Sunday, October 27, 2013

Adventures In Knit City

Yesterday was a lovely fall day, alternating cloudy and sunny but relatively warm and perfect for a walk in the crunchy leaves. As a matter of fact, T and I both ended up dressing too warmly. Really, I needed my knitwear on even if I was broiling. We were headed to Knit City!

Of course, getting to the Croatian Cultural Centre only an hour or so after Knit City opened was just a little nuts. It was a madhouse! The 60 or so booths were very tightly packed and it was hard to get into many of them. It was nearly impossible just to walk down the isles between. My guild, the Greater Vancouver Weavers & Spinners, had a demonstration booth that was quite large in comparison to some but they were still complaining that there wasn’t enough room for all the spinning wheels. I didn’t volunteer this time but I definitely would have brought a drop spindle instead. Though there might not have been room for that either. Really. Apparently it’s quieter on Sunday so I guess we could have gone today instead. Nevermind. All the good stuff might be gone already! Like I needed anything at all.

I hadn’t attended this event last year (the premier) but it certainly seems like a definite hit. Most booths featured the yarns of indie dyers but there were also polymer clay buttons, shawl pins, stitch markers, patterns, books, kits, bags and lots more. I did notice a distinct lack of knitting needle options and not much in the way of spinning equipment (no wheels) with only a smattering of dyed braided fibres. The rug hookers had a booth though with lots of lovely dyed wool fabric swatches. I can tell you my secret test-knit/pattern rewrite scarf was there in the Sanjo booth! I tried to take a photo with my iTouch but there wasn’t enough light.

After avoiding other people’s hand-dyeing for ages, I finally succumbed to a few skeins. Yes, I know – there’s a whole dye studio just downstairs from where I’m sitting! But this deep red semi-solid called to me from Raventwist:

RavenTwist

It’s called “Fire Dream” and dyed on the Torc base: 100% superwash wool 3-ply light fingering in a tight twist. (Note the website says it’s BFL but the label does not.) This will probably become another small shawl. Like I need one. Heh. Don’t you love the extras included in the silky bag? A tester skein of Neith, 70% baby alpaca/30% silk  laceweight in the colour “Aladdin”. Plus a bookmark. Nice.

I hadn’t heard of Raventwist before and with a little googling found out that it was formerly known as the Rocky Mountain Dyeworks. Owner Hasmi Ferguson has rewritten her story and the results are quite lovely. Sure wish I could get my hands on some of her base yarns! They are truly scrumptious.

The other two yarns were these from Sweet Georgia:

SweetGeorgia

Both are Tough Love Sock (80% superwash merino/20% nylon) though oddly they feel somewhat different. Perhaps a different batch of base yarn? The top one is “Phoenix Rising” and the bottom is “Rogue”, which seems a little more subdued than the example on Sweet Georgia’s website. It totally matched T’s outfit yesterday so it’s for him. I’ve wanted to test out Felicia’s sock yarn for awhile since I know I can get it from her in undyed white if I want. I was only going to get one skein but you know how it is, right? Like potato chips.

I was congratulating myself on escaping the wool fumes without totally smoking the credit card! It’s not like I really need any yarn. Or fibre. Or tools. Or anything really. It’s just fun to look and perhaps get a souvenir. After all, I didn’t buy much at all during the cross-continental trip! Only 2 books. Never even went in a yarn shop. I brought all my knitting yarn with me from home. So I deserved a little splurge yesterday, didn’t I? Of course I did.

Naturally I ran into a number of friends and fellow fibre enthusiasts. Found a secret Damselfly’s Delights reader. (Hi, Carmen!) And finally met Skipper (aka Marilyn) in person. She is the editor of WEFT magazine (Westcoast Enthusiasts For The Fibre Arts, formerly Island Shuttle), a little newsletter to keep you informed of fibre happenings on Vancouver Island, Gulf Islands and the Lower Mainland. I love it when you finally meet a virtual friend IRL and you feel like you’ve known them forever. Hugs, Marilyn!

