The Tree Scarf....

When is a tree a scarf?  When it is turned into one.  I was out for a walk yesterday for about 5 miles - getting ready for "The Way"....not sure it will happen; but I'm keeping the dream alive.  Anyway there were some awesome trees along the way that have to be turned into scarf designs.  Here's one.

Maybe you could work with a large central cable and twist up something with fringes and I-cord - could be interesting.  Here's another.

This one has amazing texture. Maybe some short rows and cables There are lots of possibilities here.  This is the last one.

This looks more like the end of the scarf with some dramatic decoration!!
Winter has it's positives even if you're not out skiing. I generally go for a walk with my husband on both Saturday and Sunday, if we can co-ordinate it.  He doesn't mind my picture taking as long as it's quick.  He does however, have a trick shoelace which keeps untieing.  I have been known to wait for a good photo op before reminding him that his lace is undone - the evil within!!

For want of a lace the shot was lost...maybe.

Have a wicked day   :)

Let go my Lego.....

.....or another reason to teach your children to knit or sew or both - especially your male children.  There is still a lot of stereotyping around and where it is easier for girls to ask to be taught to knit or sew, boys often avoid the opportunity because it might "label" them.

Having the ability to sew was, obviously a big help to the two high school students who launched a Lego man into almost outer space this week.  An article in this morning's paper details how they sewed together a parachute which they then attached to a Helium weather balloon, to aid in the return of a styrofoam "capsule" housing camers, warming aparatus and Lego man.

Here is another article about the feat. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/318584. They are now famous!!!

But for want of a stitch the project might have been lost!!!

One of the things I really loved about the story is that when the capsule came back to earth, it landed about 170 kms away in Peterborough. One of the boys' dads drove them out to find it but it was too cold and dark so they had no lluck.  Well I would have stayed over and gone out in the morning - but no - they drove home and went to school for a week and then headed out on the following weekend to find it.

What amazing self control and dedicated work ethic. With these smarts and focus they will go far.  Well done cutty sark!!!

Oh yes, and Lego has gotten a lot of free advertising, not to mention Canada.

Have an out of this world day!!!

A cat called Marzipan.....

Marzipan - that sweet almond paste - divides the world into two groups - those who hate it and those who love it.  I happen to LOVE it. I especially like croissants filled with marzipan, Christmas cake iced with it, candies filled with it or confections shaped with it......I could go on.

Well you can imagine my delight when I came across an article in the paper this morning about a man who has a cat called Marzipan.  He must be my soul mate - well maybe not, he's sad to say, a lot younger...alas!!! Anyway, this fellow is a hit on Youtube because he does voice overs of animal videos.  Millions have watched him and he has some big plans in the making. The article goes on to say that Andrew (his first name) has 3 cats, all strays, which he has found.  He actually found Marzipan after hurricane Juan hit Halifax, their home city.

Andrew supports himself with these animal videos and also raises money for the Halifax humane society.  I love stories like these.  But apparently Zack, my kitchen counter cat, is not amused.

Oh well, I still think that I will have to create a series of lace shawls and scarves on a "sweet" theme - a scarf called Chocolate or Marzipan or Turkish Delight perhaps - can't wait.

Have a delightful day

My brain has thawed....

I haven't posted in a while because my brain has been frozen.  For the past few weeks, I have been debating whether to by a Mac laptop and this is all that I've been able to think about.  Do I really have to spend $1,500.00 to be able to edit videos and maybe do a few other "things."

Well, I caved in last week and bought a Mac book pro......so currently we have in our family - not all in the house - 4 Macs, 4 PCs and 3 PCs at Infiknit and I haven't counted and old PC laptop that my son gave to his girlfriend when he got his Mac - really we maybe single-handedly keeping the computer industry going!!!

However, this lapsed blogging hasn't all been about computers, I have been designing and knitting a scarf, based on a triangular shawl that I created a few years ago.  I am hoping to use this scarf in a Knit-A-Long on my Queen Anne's Lace Knitting page on Facebook and a few other pages - so I decided to knit it first, before I took videos of the process for the knit a long....maybe not a bad idea, although it has taken some time and I haven't even done the videos yet, let alone edit them.

But I'm getting back on track.  I did do one exercise for my photography group - Take pictures of an item from as many different angles as you can.  I found a plastic icicle that didn't make into the Xmas decorations box a few weeks ago and took some pictures of it.

Here it is.  I thought that it had some interesting contours and maybe one could create a pretty scarf from it - later, much later...

And here is the real thing.  There's been a dearth of icicles in this mild winter, so I had to really look for them.  In other years there's been gorgeous clusters of shiny frozen water drops, many of which suggested  scarves with lacey "things" hanging from them........soon, maybe. 

Have a stunning day!!!!!

All You Knit Is Love.....

This has to be the coolest name that I have ever come across for a yarn store.  It was in the old town of Barcelona and I nearly missed it.  We were walking through these narrow winding alley ways and I was looking for interesting shots of gargoyles, when my husband said, "look a yarn store named after a Beetles' song."

I was in awe.  Needless to say I pulled out my camera and snapped a few quick ones.  Although the shop's name is in English, the owner's website, more blog than product listing, is either in Catalan or Spanish.

Catalan is the minority language spoken in the area - just to complicate things.  I thought that I was just going to have to struggle with Spanish - Castillion - Oh no - holidays always throw in a curve ball - this one was called Catalan - fortunately many spoke English - or Spanglish or Catalangish. We had fun.

Here is the uncropped version of the sign outside of the store.  Sorry, I didn't go in.  When I travel with family, I really spend all my time with them.  A quick glance told me that the store was a little sparse - but may have had some nice handspun yarns.

