Back to the Yarn

It’s about time that this knitting blog became a knitting blog again. I know; I’ve been pathetic in my knitting. Truthfully, I haven’t really had time to knit since coming back from vacation. Almost three months after starting, I have about half a sweater for my niece; so slow.

I just started taking a family karate class with the kids this past week. The style we’re doing is Goju Ryu (hard/soft). It was so nice to get back to it. The last time I took karate was 15 years ago when I was doing my Master’s degree. That time, I took Shotokan (hard). There are some similarities. Sensei and one other helper there said it looked like my former training was still with me (which was very nice to hear). I can’t tell you how wonderfully stress relieving and therapeutic it is to be allowed to hit someone!

Actually, I was very soft because I don't like hurting people. They kept telling me to strike harder; that's hard to get used to. Honestly, just punching empty air and the warm up before practice is very stress relieving.

My veggie garden is slowly coming to an end. Oh well, it had to happen sooner or later. I also have some interesting sunflower shots again. My son’s largest sunflower had small buds along the stalk a little while ago. Those little buds turned into flowers. I was very surprised; I didn’t know his sunflower variety was capable of that.

This sunflower’s stem was partially snapped in one of our storms. It’s amazing how resilient this flower is. Notice that it just kept on growing from where the stem snapped and curved upward again.

I really wish I had more interesting knitting things to show. I guess I’m going to have to start showing my UFO’s which got put to the wayside when higher priorities came along.

Mr. Golden Sun

Vacation was great! I needed another couple of weeks. We went to Alberta to visit my husband’s and his family. The cooler, rainy weather in Ontario followed me to Alberta and now back again to Ontario. A storm we had last week snapped the head off one of my son’s sunflowers. They are remarkably resilient. I’m amazed this one survived given it’s head is very weekly attached to it’s stalk.

One of the things we wanted to see this time around was the Columbia Icefield. To that end, we headed toward Red Deer and camped there for a couple of nights. It was the first time the children and I had ever been camping. The icefield was breathtaking. It is very odd to have to bundle up in the middle of summer to go onto an ice field. We even drank glacier water!

We went to Jasper in the Rockies to camp that night. It’s bear country. Luckily, the only wild life we saw was bighorn sheep.

On the way back to High River, we stopped by Sunwapta Falls and saw a very interesting van.

The next day, we went to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. It’s a UNESCO national heritage site and has a fabulous visitor centre.And here’s my favourite rainbow picture to date.

It was a good vacation but it was really good to be home again.

Timely Vacation – A Month without Knitting

I have absolutely no knitting pictures. It was another 200+ hour month and my daughter’s birthday in between. I haven’t touched the needles since my last posting; pathetic, I know. My garden has run amok. I’ve spent the better part of today trying to tame it again.

Last week-end was the first time we were able to do some harvesting. We dined on some zucchini, buttercrunch lettuce, and green beans that night. My daughter’s Nasturtiums are doing very well, too.

Today is the first day of my two week vacation. We’ll be flying out to Alberta this year as well. I won’t be blogging during that time but I will be spending some of my vacation knitting and catching up on other people’s blogs. I haven’t been deliberately ignoring you. I haven’t lost interest in your blogs. Thank you to readers who haven’t given up on my blog yet. Hopefully, I will get some interesting pictures to write about when we get back. It feels so strange to have free evenings again where I turn on the computer for leisure and not work.

Stake Anyone?

The garden is coming along quite nicely. It was a very rainy week so the garden was happy. I didn’t think it had grown much height wise but boy was I wrong when I went to out to take a closer look. They had just grown along the ground and everything is flowering so I should have some nice veggies pretty soon. My son’s first green bean plant already has 5 beans on it. It seems the marigolds are working for keeping the pests away. Rush visit to Canadian Tire to get some stakes. And voilà!
I don’t think I’ve seen my lavender so lavenderAnd a little unexpected surprise. I've never had a plant growing in a downspout before.

The sweater’s coming along nicely, too. It’s been pretty plain stocking stitch up until now.

A Day at the Zoo, and Knitting Too

My Dad won a special Father’s Day Package for the Metro Toronto Zoo by listening to CHFI FM98.1. It was for him and three other guests. Being the person he is, he thought his grand-kids would love to go, and since my Mother wasn’t particularly interested, he gave the whole package to us. It entitled us to a barbeque lunch in a special area with other winners of the draw. There were buskers and a special animal visitor. We also got free parking, free entry to the zoo, free zoo-rail pass for the day, and free face painting the kids (or adults if you wished). What a great way to spend Father’s Day!

Peacock in Tree

Giraffes - always a favouriteJellyfish – Believe it or notKangaroos and Wallabies – Oh MyI’m now doing my Mother a favour. Over a year ago, she bought some Sirdar Snuggly yarn and a pattern book to make my other niece a sweater. She hasn’t touched it because the yarn, in her opinion, is expensive and she’s too afraid of screwing up. So she’s asked me to do the knitting. I wasn’t going to accept any requests from other family members for a while and REALLY FOCUS on finishing some of my existing UFO’s, but I thought, if I didn’t do it now, there wouldn’t be enough yarn to knit my niece a sweater later. After all, it’s already been over a year. By my standards, the pattern is a simple one but my Mother was still intimidated by it. I don’t get it; she used to knit cables when we were kids. It looks simple now; the cabling only comes in the upper bodice area and there’s really not much of it. You’ll see as I go along.

Coming Up Roses

I put the buttons on my niece’s sweater today. I went with something pretty neutral – it’s more to my sister-in-law’s taste I think. She tends to go for gender neutral things. She also plans to use it for her forthcoming son so I couldn’t use some cute daisy buttons I found at Michael’s.

The garden is doing quite well. My patio rose tree is blooming nicely.

My daughter’s nasturtiums are emerging.

And the marigolds seem to be keeping the rabbits at bay.

Knitting Accomplished! And new shoes, too.

I finished my niece’s sweater but I still need to put buttons on it. I still have to go buy buttons. Here’s a picture anyways; I couldn’t help myself.

I also bought shoes today! I only went to buy one black pair to go with my suit. Instead, I bought three. The additional two pairs were on sale! I couldn’t pass that up. They were just too good to resist. Can you believe that the shoe sizes from left to right in the picture below are 9, 8.5, and 8? And they all fit perfectly.

I didn’t want to want to buy anything too plain even if it was for a business suit; that just wouldn’t be me. So, I got the black shoes with gold heels and little studs. I purchased them at NINE WEST which seems to be the only place I can find heels that are actually comfortable.

The other two pairs came from STYLESENSE and are just all out funky; very me. The lavender floral shoes are so cute and comfy and way too pretty. Just look at the underside of the shoe.

It’s as pretty as the inside. I don’t want to walk on them because they’re so pretty. Well, I’m sure I can find a way to convince myself.