It's Here - Finally

Spring has finally come to the garden.  The lilacs are just about open.  Whoo Hoo!  And today it rains.  Now this is water the plants love, so bring it on today I say.  Perhaps Mother Earth has decided she is over her hissy fit?

And you'll note, we have found a way around the glitch that was preventing me uploading images onto the blog but we had to be sneaky about it.  And...it took much fiddling by my son the computer geek to identify the problem and figure out how to make things happen once more.  Apparently it has something to do with Mozilla's latest updates.  These things are definitely sent to try me.

So...Would you like to meet Picasso?

Isn't he cute?  He is Midnight's gentleman friend and they are doing extremely well together, after some initial getting to know each other.  He's still pretty shy, but very clever and certainly knows when the frig door opens the carrots are coming out.

This morning Libby and I put on rain gear and ventured over to the dog park for some serious play time

There is a lovely patch of bright yellow buffalo beans in bloom right in the middle of the field.  Right after I took these shots one of the dogs came over and laid down right in the middle of It.  Buffalo beans are tough though and don't seem to mind a bit of trampling.  A good time was had by all.

A bit of knitting to end off.  This leaf blanket is actually a baby blanket, - knit in Spud and Cloe Outer (thick cotton/wool blend yarn) in the shape of a big leaf in which to enfold baby.  We are having a new baby in our family. 
And that was my week.  I am living a small life these days - creative - but small.

This, That and the other thing

Well, I was going to show you all this in photographs - but words will have to suffice as the image link on the blogs seem to be broken at the moment.

So...here goes as short wordy post - We have a new Rabbit -   He moved in about 5 days ago to keep Midnight company because - well,, it's spring and she was pining for a face that looked like hers. 
Midnight is our wee black lop - gorgeous creature, neat, fastidious and has a mind of her own.  She's been known to rush at my ankle growling as I move to put pellets in her food dish - I think she does this just for the fun of it but it is a bit startling. 
She and Libby the border collie get on extremely well for the most part.  Libby loves to watch and Midnight seems to like being watched.  Every so often, Midnight takes off like a small black bomb, racing around the couch.  She does this to liven things up - because Libby is on her like a magnet, racing behind her. 

But, she was lonely for her own kind, and pining, so we started looking through the bunny profiles at the animal shelter to see if we could find her a companion.    Our criteria was - male, neutered (no baby bunnies on the way here please), maybe a lop but that part wasn't so important.
Enter Picasso-  our new little guy is a gorgeous mink colour, light sand shading down to brown with ears that sit straight up on his head like TV antenna's.   At first Midnight was sort of horrified that this stranger was in her space and she set out immediately to put him in his place and show him just who is the boss around here. 

That accomplished, they played a lively game of chase me, under the watchful eye of the border collie who was quite fascinated by the whole exercise.  As the days and nights have gone on in their little rabbit world, they have become quite close - sitting cuddled together on the rug and looking for all the world like butter wouldn't even melt in either of their mouths.   And Picasso even dared to steal Midnight's treat right out of her mouth - that took courage.

And that brings me to the garden - the other pictures I wanted to post today.
The salad garden has been planted in the raised beds - lettuce, green onions, lots of carrots and mesclun for spice.  Tulips are up and ready to bloom finally.  
Rabbit droppings make wonderful fertilizer - this was in evidence last year when the tomato plants took off and grew into a three foot tangle of green leaves and fruit.

Spring is finally here - late but welcome.  Pictures next post, hopefully

New Lace

I bought the lovely hand dyed merino  and silk blend from the Malabrigo company to make a pair of socks actually, and then discovered the colours were not coming up in stripes or even blending, but rather looking like camouflage in two shades of blue - I'm sure I detected the map of Italy as I was working my way down the leg from the cuff.  It was not good!
So...out the stitches came, the yarn was rolled  up  and tossed unceremoniously back into the basket.

And then I was roaming around the incredible Ravelry site one day and happened upon a lovely crochet shawl  - The Elise Shawl it was called. If you're interested you can find it as a free pattern on Ravelry.    Hmmm I thought to myself - what about using that lovely yarn for this lovely crochet shawl.

Here it is,  finished and waiting to have ends tailed in...no sign of any maps of Italy...no sign of Camouflage, but my oh my does it need blocking.  No surprise there.  Lace, whether it is knit or crochet, usually needs to be blocked to show off its beauty.

First step - into the sink.

I added a small squirt of Ivory dish soap to the tepid water in the sink, but Eucolan wool wash works beautifully too - I just didn't happen to have any, and I was impatient to get started.
I gently laid the shawl on top of the water and let it absorb and sink down.  No swishing or swooshing is necessary - maybe just a gentle squeeze to make sure the piece is wet through.
Once that happened I got out my handy dandy colander from the kitchen cupboard and scooped the shawl into it.

I drained the water out of the sink, left the colander in the sink, and gently pressed water out.
Then, I transferred the whole thing to a waiting towel on the floor - you make due when you don't have a  lot of space

It doesn't look like much of anything here does it - a soaking wet blob - which I rolled in the towel, pressing out moisture as I rolled the towel up.

Next came the fun part- the actually pinning and blocking.  I have to do this kind of thing on the floor..I placed a couple of towels down first, and then covered them with a clean sheet to work on  and got out the pins.

