it's the simple things...

local free range eggs, poached. yummy camembert from just down the way. fresh spinach & chard picked up at the farmers market today, sauteed in a little garlic flavoured olive oil & spices. and beer bread baked yesterday, toasted. a generous sprinkle of pepper, and enjoy.

summer calls for simpler ingredients, simpler meals. i love it when i can find a meal from local, fresh ingredients. our garden too is perking up and revealing surprises from under tender leaves. the raspberries disappear quickly into our mouths, the strawberries are rescued from eager woodbugs. pattypan yellow squash is perfect on the bbq. the zucchini needs to be picked now before they are all a foot long. the tomatoes are turning from green to warm red. i keep meaning to take pics but the days get away from me.


there hasn't been much knitting lately, but there is one pair of socks on the go. i was inspired by amy to make striped noro socks knitting from both ends of the skein, but i now see many people are grabbing ahold of this trend. so far so good on my part, the first sock fits like a dream and the second is well underway.

i hope everyone is out enjoying the summer that has finally come to visit. on my end there has been much climbing, a little skimboarding, and now some quality time with my new toy. A and i got them this week and have been honing our skills during evening carve sessions. i definitely need some more practice before i venture onto busy streets, but a gentle slope on a quiet night is perfect right now.

marine explorations...

i'm slowly trying to catch up to new stuff...here are a few pics from a day out with my friend Jen's boat tour company. no whales or bears today unfortunately but still a gorgeous day on the water (although i do think any day on the water is gorgeous).

oh the places we'll go...

has it been so long since my last post? I suppose it has, but I will try to make up for it now with a few photo heavy posts. In the last month there has been a bit of exploring, some gallivanting here and there, and today I am a bit sunburnt and tired in the wake of it. But being Canada Day, it is my fourth and last day of a long long weekend and I think I've earnt a bit of relaxation, so will enjoy it well before the inevitable return to work tomorrow. We just got a new skimboard and may go try it out a bit later; more pics? We'll see.

But first: at the beginning of June, A and I went met up with friends at Pachena Bay in Bamfield. For those who don't know, Bamfield is on the west coast of Vancouver Island, just a bit south of one of my other favourite hangout, Tofino, and the start of the famous West Coast Trail. We had never been to Bamfield before, a tiny little town at the end of a 90km gravel logging road. Didn't explore the town too much, but here a few images from the couple of days we spent listening to the waves crash and exploring the seashore.



The dark clouds threatened a few times but there was no rain during our stay - a miracle on the wet coast.



Recent storms had left many creatures tossed up upon the sand.



I spent one morning eagerly peering into the lush tidepools.



We also did a bit of kayak surfing, although the waves were pretty mellow.




Nothing like a beautiful evening to cap it off!

shells and flowers...

These pictures make me happy. And I promise, there was no flower arranging beforehand. I was just looking for a nice spot to take some shots of my [finally!] finished socks, and all the lovely pink rhodo flowers were strewn on the grass beneath the bush. Spring is finally coming along...

Obviously it's been a little while since I posted, but don't worry, I 'm in a better mood. In between I forgot to post about Lina hat I made for A. Knitting has been going a bit slowly, and it's hard to tell if it's the projects I've been working on or just a lack of interest on the whole. I've been sewing a bit, drawing a lot. Finally getting outside a bit more to go climbing and the like. Tomorrow I'm going whitewater kayaking - yikes, hopefully I shall return.

Wait - I was talking about socks, wasn't I? As mentioned in the last post, I'd been inspired by several others in blogland to make the Child's First Socks, and to make them in purple. This lovely Araucania Ranco Solid drew me in, and off I went. But. Yeah, there's a but. I don't know, this pattern was old news pretty quick after the start, and time suddenly stood still when I worked on them. Okay, I'm being a bit melodramatic, but I made these socks shorter than my usual length due to my desire to finish them. I love the result, but it was hard going.



I tried the first sock on after completion and the fit seemed good. I reversed the chart on the second sock to have mirror images, and actually thought I was knitting looser on the second. I didn't bother to try the sock on as I went. Umm, yeah. It's a wee bit tight. I'm making it work though - there will be no reknitting.

Project Spectrum Earth is winding to a close - I'm a bit sad that my lack of knitting motivation left me with only a few projects in my favourite colour spectrum. And the next spectrum will be the hardest I think, even though I love grey and white (yellow too, but it's not a colour that makes regular appearances in my life).

