Big Sky Saturday

As you can probably guess from the title we were in Montana at the weekend. It was about 3 1/2 hour drive to East Glacier Park. Which wasn't a bad place to stay as it had a few restaurants.

So here is a picture of the big sky



At one of the water falls we saw a bird that flew in and out of the water. It floated under the water and jumped out at just the right time onto a rock. Considering how fast the water was flowing this was an amazing feat.



I took a lot of photos over the weekend many of them duplicates because I was trying different shutter speeds and I am not going to bore you with a load but this tree fascinated me as I could not see what the roots were growing into as I thought we were on solid rock but there must have been some goodness there somewhere.

The Yarn Harlot Stole My Idea

Actually, I don't think that's true. Although she is in the same country as me I'd be very surprised if she had ever come across my blog, but I thought that the "snappy" title would get someone's attention.

The title does have relevance and is not just a gratuitous reference to the Wise Knitter. In January I wrote about how nasty some people can get on-line. This week the Yarn Harlot has written about meanness in blogs. She doesn't mention anyone by name and doesn't say if the blog post is because she has been targeted or that she has come across nastiness in blogs that she feels is unnecessary even if she doesn't know that target.

So the Yarn Harlot did not copy me but it is nice to know that other people think that on-line nastiness is just, nasty. Although there are going to be some who will say 'get-over-it'.

Knitting and Sports

I take my knitting to the boy child's sporting events. Most of the time you are sitting down so why not knit? Now that he is playing lacrosse, I take something simple that I do not need to look at as lacrosse is a fast game.

My heart sank on Saturday when I saw the referees, I have mentioned them before as they just do not call anything. During the game one of the fathers commented on me knitting. "Normally you're laid back and knit along slowly but today because the game is so intense you are knitting really fast." It was true; when a game is poorly refereed you worry about what advantages the other team will take. Especially when early on in the game a fight breaks out because penalties haven't been called. I tell you my hands were moving so fast even I was surprised.

Unfortunately, at the game on Saturday and last night's game I experienced poor adult behaviour. Firstly, the boy child scored 3 of his team's first 4 goals. So the other team's coach said get number 12. And that means stop him anyway you can.

Secondly, one of our parents shouted really loudly "ref, you're an idiot". Which, not surprisingly, the referee took exception to. To cap it off they didn't think they had done anything wrong because they didn't swear. That gives you such a warm and fuzzy feeling to know they are part of your support.

Thirdly, yesterday the sister of one of our team got into a heated argument with one of the opposing team supporters and then her mother joined in. I just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. At least the mother apologised when she saw how embarrassed I was.

Anyway that is it for another year; and we won't come across these parents next year as their son's are a year older than ours. But we will come across others like them, we will see more poor refereeing and more dirty teams. Such is the nature of sports and life.

Saturday Sky

I bet you're glad you waited for this one!



In California they call this June Gloom. Not sure what we should call it here. Anywhere else it would be April showers.

The good thing - don't have to water the garden.
The bad thing - grass is growing but it's too wet to cut
The good thing - we have a water butt (aka rain barrel)
The bad thing - it's not connected to a down spout (yet)

Some Quilting

I completed the 5th project from the I Can't Believe I'm Quilting book. All the fabric used had been given to me from my mother-in-law from her stash.



I have finally signed up for a quilting class. The spousal unit gave me some gift vouchers for the local quilt store and I decided to take a beginner lesson. Although I have taught myself quite successfully, I decided that I should start at the beginning in case there were any must know techniques. I had the first lesson (of three) on Tuesday. There were only 2 of us in the class which was great as we were able to proceed at our own speed. Whereas in bigger classes you either have to stop what you are doing to be shown the next step or wait for everyone to get to the same point.

I'll let you know at the end how useful the class was.

Some Knitting Content

The other day I mentioned that some knitting photos would appear so here they are. The photos actually came out better today; a grotty rainy day than the sunny day that I originally took them. And you gotta love digital cameras; there were still a few photos that were rejects. I usually have ISO on auto and have found in the past that changing it hasn't made any difference to the photos, this time I changed it to 400 and was pleased with the difference it made to the photos.






