May, June, July and August have whipped past

 Oh, hello, if anyone is still out there. 

That was quite a long absence, wasn't it. 

In May, I went to England and Scotland. 

One day I will make a grey and lime green sweater

And so on. So many pictures. We had a really good time. 

Then we came home and renovated our kitchen. 

I don't seem to have a real "before" picture

After: we still haven't turned on the oven

In July and August we attempted to recover our equilibrium. We went on a wee trip to Vancouver Island; we had some visitors here; we seem to have been busy. Now it is September and although we don't have anything at all to do with the school year, it seems time to resettle, reorganize, step up and all that. 

So I will tell you that this month's photo theme is People. I have been paying attention to the themes quite well, enjoying Reflections and not having much to say about Tools. People should be interesting. 

This month's cookbook is Jamie's Italy. The cookbook game sort of fell apart, what with going away for almost a month and then not having a kitchen for more than a month! However, I am still here, eating, so I hope to get back on track with this. 

I have a few more libraries to visit. I'll certainly get them all done in the year, which was what I set out to do. 

Since this is a knitting blog, I will say that after a bit of knitting doldrums, I am presently making a sweater for myself! 

This is the back, a single faux cable up the middle of reverse stocking stitch. It is progressing well enough, but I am making up the pattern as I go along, with a couple of model sweater patterns at my side, so it takes thinking time as well as knitting time. But we shall persevere. I want it done in six weeks from now because we are heading off yet again, this time to New York City. 

And now I am off to peruse my cookbook. I hope to be back here more regularly. 

I have been to some libraries

Once again I find myself having to catch up before leaving town for the next big adventure. I'll tell you about my library quest first of all. 

And because I scrolled backwards through my pictures to document this, we'll go backwards in time. 

A couple of weeks ago I went to a foot nurse on Broadway (in my never-ending quest to have my feet not hurt) and then headed up to Queen Elizabeth Park. I have a friend who lives nearby, and we met at the library branch close to the park. I confess, I have no idea who Terry Salman is, and the street the library is on, Clancy Loranger Way, was also completely unknown to me.  

The library branch is in a community centre, surrounded by sports fields and a stadium. 

Inside it was nice, well equipped with chairs and computer terminals and hold shelves and all the good things. 

Queen Elizabeth Park is on a hill, and we duly clambered up to the top and saw tons of different daffodils, cherries, rhododendrons and other spring flowers. 

I bet that right now the tulips are going crazy up there. There is a dearth of cafes in the neighbourhood, but luckily I got a cup of tea at Monique's house. A thing I wish I had taken pictures of is the line of sequoias down the middle of Cambie Street! It's a grand boulevard, and I am still astonished at how many sequoias we have in Vancouver. Funny how, as a teenager, I didn't know or care. 

Our next stop could have come at any time in this series, as it is my local branch where I go every week or so. 

It is also in a community centre, with a skating rink and an active pottery group, among other things. The library is named after Joseph Seraphim Fortes, a lifeguard on Vancouver beaches, swimming teacher, immigrant and all-around good guy. 

The library is surrounded by shops, cafes, apartment buildings and all the downtown liveliness. 

In late March, I proposed a two-library trip to the western end of the city, including the little Dunbar branch, where both Stephen and I had our first library cards. We went on a Sunday, and the Dunbar branch was closed when we started off in the morning, so we walked to the West Point Grey branch, through the woods and Pacific Spirit Park. 

Our friend Jennifer came along, with her book about the cherry trees of Vancouver. We saw a good one down a back lane and had to go and inspect it. 

When we got to West 10th, we had a nice lunch down the street from the library. There is an excellent knitting shop across the street, but some people were not keen to visit. Another time... 

A pretty cool book drop, eh?

On our way back to the Dunbar library we passed what used to be the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a big old Catholic school and convent. Now it's part of a boys' school. I don't remember it being quite so visible from the road; I think there were hedges or at least lots more high plants. 

Back to the Dunbar branch and memory lane. Both these branches are little single-storey buildings on local main drags. The Dunbar branch is tiny, really, but the check-out desk is just where it always was, kid books on the left, adult on the right. 

Last on our tour is the Kitsilano branch, early in March. I believe this was also connected to a visit to the foot nurse, so we have come full circle. This is another little stand-alone branch, serving the local community with story-time when I was there. 

I have twelve more branches to go! I like doing the walk from one to another so I will try to make some interesting routes. 

Right now, though, I am off to the UK for another walking trip! Stephen is joining me, my brother and his partner, and my friend Patricia, who went to Norfolk with me last year. We go tomorrow morning! You can always see what I am doing on Instagram, and of course I have every intention of blogging it all up when I get back. 

 

Actual knitting content

In the summer of 2021, I started this blanket, an extra-wide Mohairino Medley shawl by Stephen West. It has five main colours -- plain green, green/black marl, brown, blue and pink/grey striped -- and whitish and cherry red for single-line accents. 

I like how the grey and pink stripes mean that neither one takes too much space. The greens predominate and the blue is a colour-changing yarn, and the brown came in a gradient pack of 5 supposedly different shades. 