So what else? Oh yeah. Here’s a hint of the t-shirt fabric my biggest Grandbeastie (currently called Princess Silver Fang, for reasons that shall remain blogless) and I scrunch dyed:

ScrunchDye

It’s hard to get an accurate representation of the colours. I don’t think it actually has black showing up anywhere in it! More blues, grays and purples which may not please Her Highness as much but I did warn her it was impossible to really control the results. This technique is usually referred to as Low Water Immersion (often abbreviated to LWI) and it causes this black dye to really split up into its component dye colours. This is the same dye I used on my Stormy Dress. It’s always fun to see what you get!

We got the piece (100% cotton) wet by scouring it in a bit of Synthrapol, scrunched it in a bucket, poured in a little more water and then mixed up two cupfuls of dye. One was 1.5 tsp of Procion Black to about 3/4 c warm water and the other 3/4 tsp Procion Purple (a Maiwa proprietary mix) in about 1/2 c warm water. The Princess and I both wore nitrile gloves and dust masks until the dye was thoroughly mixed and the lids back on the dye tins. It’s never too early to teach safe procedures. We both kept the gloves on for the rest of the time. Surprisingly my small-sized ones nearly fit her 9-year-old hands. Of course I have notoriously tiny hands and she is growing so fast.

First the Princess poured over the black and we let it sit for a few minutes before flipping over the fabric and adding the purple. About 15 minutes later we mixed up 1-3/4 tsp soda ash in a cup of warm water and poured that over top, poking a bit to make sure it got to all the layers. We covered the bucket and that was all the time the Princess had so next day I rinsed out the fabric myself, first in cold water and then in warmer. Finally I dumped it in the small dyepot with hot water and a little Synthrapol and brought it to a simmer for about 10 minutes. After that it went into the washing machine and the dryer to finish. Now it shouldn’t ever bleed in the laundry. The next part of the T-Shirt Project can’t be done until she has time to come back and sew with me.

We managed to have time to trace her favourite t-shirt for a pattern. She loved the drawing part but I had to explain a couple of times why I was adding the seam allowances around her tracing. To allow space to sew it together! I also folded the paper in half before letting her cut it out so that the two halves were symmetrical. Now we have a pattern and the fabric is all ready to go.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Lost In Space

Well, it’s been awhile hasn’t it? I didn’t mean to get lost but you know how it is when you are trying to finish something with a deadline. I had a mostly-unbloggable secret project to complete in a very short time. It was a test knit for a friend’s business and unfortunately it had to be completely rewritten and recharted as well as knitted up. BIG job. All I can show you (without explicit permission) is this detail:

TestKnit_det

You are free to infer anything you like from this. <snicker!> I will tell you that in the process I was very excited to learn how to make that cool little tubular section using double-knitting. And to write the directions out in terms that hopefully will be clear! I swear I’m becoming a total knit-geek.

To further that end I signed up for the Craftsy class on pattern writing, How To Say It: Pattern Writing for Knitters with instructor Edie Eckman. Even though I got a discount it still used up a goodly chunk of my payment for the test knitting but it was totally worth it because it was immediately helpful! In the class materials Edie provides a style guide that gave me several useful hints and I got even more good information from reading some of the student/teacher chat. And that’s all before I even watched the class lessons! Who knew that I, The Original Math-Phobe, could get excited about making sure all the pattern numbers added up correctly?

The other item that came in handy on this job is the Knit Visualizer software. It was indispensible in creating the 3 large charts that I needed. I know you can use something like Excel or even Word to create knitting charts but this program does make it easy. Especially since I had to knit samples, erase chart stitches, move them around and count and re-count before it was all correct. Whew.

Sadly although KV is still being supported, it hasn’t been upgraded since 2008. It was the best tool at the time I got it but there are other excellent options now. And truthfully potential users are not expecting to pay nearly $200 for software any more, especially one that is still slightly glitchy. Not when they’re used to buying a $.99 app for their smart phone! Not that I begrudge a programmer their honest due but business-wise you have to at least try to balance price with volume. Especially when you have worthy rivals in the same field for half that price or even less.

Stepping off my soapbox now – before I fall off!

