{quilt} while you're ahead

*66** postcards from Canada

Day 6 - Tofino.

A cloudy start to the day but that didn't stop us in our first ever kayaking adventure.

This awesome fellow kept an eye on us as we sailed quietly around Ucluelet bay

(side note: sharing a kayak with a ten yr old who thinks 'paddling' is for wimps... is really hard work)

We all loved kayaking, and nobody fell in the water.  Success!

After a quick lunch in the village and a visit to the 'catch and release' aquarium...

... we headed back to base camp in Cox Bay.  Mr M and No 3 went off with a bucket on a crab hunting mission, No 1 and No 2 vegetate for a few hours and I took a long walk from one end to the bay to the next.  

And a spot of crochet.

Cocktails and frisbee at sunset to end a most amazing stay.

Tofino... thank you.

 

*31** rose cardigan

A finished project hurray!!

Those of you who follow my Instagram feed would have already seen it, but here it is:

I should show you more pictures but my resident photographer are either back in school or still in bed.

I know, you can't get the staff these days...

It's a crochet kit from 'Wool and the gang'.   Have you ever ordered from them?  The parcels are a treat... the cotton used for this cardigan is really really soft and the perfect shade of powdery pink and there are tons of colours to choose from.  Almost too many... it was agonising.

The instructions are clear and easy.  It's just one giant piece seamed down the two sides.  Clever.

It was a pleasure to crochet and if the weather would cooperate it would be lovely to wear it too!

 

(No 1 is going camping this weekend with school and the forecast is COLD, poor boy)

 

My only criticism is that the sleeves are very wide.  I like mine tighter... but it's a small thing and it would be easily fixable if I felt so inclined.  Instead I'm thinking of crocheting another one in wool, shorter and with tighter sleeve.  What do you think?

 

Right, better wake up No 3... we have places to go and people to see...

*22** Acer shawl no 3

Yes 3.

Third Acer Shawl and second post in two days.  Who's being spoilt now, eh?

 

Although strictly speaking this one is a birthday present and so I will still only have two in the house... which is a legitimate reason to make another.  Watch this space.

It's the best pattern.  So clever.  I love it.

 

The yarn is Adriafil "Sierra Andina", a gorgeous alpaca.  I used 4 ball.

4mm hook because I wanted it to be soft and airy.

It's so hard to take a picture of the real colour on such a grey day, but I couldn't wait any longer, it's already wrapped and ready for its recipient to arrive.

 

Phew.

 

112-2015

Boys.

Recently I had to confiscate No 2's phone for one reason or another (do not make me go there, please) and when he complained that life was passing him by - he can be rather dramatic when he gets going - I told him that he of course he could still get in touch with his friends... with the house phone!  And you know what he replied?

"I don't live in the age of dinosaurs".

I kid you not.

Sigh.

 

Totally unrelated photo because posting without photos goes against my self imposed rules.

Make that what you wish.  I'm going to make a phone call to my dinosaur mum.

110-2015 - advent calendar -

... yes yes yes, I know it's the 2nd today but yesterday I was busy ok?

Of course I made the boys a calendar this year... I actually did suggest a tasty Lindt one... but it caused a riot so...

Inside it's the usual suspects of chocolate and small treats (this year travel size samples of hair clays and body sprays seem to be popular with my lot).

Mr M has been a very good boy so he got a selection of weird beers and small bottles of wine

(chosen mainly by the prettiness of their labels, call me shallow... I don't care)

And me? Well, I must have been a good girl too!

Oh so so pretty.

 

Right December... I'm (almost) ready for you!

101-2015 - Acer shawl -

Acer Shawl, by Joanne Scrace

Pattern purchased from www.loveknitting.com.

Yarn: Cascade 220, from the stash, 3 skeins. In the stash.

Hook: 4.5mm

(Hello again.  No curls this time).

This was a most satisfactory project.

Quick (once I got over the senior moment during which I couldn't read the chart... doh...) and easy.

And beautifully and cleverly designed.

The yarn I choose is quite thick but I really wanted a nice heave shawl for the winter.... and it's perfect.

I finished it in no time (as a matter of fact too quickly, I was left with nothing to do for the last few days in Tuscany).

I barely blocked it... it's big enough and so I simply let it drip dry, the stitches opened up enough by themselves.

The colour is not exactly right but we're in the middle of a grey spell and the light is just weird.  Or maybe it's my migraine... the colours never look right when I'm in the middle of one.

Have a good weekend, folks.

 

 

94-2015 - Acer shawl -

I don't know about you but it takes me longer to decide what project to take on holiday than which clothes I'm going to pack.