I feel like I'm rambling a bit. Hope the weather is good where you are too!

distractions...

everyone needs distractions now and then, especially when you're having work days like i'm having lately. suffice it to say things are a bit hectic, but we'll leave it at that. at least when i come home i can see all the pretty green things that are popping up in my windowsill. soon enough, my pretties, and you'll be outside growing fat veggies. not today though - i scraped ice of my windshield this morning despite the nearly-May calendar date. gotta love it.



there has been some knitting, although i'm not much motivated lately. my friend lucas has been complaining that A always has new cool toques to wear, and although he's not the first one to do so, he somehow motivated me where others have not. there's something about knowing have to do something that completely stalls me in my tracks. in this case though, i mostly had fun. i used a variety of stash yarns, with a green and light brown theme fitting for project spectrum (and a bit of blue thrown in). the wave chart is from swell - yet another adventure in my goal to excel at colourwork.



the edge has a few rows of garter stitch rather than my standard rib which i think creates a nice clean effect. the top is an 8-pointed decrease. i have to say, while i do love all the colours mixed together, sewing in all the ends is a pain in the ass. luke won't get this till friday, but hopefully it'll shut him up - i mean, make him happy.



my other current project is child's first socks from Knitting Vintage Socks. After being inspired by pam and kelly, i knew mine also had to be purple. so far so good, but the shell pattern gets to be a bit of snore very quickly. i'm pretty dismissive in this post, aren't i? obviously not quite settled from the day's events. hopefully i have another FO post soon, but i can't say i won't also start a new project before then!

spring, we're so glad to see ya...

although winter is slow to relinquish it's gloomy grip on us (a foot of snow just two hours south of us on saturday!), there are signs here and there that spring is slowly making an appearance, albeit a late one. here are a few shots from today's walk along the campbell river.

feeling earthy...

Just got back from a relaxing weekend at Tsa-Kwa-Luten where my mom and I took part in the Fun Knits knitting retreat. Was a great mix of women madly knitting away, and also good workshops. More on that in a moment, but first, my start for Project Spectrum: Earth.

These socks are a variation on Yukon Leaves, which I previously interpreted in my niece's little hat. I knitted the socks toe up (of course), so my leaves perhaps look upside down, although I think I like them better this way. I was initially concerned that the four repeats called for in the pattern would make the socks too big, so I started with one up the instep with a twisted stitch cable on each side. For the leg, I did three repeats of the Yukon Leaves pattern, with a cable in between each.



The cable up the back is different from the other two - a bit bigger and with three strands instead of two. These socks fit awesome, and I'm pretty happy. However, you may have noticed a little something - see how the sock on the right is evenly variegated? then notice the sock on the left? yeah, that's right about where I was. This yarn is Sweatermaker, which is soft and lovely, and local. But the second ball turned out to be noticeably lighter, and unfortunately did this strange pooling thing whereby the dark part worked its way in a spiral up my leg. I've let it go, breathing has returned to normal, but this was my first real experience with bad pooling, and colour my unimpressed.

There will be several more installations for this segment of Project Spectrum - a brief glance at my wardrobe will confirm that it's not hard to get me excited about green and brown. Stay tuned.



So what did I do at the workshop? Learned how to spin of course. I do tend to get frustrated when things don't work for me instantly, so there may have been much huffing and gritting of teeth, but ultimately I'm pretty pleased with the result. I can definitely see it is a skill you need to practice again and again, but at least the basics have been explained well to me. This is Romney wool, by the by. And a great colour for PS.

One last bit of "Earth"? Check out the tiny tomatoes poking their heads up behind the handspun. Yummy veggies are on their way!

recent images from tofino...

travel snapshots...

around here spring is well on it's way. however, last week i was in ontario where the deep snow definitely makes winter still feel very close at hand. although i didn't get a chance to take as many shots as i would have liked, here are a few things that caught my eye.


st lawrence river, at prescott.


dock in the frozen harbour bordering the st lawrence, prescott.


stonework feature, parliament buildings, ottawa.

the twisted end of the spectrum...

oh, so many things to post about, and lots of pics. have just returned from a week in the ottawa area and had a really great time. will share some photos soon, but to start, i finally finished my first project spectrum project:


yay for red mitts! you may have noticed in previous mentions i was looking for the perfect pattern, something a bit cabled, possibly some lace, and wonderfully long, and i've come out pretty happy on this one. you may recognize the middle lace pattern as one half of the baudelaire chart. in fact, the mitts are mirror images of each other, so each mitt uses one half. the lace is bordered on each side by a simple cable.


the fun part was the twisting. i knit these from the hands up, so on the first mitt i put in a k2tog and a m1 on either side of the cables and lace pattern, doing these stitches every second round. on the second mitt, i did m1 and ssk, so the mitt would twist the opposite way. tops and bottoms of the mitts are 4x2 rib. the main problem i found with knitting from the fingers up was that i had a lot more trouble adding in the thumb afterward than i normally do. i'm not completely happy with them, but the rest is so great i can live with it.

the yarn, as previously mentioned, is colinette jitterbug in morello mash. wonderful colour that i love endlessly, but the yarn itself i could take or leave. i've definitely used many softer fingering weights (although it may soften with washing), and i also encountered numerous knots in the skein, several ridiculously close together to have me gritting my teeth.


despite my love of red, this is likely my only project for the fire part of project spectrum, especially as the end of march looms quickly toward me. dare i admit that i've well into a project for april/may? not sure if that's allowed, but the green yarn was calling to me and socks were a perfect travelling project. but the earth months will be easy for me, so i'm sure there will be more projects to come. plus it's not hard to be in a green and brown mood - did i mention that it's spring here? i'm going to be starting garden plans this week, and i'm terribly excited about it!