So what else haven’t I shown you yet?

Misty Isles Sockhead Slouch

Sockhead For: T

Begun: October 3, 2013
Completed: October 18, 2013

Yarn: Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Royal Color (discontinued), colourway 4232 (marled greys), 75% wool/25% nylon, 210m=50g, used just over 2 balls or 252m=60g.

Needles: Aero aluminum 16”circular, 3mm; Clover Takumi bamboo dpns, 3mm

Pattern: Sockhead Hat by Kelly McClure, free Ravelry download

Mods: My usual 7.5” plain middle section instead of 9”.

Comments: This is the third time I’ve knit this pattern and I used the same modification. T liked my Darkness Slouch Hat which he borrowed during our trip so I made him his own version. When it was done he wouldn’t take it off and wore it for hours – indoors! Perhaps I should have made the hat in red and then he could be my Tomten? Somebody might mistake him for a garden gnome though, so maybe not.

I also finally finished this:

Hanji Tail Scarf

HanjiTailScarfFor: me

Begun: July 2, 2013
Completed: October 15, 2013

Yarn: Korean Hanji white paper tape, 4mm, used double. Habu Textiles A20/21 silk/stainless steel, 69% silk/31% metallic, colour Black, 311yds=14g, used about 10g.

Needles: Addi Lace Cliks, 6mm.

Pattern: Shippo Tail Scarves by Setsuko Torii, from Scarf Style book, Ravelry page http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/shippo-tail-scarves

Mods: Since I couldn’t get near to gauge because my paper yarn is thinner and less substantial than the viscose-coated Habu paper yarn, I added more repeats to the centre point area and a little more to the second tail. It came out just about the right size. Any fudging is lost in this asymmetrical design.

HanjiScarf_dyeing Comments: Another use for my endless cone of Korean hanji paper yarn. I eco-dyed the scarf after knitting. Soaked in alum mordant and placed maple, Japanese indigo and purple plum leaves over then wrapped in plastic wrap and steamed for an hour or so. The plum leaves gave the deepest colours but it’s not as bright as I had hoped it would be. I think the paper knit is too thick. Also some of the black dye came out of the silk when I was mordanting (even though I kept the temp quite low) so it turned the white paper gray which dulled the whole effect even before I applied the leaves. I didn’t really like the results at first but it grew on me.

This is a pretty tiny scarf, more of a neck warmer and actually a very quick knit. I just didn’t bring it with me on our trip so it didn’t get finished until we got back. I could say I was waiting for the leaves to turn, couldn’t I? It’s more comfy to wear than one would think and quite toasty. I still have some of the silk/steel yarn left possibly for a weaving project. And of course there’s still lots of the hanji paper yarn left too!

So here we are! It’s a lovely day out today. For the last couple of weeks we’ve been having fog from the evening overnight and all the way to noon or even later before the sun finally burns it off. The ships in the harbour keep sounding their horns to keep others from hitting them. We are kilometres away but they are loud enough to wake me up at 6am! (Hate to think how loud they are down by the water.) Today though we escaped the foggy morning, at least here up above. I’m going to head out to the garden and see if I can get another bed or two cleaned up and tucked in for the winter.

More anon!

Monday, October 14, 2013

Thanksgiving Day: Aftermath

That was so much FUN!!! Twenty-one total family members from Great-Nana down to the tiniest new little one. A couple more sadly couldn’t make it but the house was full, tummies were full and hearts were full. We didn’t get into bed until nearly midnight. Whew. Obviously a big success! 

And there’s enough leftovers in the fridge so we don’t have to cook much for several days. Good thing I have a big fridge! We had blueberry GF pancakes with leftover whipped cream for breakfast this morning. Total yum. Also we now have toys and crumbs strewn from one end of the house to the other. Guess I need to get cleaning to wear some of that good stuff off, huh?

But first, here’s the last of the completed knitting FOs:

Segue Socks

DyedToeUps For:  me

Begun: September 13, 2013
Completed: October 5, 2013

Yarn: Phildar Preface, 70% wool/30% nylon, colour 010 (white), 211yds = 50g, used 2 balls.