I loved the name so much, that I have created some fridge magnets along with this picture and a Happy New Year greeting. This a large square in downtown Barcelona, at night.  It was brilliant.

Wishing you a Happy New Year filled with light and love.!!

5 things that bring me peace...

I will post more pictures of Barcelona, once I take down the Christmas tree, because we have to squeeze into the chair at the computer desk beside the tree to post from there and this is awkward. There is not enough room in the living room for - tree, computer and me!! and unfortunately all my pictures are on THAT computer not this one. I was a little thinner right after Barcelona from all the walking so I could squeeze in to transfer said pictures then - it's a tad more difficult now.

And why you might ask did I put up a tree at all when we were going away over the holidays - Well we left the eldest at home - he hates travelling and he needed a tree. Also my daughter just assumed that we would be having Christmas here before we went and bought a lot of gifts in Halifax - so yes, we had to run out at the last minute and buy some gifts, which we hadn't planned on and then buy more in Barcelona for our Christmas there with extended family from Edinburgh.......a pretty chaotic time.

You can see by my crazy world that I need to find some peace from time to time and here is when I do it...

1. Knitting brings me peace.  Even when patterns aren't working out and I have to rip back a lot, the rhythm of making the stitches soothes the frazzled nerves and really does "Knit up the ravelled sleeve of care."

2. My morning cup of tea and a flip through the newspaper.  I know that most of the news these days is bad and the papers are a lot thinner than they used to be and yes, I probably should just be reading them on-line, but the ritual of making tea and toast, picking up the paper from the front steps and reading the headlines is grounding. It connects me to all the other times I made and/or drank tea - with my paternal grandmother in Hamilton, ON, with my flatmates many years ago in London, UK. With my mother-in-law in Glasgow and my sister-in-law in Edinburgh. I made tea everyday in Barcelona too.

Knitted Teacups by Debbie New

3. Music - my husband isn't a great fan of music.  He finds it a distraction, like background noise, so I don't play a lot of music, even though I grew up in a home that was filled with music. I do find time, though, to listen to my mp3 player when I really need to escape.

4. Photography - I could spend hours taking pictures, organizing them, cropping them and just plain "fiddling" with them. They are another world and some are the perfection of a moment in this world.

Mud Creek ravine in Spring

5. Walking - I love walking, particularly the ravine created by Mud Creek which leads down to the Brickworks near the Don River in Toronto. There is a kind of surreal peace to be far below the traffic, as one merges with the foundations of the city - the pillions of overpasses and train trestles, the underground rivers that surface as they near the lake, the wild tangle of weeds and wildflowers, the trees - another Eden.

Have a peaceful day!

I'm back!!!

I couldn't connect to the WIFI avalable in the flat that we rented for 10 days in Barcelona so I have a lot of catching up to do.  My two kids had no problem connecting with their Macs; but there was some sort of incompatibility with windows and a Dell program on my computer.  Believe me my next computer will be a Mac!!

Anyway, here is a picture I took specifically with knitting in mind.  These are little figures of sheep and lambs in a market stall in the old town of Barcelona.  Apparently people add to their nativity scenes every year and you could by small pots, bales of hay,  figurines like these and much more.  I knew that I wanted something on a knitting theme and what says knitting more than sheep.

Here's a nativity scene in a glass case on display in one of the old stone buildings.  There is, of course, the knitted nativity scene from Jean Greenhowe, which I have posted before.  Here is a nice photo of it again

Complete with sheep and donkey.  Now we just need "the camel."

Hope that you had a good Christmas - more pictures of Barcelona to come!!!

Carol

Five and change...?

Every once in a while I respond to a blogging challenge.  Writing is a little more time consuming than photography - unless you count chasing cars with reindeer ears and red noses (on the grill) - the nose not the antlers - they are on the roof somewhere....I need a photo for the heading "silly" and I think that the ears & nose may be it!!

Anyway the next blogging challenge is to name 5 things that you would like to accomplish in 2012.  This is a pretty tall order but I know that:

1. I would like to have my Queen Anne's Lace Facebook page be a centre for posting lace designs of knitters experimenting with designing in lace

2. I would like to lose 10 pounds!!! Ha, Ha, Ha - who said that????   :)

3. I would like to get my system organized to order books to be downloaded from the library and listen to them.

4. I would like to find software that I can use to easily edit videos that I plan to make on knitting lace and skating.  I have this vision of myself skating on one of the natural ponds at the brickworks and filming it.....well everyone has to be a little crazy sometime - right...you know right?...is anyone listening...?

5. Well since everyone has left. I am free to say....I have submitted my teaching iternerary to a number of venues and I hope to be selected as a teacher for a few of them....

I'll keep you posted

HB MPM

I said in an earlier post that I knew some interesting people, well Mary Pat is right up there on the list of "Interesting People I Have Known."  MP is a knitter with a very eclectic sense of style. For example, I have never known her to wear a "pair" of earrings. She always wears earrings, but they never match, though they are often related to each other.  In this photo you can see that her earrings are knitted - one is a leaf and the other is a bell.

The colour of her hair changes with her outfit...or mood; however, her mood rarely changes.  She is always happy, in fact, she has been "accused" of being too happy, if there is such a thing.  MP is a people person.  She once came with me to TNNA - the industry's trade show.  I swear that she knew more people there than I did and I had been in the business, at that time for more than 10 years.

Boundless energy, generous to a fault, infectious laugh, stashaholic, prolific knitter, inventor of style - the list goes on....So if you are ever in need of an entertaining knitting teacher; be sure to keep MP in mind.  She's a treasure!!

Have a very happy day!!