It used to be books... this one, that one... the fear of running out of reading material... but that problem has now been resolved by the magic of the kindle and I don't loose any sleep over it.  Worse case scenario I download another one, right?

... but projects? what if I ran out of yarn? what if I finish and have nothing else to do? what if I'm left stranded somewhere, at the airport or what not,  and have NOTHING TO DO?  All that waisted time!!

Yes, ok, I could read (see above), but that is not the point. Right?

Sigh.

Almost every single time I have a warped idea of the amount of 'knitting/crocheting/sewing' you choose, I'll be able to do, as if time when you're away from home stretches and the days are longer and your productivity increases exponentially.  What a load of rubbish, eh?

Anyway, true to form I spent a silly amount of time in the middle of the night, awake pondering what to take with me.  No 3 had a bad dream that required me to turn on the light in his bedroom to prove him there was nothing 'huge' crawling on the ceiling so that was it for me... I was lost in the land of oh my god what should I take? a new pair of socks? the embroidery pillow I prepped earlier? the barely started crochet shawl? ahhhhhh....

The Acer Shawl won.

It's an utterly gorgeous 4-row repeat shawl that can be made with any yarn.  I used some Cascade 220 I had in my stash for like ever and a 4.5mm hook.  I want a substantial shawl, quite chunky and big and I'm in love with how it's coming on.

Genius design construction too.  Inspiring.

(The colour is actually much more tiel than that, but the light today wasn't playing ball at all.

(this photo is slightly more accurate)

Anyway, I was surging Instagram this morning and stumble upon the hashtag AcerCowl... and that was it.  I am THAT week.

(incidentally... were is the hashtag symbol on the computer keyboard?)

 

 

Just in case though... the embroidery pillow is coming too...

81-2015 - unappreciated -

Do you know how sometimes you get a feeling that what you do is not appreciated? not liked?  Nobody says anything as such to your face... it's just a subtle feeling...

This is a crochet pillow I made a few years ago and has been in our bedroom since then:

 

Lately when Mr M makes the bed, this is what I find:

 

True or false, true.

Pinky swear and all that.

And it didn't just happened once.  Oh no...

 

Sigh.

 

42-2015 { crochet trivets )

One of my favourite crochet books is this one:

I can assure you it's not the only one, I have many.  Some might say too many, but hey, who are they to judge, right?

Anyway, If you're looking for a book full of stitches ideas, clear instructions both in diagram and written format, then this is your man.  Well, your book.

Enough rambling, the washing machine has just started beeping (oh Bosh people how I wish you scrapped that beep... sometimes I have three machines beeping at me, demanding attention... I can check when the cycle is finished... I will survive without THE BEEPING)... I need to write this and then I need to pick up No 3 from school and I must get in early or I'll never find a parking space and I'll be late and then we'll be late back and on Tuesday he has Latin homework and... it could get nasty!

So, crochet... ah yes, crochet and indigo.  I had this GAP jumper I never wore because, although the softest thing on earth, it was also rather chunky and I don't think chunky suits me and so I unravelled it (it could open the door to a whole new discussion on the subject "why on earth did I buy it", but that would take decades of psychoanalysis to explain and I don't have the time - see above paragraph).

There was a lot, A LOT, of cotton in that jumper.  Beautiful soft, thick cotton, which got turned into all sort of things and the last ball happened to fall into the indigo vat a few weeks ago.

Enter the above book, a large crochet hook and ta-daaahh

A simple stitch based on the UK double stitch, a few hours watching re-runs of NCIS (it's an obsession which is getting slightly out of hand... but let's not go there either) and I have a couple of thick (and soft, not that it's important here) trivet for my table.

Also... they're not really trivet though, are they?  I always thought trivets are made out of metal... or maybe wood?  What would you call them?

My mind is blank.

Shut down mode.  Zip.  Nada.  A barren desert... and yet I have a feeling there's another word out there that would describe these better.

All suggestions welcome.

 

Oh you stupid machine, STOP BEEPING AT ME!  I'M COMING!!!

 

41-2015 { twine tote, another one }

Twine.  Isn't it a wonderful thing?

I still had some twine from my last endeavour and the colours were so tempting I couldn't just let them lie there eyeballing me, tempting me, calling me, distracting me... so I started a new tote with my pattern (link on the side bar, if you're interested) and it's a corker.  

But just like that I another WIP.

The problem is we have just bought a house, YES.  A house.  VERY exciting.  But this means a lot of sorting out and clearing and NO WIPS.

 

Or at least not so many WIPS.  Right?

So I crochet like fury and amazingly it got finish within a week.

Yeah, it figures... if you work at something you can get it done...

Nice eh?

5mm hook and 4 Nutscene twine rolls.

And now all I have to do is work on the other WIPs, right?

Simple.