Needles: Clover Takumi dpns, 2mm

Pattern: Toe-Up Socks With a Difference by Wendy D. Johnson, free Ravelry download

Mods: Began with 24 sts and increased to 64. Used lifted increases (right and left versions) instead of kfb (except on heel turn). Moved toe incs inward one stitch each side to make a deeper toe box. Knit 5.5” of foot before gusset which fit much better than the 6” I used last pair. Before beginning leg, dec the extra stitch at the end/beg of next plain round which hides the dec in the edge of the heel stitch area. Knit leg to 9” and began 2/2 rib to use up entire ball of yarn.

Comments: This was the first results of my Segue Dyeing experiments from a couple of years ago. Took me this long to knit it up! Guess I was waiting for a toe-up sock pattern that I liked, huh? Trying yet again with Wendy’s pattern. It’s getting easier! I used stitch markers to help with the heel gusset and paid closer attention when I did the heel turn so it came out correctly. I definitely like the way these fit my foot. Extra-long cuffs fold over for warmth.

I have yet another knitting project nearly finished though it does need a dye session to complete. More anon!

Oh, and thanks for all the lovely wishes and comments on yesterday’s post! You all are so sweet.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving!

Fall is here in a big way. The leaves are turning absolutely gorgeous! My favourite time of the year. You know how some people are gobsmacked by an amazing painting, a fine piece of music or a really lovely passage of writing? I get that feeling when I look down a street full of glorious autumn leaves. It fills up my heart with happiness. I wish this season would last forever but it really is the shortest season of all. In only a few weeks the trees will be bare and brown and the dreary rains will have set in. I need to hold on to the bright colours in my head through the whole dark winter. And hopefully celebrate them in at least some of my crafty work too.

So I promised what seems like ages ago to write up the rest of my finished knitting projects, didn’t I?

Blackbird Mitts

Mitts For: me

Begun: August 19, 2013
Completed: August 28, 2013

Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Lightweight, colourway Ravenscroft, 100% merino, 455yds=155g, used about 50g.

Needles: Clover Takumi dpns, 2mm

Pattern: Fitted Mitts by Nina Hyland, free pattern download, http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/fitted-mitts

Mods: Made 3” cuffs instead of full-length because I only had a little bit of leftover yarn to use.

Comments: Love these! Though I could have possibly made the cuffs slightly longer. Would have if I’d been knitting them tip to cuff. Maybe I need to reverse-engineer this pattern? That would be a fun exercise.

Then there is another scarf-shawl-thing:

Wandering Wingspan Shawl

Wingspan For: me

Begun: August 27, 2013
Completed: September 3, 2013

Yarn: Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett, colourway 4454 (exotic clay), 75% superwash wool/25% nylon, 210m=50g, used nearly 3 balls.

Needles: Addi lace circulars, 3.5mm

Pattern: Wingspan by maylin Tri'Coterie Designs, was a free Ravelry download but now costs and has expanded content, http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/wingspan-2

Mods: Knit a total of 10 points to make it a little longer.

Comments: This is a very fun pattern to knit, mostly simple garter but with enough extra to keep it from being boring. Since I was trying to navigate us through some tricky bits of the eastern US at the time I was knitting on it, mostly mindless was a very good thing! I’m glad I added the extra length because it’s still not all that long though it’s very warm and colourful. The blues, oranges and greens work well with a lot of my wardrobe.

Next time I might spin some yarn for this pattern with very long colour repeats because I like those versions that I saw on Ravelry. This pattern lends itself to lots of interesting variations.

Well, there’s still one more FO but I’ve run out of time. Gotta go get the turkey in the oven and peel a metric tonne of spuds! Yes, technically it’s really Thanksgiving tomorrow here but we’re having our big turkey-fest today instead. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20 family members! T and I have been grocery shopping for what seems like all week for this feast. I baked a ham yesterday because our fresh turkey is a little on the small side. Desserts are taken care of by other volunteers which is good because I never think about dessert. (We don’t normally have it at our house because both of us have trouble sleeping if we eat carbs too close to bedtime.) Since it’s also our great-niece’s 3rd birthday, her parents are bringing a cake. It’ll be fun! And the usual total chaos. Heh.