spring is calling...

you can definitely feel it in the air. it's a bit warmer, a bit more mild. i actually wore flip-flops the other day. this crocus shots were taken a week ago - our yard is full of them, mostly purple, with a few yellow ones glowing sunnily in between. not much else is going on yet, but that soon will change. we have been talking dreamily about the coming season and all the vegetables we will plant. i am eager to start some things indoors, but i am going away next week and figured i would wait to do until i return. but soon i will hopefully be filling this blog with images of fresh veggies bursting forth.

but to take an abrupt turn away from spring, next week i will be heading to ontario, where i hear winter is much less ready to release its clutches on the landscape. it will be an adventure, i'm sure, but will also make the spring weather that much more enjoyable upon my return.


my project spectrum project is well underway. these fingerless mitts combine a bit of lace along with some cables, and i'm very excited about the finished product. i am well into the second mitt, although the first still requires finishing touches (to thumb or not to thumb?), so i hope to have a more revealing image to show you soon. this colinette jitterbug is gorgeous, and perfect for ps.

warm head & cold sheep...

The boy quite liked my Koolhaas, and admittedly I enjoyed the project, so it wasn't hard to convince me to make another one. But in the interest of not having any matchy-matchy episodes, I wanted them to look as different as possible. The Malabrigo was a perfect solution. The colour variations in this yarn create and entirely different hat, but is just as soft and squishy as version one. I've never worked with Malabrigo before, but I will be returning.

There isn't as much stitch definition as the Cashmerino, which I suppose is partly from the slight fuzz of the merino, and partly from the variegated colour. But man is this stuff soft.

And in the world of yarn to be, the clear sunny day that was Sunday turned out to be the day Sally, Cookie and Jumper lost their winter coats. Yup, those are my folks' three ewes, fat with babies and usually pushy women, but once flipped on their backs remarkable docile. The women who does the shearing is surprisingly adept with the large animals, considering her own small size. Good thing the sheep have a barn to stay warm in for the cold nights still to come; however it's good to get them sheared before birthing as otherwise the little lambs have trouble finding the milk.

These first two shots show Sally (the Suffolk) putting up with her fate, while the bottom shows Cookie (brown) and Jumper (white) looking a bit lighter (and perhaps sheepish?) after their shearing. Soon enough my mom and I will be washing and carding in prep for spinning. I still haven't tried out this spinning stuff, but we are booked for a workshop in early April to figure it all out.

And yes, this new hat has distracted me from Project Spectrum, but I'll be back on track shortly with the red gloves. Promise.

fire in my belly...

sunday was one of those clear, crisp days that make winter easier, the sun sparkling through the tree, nearly warming you if you stayed sheltered from the wind. A is in charge of alpacas and sheep while my folks are in Cancun (i would be but it adds far too much to my daily work commute), so we spent the day on the island. started the day late with scrambled eggs and veggies, including these lovely cherry tomatoes. we went for a walk at the beach, checking out the ice that spreads across the harbour, driftwood suspended in its clutches. but by mid afternoon A convinced me to shun the weather in favour of several hours spent in front of the tv, watching the boys play ball.


but on to what i really wanted to talk about: project spectrum. i've decided to participate for the first time, hence the red theme to these photos. i'm working on some fingerless gloves out of this gorgeous colinette jitterbug - the colourway is morello mash. far to pretty to disappear on my feet, so it's been waiting for me to get motivated. project spectrum seemed like a perfect excuse to finally let it shine. looking forward to see what others come up with in the fire theme.

oh, i also finished my neckwarmer from the previous post - it's been working out well. somehow i missed posting about it, but please check out the FO on ravelry.

warm wool, cold snow...

well despite what i said in my last post, and the ache in my fingers, it would seem i can't stay away from knitting. turns out i go crazy if i'm not doing something with my hands, so i've been making small inroads in a new project.

bet you can't guess what the yarn is - ha! it's only too obvious what yarn can bewitch me with such lovely colours. i've had four skeins of this since october, and been trying to find a suitable project. this may or may not be it, but is keeping me interested nonetheless. i am working on a cowl/neck warmer variation of the maple seed hat, and i like that it is vaguely cable reminiscent, but not heavy, and somewhat lacy, but not too lacy. and i like the way it twists as it climbs. this pattern is virtually identical to the beaufort hat pattern that i made for my brother-in-law, except you do ssk instead of k2tog, and i had been wanting to revisit it since that toque was gifted so quickly after completion. i'm sure this pattern won't take all four skeins, probably just two, but i'm sure i'll find something else for the leftovers.

and from the first photo, you might see that snow has fallen again - hey, around here it used to be an anomaly, but not this winter - and at the moment the sun is peaking through the clouds, adding sparkle to the fresh whiteness. for a bit the snow continued to fall ever so lightly, much like dust swirling in a ray of sunlight. i might get out on a walk later today and then have some more photos to show, but for now i'll leave you with this glimpse of spring, however distant it may be - the rhodos valiantly pushing forward despite the cold.