Island for a week with Stephen's family, among others. I hope we will have a few adventures there!

Next week's big adventure is to a physiotherapist, since my elbow is still hurting. I'll report in on that. Sigh.

Tonight's fruit salad

I'm taking dessert to a gathering of friends tonight, and when offered the choice of fruity or baked, they went for fruity. So, I am taking the simplest of fruity desserts: a bunch of fruit cut up in a bowl.

First the grapefruit. Then a couple of perfect kiwi fruit. (Then, I get the idea to document this!)

Dump a basket of blueberries in.

Mmm, a mango cut into little bitty pieces.

A couple of clementines, sections cut in half.

Finally, a banana.

I worried that the banana would get brown and icky, and was going to add it at the last minute, but I decided it had to be in there now, to absorb the grapefruit juice/Cointreau mixture I poured over the whole thing.

So, that will sit in the fridge for a few hours and be, one hopes, super perfecto this evening!

I will add some knitting content, too, though not my own knitting.
I was downtown the other day to visit the wretched dentist.

Free picture of bright blue sky

There was a guy sitting with his hat out for change, and clearly he'd been to some place that distributed our knitted contributions.

I was glad to see a nice blanket of squares being so useful and appreciated, but I didn't have cash to give him and didn't think he'd just want to talk knitting, so I crossed the street to take this picture. When I turned around, I saw I was in front of a shop selling this scarf of squares. Kinda the same??