Monday, October 07, 2013

Keeping Any Vampires At Bay

I dragged my sorry butt back into the garden on Saturday and got the greenhouse finished up for winter:

GreenhouseWinterised

The tomato cages are stacked at the back, then the deck pots and my rosemary pot. I even planted some seeds (mache, arugula, mizuna, tah tsai, baby bok choi and lettuce) in hopes that something might grow big enough to withstand the inevitable frost. You never know. There’s still space to put the water garden when we decide to pack it away. There’s still some very healthy water plants in it so it gets to stay on the upper deck for now.

I also got a bed prepared and the garlic planted. This year’s cloves are huge and delicious:

GarlicClove

Seems a shame to sacrifice 4 precious heads’ worth to the garden but garlic is a clone. It only grows from bulbs and never produces seeds. It also adapts to your garden until you have your very own variety, subtly different from anybody else’s. I’ve had these for 6 or 7 years now and got the originals from the Farmers Market. I also tried a soft-neck variety but didn’t like it as much. I love the yummy scapes you get on the hard-necks! And the much bigger cloves. Though they have a reputation for not storing well, if they’re cured and stored properly they seem to keep well enough to be all eaten before anything adverse happens to them. Here they are ready to be tucked in for winter:

GarlicPlanted

(They’re in little trenches but why do my eyes keep wanting to reverse that as mounds in this photo? Must be the shadows playing tricks.) This must be a record for the earliest I’ve managed to get the garlic in. Usually it’s more like November before it happens.

Sunday was lovely and even warmer (20C!) but I decided I was too tired to garden. The critical stuff is done and the rest can just wait until I get to it. There’s still a bunch of cleanup and more fall rye to plant as a cover crop in the bare garden spots. There’s still a few weeks before any frost can be expected. Sometimes it even waits until nearly December but I have a feeling that this is going to be an early winter. Though in defiance of my prediction the leaves are only just now starting to turn colour. I love this season! It’s way too short.

Back to the knitting. Here’s the next instalment:

Darkness Slouch Hat

SlouchHat For: me

Begun: August 12, 2013
Completed: August 19, 2013

Yarn: Schoeller+Stahl Fortissima Socka Color, 75% wool/25% nylon, colour 122 overdyed by me to dark burgundy/black, 420m=100g, used 60g, leftovers from my Abotanicity Tunic Sweater

Needles: Aero 16” circular, Clover Takumi bamboo dpns, 3mm.

Pattern: Sockhead hat by Kelly McClure, free Ravelry download

Mods: Made the main section of the hat 7.5” long which is a little shorter than pattern. I like this length better.

Comments: This is the second time I’ve made this hat pattern because I really like it. It’s easy and quick to make. Perfect for knitting on the road. It got cold one morning while we were camping so T borrowed my finished hat. Now I have to make him one!

I was going to do another one but T just had the great idea to go for a walk downtown and go to a movie. It’s sunny currently (supposed to be raining) so I’m not going to argue with a good idea. More anon!

Saturday, October 05, 2013

Back To The Garden

The old bod’ feels a bit crunchy today. We spent quite a few hours in the garden yesterday cleaning up, inching towards winter. I brought in my poor cactuses which had suffered somewhat on their patio without me there to coddle them. I had to trim some raggy bits off and repot a couple. The upside is that they fit better in my living room and the disocactus that always wants to keel over is more stable now. I was surprised that there are no buds forming yet on the crab and Christmas cactuses but hopefully now that they are in a warmer clime they will perk up.

I cleaned off the decks while T mowed and we put away the summer furniture. The deck pots will have to wait until I’m done in the greenhouse before they can go to bed. The tomatoes are cleared but I have to finish smoothing the soil and I want to plant a few seeds in there. It may be too late for cool weather greens to do much but you never know. And speaking of seeds, I got quite a lot of dried beans from the runners. I save their seed every year and rarely buy packaged ones. The variety I like best, Painted Lady, is so pretty and I can’t find it easily. The flowers are red and white and the pods are smoother than the regular Scarlet variety. The seeds are brown instead of purple so they are easy to distinguish from each other at that stage too. I mix them both in the garden because, hey, I like variety!