A sock knitter might notice the very small yellow bits: a certain sock yarn company puts yellow in to mark where you should start the two socks so that they match perfectly! Not important here, but a bit of yellow never hurt. 

I changed the colour sequence from the pattern after a couple of repeats, so that I could get the two greens together, the pink and blue together. 

Ta da!

And here is the very basic inspiration: 

Green, green, green, blue water and sky, pink flowers, grey seawall, bits of darker red and white, brown tree trunks. (Believe me, cherry blossoms were nearby!)

Since starting this blanket we have learned that we hardly have to turn the heat on in the winter, and a lap-rug might not be needed. We also managed to find a non-grey couch after the shortages of mid-pandemic. We do have two grey chairs, though, and this will brighten things considerably. 

Vegetable month

Welcome to April, halfway through. I have a catch-up post partly written but figure that life is short and we should just plunge ahead without worrying too much about missed blog posts. 

And here I am doing the recap in my head. 

Onward! 

More on yellow

I am going away for a few days; I will probably take pictures, but if I am going to update the blog while it is still February, I'd best do it now. 

I did cook some things from Jamie Oliver's book this month, but didn't write them up. I did a lot of the recipes from that book when I first got it so didn't want to repeat, although I can say there are a lot of nice things in there. This month I made a chicken and potato dish which was nice but a bit fussy. You boil the potatoes, and fry up some bits of chicken, then put it all in a pan with some cherry tomatoes and bake it. Seems excessive, though it was very good. When I get back, it'll be March and time for Ottolenghi's Plenty More. 

I now present a bucket-load of yellow things!

In no particular order...

Witch hazel

I don't think this is forsythia

A yellow building with some history; now a coffee shop

The sulphur piles in the harbour

Lichen

My new knitting needle holder on my yellow wall

Yellow is for caution

This woman in yellow had to work hard at her job

More signs

Greater Vancouver Water District

This car often parks in our lane

Yellow leaves

Yellow pub

I watched other people run a half-marathon around the park. Much yellow, but there was more black

In March we will take a look at Weather for the photo theme. Should be good, because we are full of weather here. 

 

Yellow month

I can tell already that yellow month will be a bit of a challenge. Not because there is nothing yellow around, but because it's all traffic signs and caution tape and lines on the road. And things at the grocery store. 

Our nearest grocery store is a No-Frills, the land of no name, the yellow label. We like their olives for "everyday," but you can get everything with a yellow label. I will try not to take too many pictures of food. 

This is a warning sign that at least is a bit unique. There aren't many signs warning the trucks to avoid low tree branches. The tree in question is a beautiful red oak in a park; I'm sure there would be trouble if the city tried to cut the gigantic low limb off. 

In the natural world, we are not quite ready for daffodils here, but I got some yellowy catkins. 

I will continue to look out for daffodils, and I'm pretty sure I can get some of those before the month is out, and I must find some yellow that is not traffic signs or other obvious things. 

A word about stitch numbers

Yesterday I said I had 40,000 stitches left to do on my blanket. Incorrect! My rows are actually only 262 stitches wide, so that cuts it down to 26,200. I knit 3 rows last night, that makes 786, so that leaves me with 25,414 to go. If I want to finish in a week I have to do 3,630.6 stitches per day. Which is 13.9 rows. More or less. Seems doable so I will try to do that. You heard it first here. 

It is February, so time for Jamie Oliver recipes and photos of yellow. Road signs, daffodils, sunsets, spring clothes? 

The final zigzag

Since this is a knitting blog, I will show you my zig-zaggedy knitting. I've been working on this since July 2021, but I was going back and forth to Toronto, and it was staying here in Vancouver. I figure I have about.... 40,000 stitches to go! I can hardly believe that, but it seems to be so, if my rows are almost 400 stitches wide and I need to do a hundred of them. But, I mean to finish 'er off soon!

Brown and green zigzags: 

Green and other green zigzags: 

Blue and brown zigzags: 

It's supposed to reflect the colours of the park: greens, blues, brown and the occasional pink of the cherry blossoms. I think it is a bit more zingy than the park on an average day, but it works. We were faced with buying furniture in the pandemic and everything available seemed to be grey, so we wanted something lively. 

I made my last recipe of the month from Moosewood Restaurant Favorites yesterday. So easy, so good. Take your feta cheese and cut it into bits. The picture in the book has nice even rectangles, but mine crumbled and broke. Zest and juice a lemon. Mix the juice with a bit of olive oil and drizzle that on the cheese, sprinkle the zest over, grind some pepper. The end! It is lovely on crackers, they say you can add it to a salad, or just pop it in your mouth and eat it! Yummy. 

I took a walk around Lost Lagoon this afternoon and saw this heron looking all majestic. A day with a heron is always a good day. 

A day with a duck is also a pretty fine day! This one was walking on the slushy ice, which was probably about half an inch thick. 

And now I must get back to my knitting! Forty thousand stitches to go!