The pattern is Tiger Eyes from Socks Socks Socks. The picture in the book does not show the mock cabling for the back of the sock. I am a little annoyed with myself as I had hoped I had knit the length of the sock so that I only used one ball of yarn for both socks, but I ended up starting the second ball. So I am going to split this ball into two and work yet another toe-up pattern with it. All the socks I have made just lately have been toe-up.

The yarn I used was Regia in raspberry. This was yarn that I bought in the Boxing Day sale.

I have not cast on any more socks as maybe it is time for a break.

Almost Knitting

Almost knitting, "what's that?" you ask. It's when you intend to post photos of your latest completed projects but the photos aren't very clear. So, in the meantime, you take photos of the next stage of the garden project.


BEFORE



AFTER




That is 6 cubic yards of garden mix and one cubic yard of mulch that was moved from the front of the house to the flower beds in the back. The beds have been planted with seeds and plants so I just have to wait and see what decides to grow.

Knitting Update

I haven't mentioned knitting for a while although some has been taking place, mostly at sporting events. Here's an update on what I have been working on.

The recalcitrant yarn finally became a pair of socks.



The pattern is from Mag Knits. I found it after googling the gauge I obtained with the yarn.

The scarf is also completed. I did just keep knitting until I ran out of yarn. Not sure what I am going to do with it yet.





The pattern is My So Called Scarf and the yarn is Elaine by Schaefer although the colour I have is not shown on the website. This pattern worked well for the colourway as the different colours were broken up into small blocks.

Also I have completed a rib watch cap which will be for charity and I had enough yarn to make another one. This is a great sports project as it is a simple 2x2 rib. On the sock front I have nearly completed a pair of lacey socks. Expect pictures soon.

Saturday's Sky

Not sure if another picture of a tree counts as Saturday Sky but here goes anyway.



The tree is not well positioned but it was there when we moved in and we decided not to move it. It will end up an odd shape as we prune to fit the space available. I am really enjoying the smell of the apple blossom.

Saturday morning I went to the Horticultural Society Plant Exchange. I didn't have any plants to exchange but I was allowed to buy 5 plants for $2.00 each. I chose some for the shady parts of the garden.

Saturday afternoon I dug a new flower bed. Although by the state of the soil -good- and the decorative rocks I found I think there must have been a flower bed there at some point that other owners of the house didn't maintain so it got overgrown with dandelions.

I didn't think to take a before photo but here is a photo of one pile of dandelions I dug out.



And here is a photo of the dug flower bed. I still need to get some edging.



Yesterday I planted a Monks Hood and a Columbine.

And in case you need another photo, here are the rocks I found.

After - Part One

The male members of the household worked hard this weekend and I now have these:-




The next job is to order soil and then when the weather decides to behave I can start planting. Yes - we have snow forecast for tonight.

Saturday's Sky

A typical Spring sky for this week.

This is the tree in my neighbour's yard. I hope they didn't notice me taking the photo and wonder what I was up to. Although they are nice neighbours and wouldn't have minded anyway.

On the garden front; the male member's of the household started to build the raised beds and they are looking good.

Next Stage

Exciting things happened in our house last night. The lumber was purchased for my flower beds. I had drawn up the plans and worked out how much of each length of wood was required and then the men folk went off in the big truck to the lumber store.

Now you would think that men, truck, lumber store sounds like an ideal combination but, apparently, they weren't that excited about it.

The plan is to build the flower beds this weekend as it is a long weekend, but, like any holiday weekend rain is forecast.

No Saturday Sky

There's no photo of the Saturday's sky as I did not see much of it on Saturday. This weekend there was a lacrosse tournament so I spent much of my time driving to games, waiting for games to start and watching games. Plus the extra game I saw when I was doing my volunteer stint as floor supervisor.