And speaking of seeds (some more), for the first time my Japanese indigo actually set seed in the garden. Whoo-hoo! I think it was the combination of whatever weather happened while we were gone and the fact that I never harvested any of the plants for dye. The plants on the sunniest side of the bed matured first. No surprise there. I picked a bunch of the flower stems and brought them in to the windowsill as usual. They’re already popping black seeds where they don’t usually mature until the end of the month or even into November. I think I’ll pick another bunch soon and bring them in before we have a frost and hopefully get more seeds from them. Because July was very sunny there was a lot of indigo in the leaves back then but now I don’t think there’s nearly as much at all. I don’t have time to try it anyway so they will just be compost when I’ve gotten enough seeds for next year.

We didn’t get many tomatoes for ourselves this year. For starters, I didn’t plant nearly as many as I usually do. They were barely starting to ripen when we left August 1st so I only took one little bunch with me. When we got home most of them were eaten, either by our house sitter or by our kids and grandkids who came by to glean goodies from the garden while we were gone. I did get a small bucket of unripe Black Cherry, Green Zebra and Juliet tomatoes which hopefully will ripen on the kitchen counter. I did harvest 4 lovely large cabbages before we left and put them in the fridge where they survived nicely. And there’s still kale out there. I did miss my little pattypan squashes and yellow zucchinis that I didn’t bother planting at all. But there’s always next year, right?

Of course there’s lots of work left to do in the garden, including planting the garlic for next year. The weather hasn’t been great so we had to wait until it dried up some and even then, there’s only so much we can do in a day before we wear out! We both really enjoy it though. I kind of missed my garden while we were away. Hope the old bod’ survives another session out there later today!

Meanwhile I’ll start showing off the recent knitwear.

Plain Gray Socks

TSocks For: T

Begun: July 10, 2013
Completed: August 13, 2013

Yarn: Regia Stretch Color, 70% wool/23% nylon/7% polyester, colourway 98 (slightly variegated grays), 218 yds=50g, 2 balls

Needles: Blackthorn carbon fibre 5” dpns, 2mm.

Pattern: Damselfly’s Basic Socks on 68 sts.

Comments: Just another pair of plain socks for my man who is wearing out some of his older pairs. This discontinued yarn is a little different with the stretch poly content. He hasn’t noticed anything unusual in wearing so we’ll see how they hold up over time.

Sorry about the rather dorky photo of T’s feet on the campsite picnic table. We were in Manitoba and I’d just got the socks off the needles. He wore them for the first time before I’d even washed and blocked them. I didn’t think he was that desperate for clean socks – but there you go.

And from the plain to the elaborate:

Woad Percy Shawl

BluePercy For: me

Begun: August 3, 2013
Completed: September 21, 2013

Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr wool/silk, white dyed blue in my homegrown woad, 5040 yds = 1 lb (454g), used 30g (330 yds).

Needles: Addi Lace circular, 3.25mm

Pattern: Percy Shawl by Sanne Kalkman, free Ravelry download

Comments: This was a great pattern to keep me occupied when we were camping and I was tired of reading or hiking. A centre-neck-to-edging triangle is my favourite shawl shape. It had everything: sections with plain wrong-side rows and sections with action on the wrong side too, plus nupps. It’s a little bit asymmetrical as well but you don’t really notice in the finished article. The results came out a light and airy scarf-ish size but that’s just fine with me. I love how the wool/silk blocks so nicely!

There are several more projects to come but that’s it for now.

Wednesday, October 02, 2013

10,000 Miles Is A Long Way

OK, maybe not quite that far. Definitely well over 10,000 kilometres anyhow. We don’t really know how far we actually went because the odometer in the van has been broken for years. But it sure felt like a long way! T drove and I navigated – what a team, eh? A total of 9 provinces and 14 states in two months, all the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic and back again.

Here’s the Official Back Again photo:

AtlanticToPacific

The jar of Atlantic water has been duly added to the Pacific. Oddly enough it was much colder at Locarno Beach than it was at the end of July! I was grateful for my warm jacket and I did not go wading. We did manage to pick a moment when it wasn’t raining however, which was a plus. Judging by the cold wet weather we were really wise to come back a few days earlier than we’d originally planned.

This post’s title comes from our Theme Music for the trip, Eliza Carthy and the Oysterband’s livelier version of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “10,000 Miles” (from the movie Fly Away Home). I was trying to find the recording online for you, but sadly no can do. It was our morning wake-up call on the iPhone at 6am nearly every day – no matter the time zone. And we went through 4 time zones, both going and coming. It’s no wonder T and I have been sleeping in late ever since we got home!

My million mosquito bites are finally fading away but poor Fraulein, the Westphalia, has a few scars from her long journey. Besides the new starter coil in Ottawa, the bad oil change in St. John, and the good oil change in Woodsville, NH, she has a hole in the canvas top, a hole in the back seat upholstery, lots of new stains on the rug and 2 dings in the windshield. She’s also still wearing the remains of the Saskatchewan gumbo and a whole lot more dirt inside and out as well as a generous coating of bugs on the front end. Surprisingly not much washed off in all the rain though the undercarriage is pretty clean now from splooshing through giant puddles. I can repair the canvas and the upholstery and wash the inside while T washes the outside but the windshield needs replacing yet again. We were very lucky that the dings, one of them nearly all the way through the glass, didn’t spider because there were very few places that we could have gotten a replacement on the road. It has to be special-ordered. Just another holiday expense, right?

We’re still unpacking, organising and generally getting settled back in our home. And I’m still finding items that belong to the house-sitter! I think I’ve finally stopped dreaming about maps all night. I hope. We both agree that that there will be no more marathon trips in our future. It was really too long to be away although it was definitely an incredible once-in-a-lifetime journey, checking off a whole raft of items on our bucket lists:

  • nearly all the provinces and most of the northern US states
  • all 5 Great Lakes plus Lake Winnipeg, Bras d’Or and Lake of the Woods
  • 7 covered bridges
  • Old Quebec City
  • Confederation Bridge
  • Green Gables
  • Cape Breton
  • Fortress of Louisbourg
  • the Bay of Fundy tides
  • Niagara Falls
  • Mt Rushmore
  • 3 caves, 2 of them new to us
  • Yellowstone (again!)

We found that almost everywhere has its own beauty if you look carefully. Who knew that the trees, mountains, rivers and lakes in the east don’t look at all like the trees, mountains, rivers and lakes in the west? Even the rocks and soil are different. I was surprised at how empty of people a lot of places seem. And conversely how full of big trucks the highways are in southern Ontario, Michigan and Illinois! We didn’t socialise much but almost everyone we met was friendly and helpful. It was a definite learning experience for us both.

Sorry there was no way we could stop in for tea, Pao! And yes, Heather, Mt Rushmore was smaller than you imagine. But you can see it from a lot of different vantage points, my favourite being the one through the tunnels on the Iron Mountain road. Thanks, Mary and Jean and everyone for all your comments on my posts. Sorry I couldn’t reply individually while we were travelling. I’m still waiting for Universal Wifi!

Of course I have to mention that the Flat Rats really enjoyed being the centre of attention on this trip. They went everywhere with me in my camera/water bottle bag with their heads sticking out so they could see everything! They even went through the caves with me. When they weren’t being carried about, they resided on the dashboard so they could watch where we were going and direct if necessary. I think their lives are going to be very dull now that we’re home.

Since this is supposed to be a craft blog, I know that subject has been fairly absent lately. I haven’t really mentioned the knitting that was accomplished in the last two months. I’ve finally got everything blocked (except for one pair of socks that’s not quite finished) and will do a post on it all very soon. Knitting kept me occupied during the long drives – when I wasn’t navigating. And the more complex shawl was fun to work on in camp when I didn’t feel like reading after a hike or a day’s driving.

As always, more anon.