The boy child's team won 2 of their 4 games but, more importantly, started to play as a team. Despite lax refereeing, their games were mostly clean. Unlike the game where I was floor supervisor. One team played very dirty. I wish referees in any sport would realise that the rules are in place not only for fairness but also to protect players' bodies.

With so much sport just lately there has been much on the knitting front. I will post photos soon.

Saturday's Sky

I didn't know if the title should be Saturday's Night Sky or Saturday Night's Sky. Here it is anyway.



Saturday dawned warm and sunny which was a relief after the rain (and snow) of the previous two days. The lawn wasn't dry enough to rake but I cleared the leaves out from the flower beds and trimmed the dead matter from the perennials. Today we laid the landscaping fabric on the big weed patch and I think it looks better already.

An Oldie

Here's another oldie but goodie that I finally finished yesterday.

The pattern is The Great American Kid's Afghan which appeared in Knitter's Magazine over a period of 4 months or so. I started the first square on 1 May 2004. I was working on other projects so didn't complete all the squares until January 2005. For some reason it then took until September 2005 to sew the squares into the blanket.

When I had completed the blanket I thought the yarn wasn't very soft and that the blanket needed a soft backing. I don't have a record of when I bought the fleece but I think it was quite a while between finishing the blanket and buying the fabric. For some reason I decided to blanket stitch the blanket to the fleece and then cut the fleece. Obviously that didn't work too well so I had to unpick three sides of my stitching, cut the fleece and sew again. Once I had done that the sewing went quite quickly. Now I just have to decide to which charity I am going to donate it.

Before

This is the before photo - actually this is the only photo.




Technically it is not the true before picture as last year there was a rickety fence and there were stones and weeds where there are just weeds now.

The plan is to turn it into some sort of garden with raised flower beds for plants and vegetables. The men in the house have said that they can build the containers for the beds. So let's hope that there will be an after picture later ths year.

A Power Cut

Yesterday evening we had a power cut. We had power cuts frequently where we used to live but this was our first here. Don't know what caused it but it certainly wasn't the non-existent-forecasted-major storm. Maybe some poor animal now has the punk look it was always wishing for.

I am hoping that someone will explain to me how weather forecasters can get it so wrong. Yesterday there were winter storm warnings. A minimum of 15cm snow with up to 30cm overnight. Newsreels of previous spring snows were shown as a dire warning of what we would wake up to today. Yesterday morning, I rescheduled the appointment I had for today as the weather forecasters were so certain.

What did we wake up to this morning? Not even 1cm. That's right no snow. You're warned not to make any unnecessary journeys, how about no unnecessary warnings.

How Long Is A Scarf?

Sports season has started so I started a simple scarf with some yarn I was given. I don't really like the mix of colours in the yarn but they are not too bad in the pattern I have chosen. I have been knitting away while the boy child has been running up and down and the scarf is quickly growing. My original intention was to knit until the yarn ran out but that is going to make a pretty long scarf. But if I stop at what I feel is the correct length, what do I do with the remaining yarn? The colour way certainly has not been growing on me and there won't be enough left to do much with, anyway.

The other thing is, when I finish the scarf I will need another easy project for sports, so if I just keep knitting away to the end, it will give me time to choose another easy project.

How long is a scarf anyway?

A Useful Item?

A couple of years ago I started to make an afghan in two colours using the slip stitch method rather than fair isle. I chose a white and a light blue yarn but the light blue was not enough of a contrast for the design to stand out and I completed just one square of the afghan. I kept the square, not wanting to destroy my hard work but not knowing what to do with it.

Well last week it became a cushion cover. I bought some fabric sat down at the sewing machine and this is our new soft furnishing. Move over Nate.

Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only The Weather Man

I decided that it was about time that I posted a photo that I actually took on a Saturday. So here it is.



Note the blue sky. This was the first blue sky for a week. By Wednesday (the 4th) we had reached the total of April's average snow fall. This was due to the low temperatures otherwise it would have been raining. In other words no blue sky. The weather forecasters were embarrassed as they had been predicting temperatures of at least 16 degrees for the weekend. I'm sure they get it right sometimes.