It is really important not to hurry the process here.  I laid out the shawl, gently straightening it and patting it with my hands until the top was more or less straight.  Then I started pinning out the picots one at a time, sticking the long pins down through the padding so they would stay - one side and up the other

.Once I had it more or less the way I wanted it to look it was a case of making tiny adjustments to the top and picots ...and then...standing up, closing up the pin box and walking away.
It is important to let lace ...or any piece of  handwork you make -  dry thoroughly before unpinning it.  Step away, make some tea, go for a walk - ignore it.  It won't be ready to unpin for a few hours.  In this case, I actually left it over the weekend.
It was worth the wait.

 

Saturday morning walk in May

Snow started falling during the night - I estimate we have about 10-15 centimeters and it is still coming down.   But it isn't cold - the temperature is hovering around zero, and the snow is sticky, fluffy and wet..  Libby and I had a wonderful walk through the neighbourhood. 

The man on the end of the shovel wished us a Merry Christmas as he continued working on his driveway.  Libby was kept very busy sniffing for stuff - where the wild rabbits had been in the night, if another dog had been this way - if, even, god forbid, a cat had dared to walk there.  We wound our way down the streets and up the alleys and then across the school yard.  There is no wind so the snow is falling straight down, decorating the branches and weighing down the evergreens.

If I was in the business of producing gorgeous Christmas card photos, today would have been the day.  Even the garden hose winder looks like a piece of art.
Libby as we all know, loves this kind of weather - it suits her much better than warm days and green grass when all she wants to do is get to water and cool her belly.    So once we got back to the house, a session with the snow shovel was in order.  Now, it's impossible to throw shovel fulls of snow and take pictures...so here is one from earlier this year...but you get the idea.

looks like fun doesn't it? 

A tad optimistic

Calgarians are so tired of this protracted winter like behavior that every time we get a warmish day with sunshine, coats are shed, long pants exchanged for bermuda shorts and boots cast off in favour of flipflops.  But the next day, back comes the snow shower and makes the poor baby tulip leaves shiver.  At this rate the tulips will emerge from their cocoons in July!

The snow puts a spring in Libby's step though and that brings a smile to everyone's face.  This is a girl for whom snow was created I think.  She can hardly wait to get out there and make donuts, lopsided snow angels and just generally tear around like a mad thing.  This being spring snow it actually compacts together to make snowballs which I fire from the safety of the stop sending her flying toward the back fence trying to catch them.  She comes up with a mouthful of snow, grinning like an idiot.  I love it.

I'm also loving this sock.  I'm using Lang Jawoll Colour in colour number 132 and it is great fun watching the changes as I move along here.  I like Lang sock wool.  Inside each ball is a hidden surprise - a small ball of nylon thread in the same colour way as the sock yarn -  inserted  especially for knitting into the heels and toes of the sock  Very smart idea!  I'm trying out a new set of needles from Knitter's Pride - Karbonz in size 2.75 mm and they are lovely to work with - smooth carbon fibre shafts and steel tips.  According to the blurb on the package back, carbon fibre is one of the most versatile materials and is also used in the manufacture of aircrafts and space ships and racing cars.  Who knew?   I'm using my plain go-to sock pattern, casting on 64 stitches, knitting a  3 inch k1p1 rib and then down the leg to my favourite heel.  If you check out my sock tutorial post you can get the instructions.  With a wool this colourful, you really don't need a pattern - the yarn does all the work. 
I'm teaching a brand new class at Stash tonight - that we are calling Homemade to Handmade - I hope it goes well. 

Searching for signs of spring

It has been four months since my accident now, and I'm only just able to write about it, to write just how frightening it was to fall through the darkness like that and land so hard, breathless and in intense pain,.  All I could taste was dust.  There seemed to be no air getting in my lungs and I couldn't move.  The first set of X-rays clearly showed the compression fracture, and nobody wanted to even touch it, just to get me into a brace as quickly as possible.  And there I stayed.  I'm only just lately out of the brace and into a pretty intense exercise program that includes walking (thank God for Libby), and back strengthening exercise set by my wonderful physiotherapist .  Next stop is the swimming pool and Aqua mobility.  I hope the water is warm.

 I was wandering around the garden a couple of days ago looking for signs of any spring like behavior among the leaf mulch we so carefully laid down last fall before winter set in.  Winter really  was long, cold and snowy.   I spent most of it  laid up and resting inside my brace, getting comfortable knitting in a semi-reclining position between doctor's appointments,  various MRI's, bone scans and X-rays and watching way too much daytime television.  I think I glow in the dark but I haven't actually tested that. I nicknamed my brace "the bullet proof vest".  In truth it has held me up during this protracted recovery - which isn't over yet - they say it takes at least a year to recover from and accidental injury like this one, and probably my back will never actually be the same as it was. But if these exercises have anything to do with it - I will have muscles!

I'm cheered though, to see green plant life emerging.  The tulip leaves are about 2 inches up  out of the ground right now.   The blue poppy lived through the winter.  There are buds on the lilac and that gladens my heart.  Number one son pruned the tree and the sour cherry to tame the water shoots and he raked the lawns once the glacier had receded.
I'll spend more time in the lawn chair this year, after I get the pillows on it.  I'm thinking healing thoughts this spring.  The garden will survive and so will I.


 

It's all new

Meet the new Acer which now sits proudly on my desk in all its shiny glory.  The purchase was necessary or at least I thought it was, because I desperately needed a system upgrade, having been warned repeatedly by Microsoft that it was "orphaning" XP, my very well used operating system.

My old Acer lap top is seven years old, still going strong, and has given me very little trouble...well...other than the time it crashed under the weight of a nasty virus, but really, once we had expunged the bug, it chugged on and actually continues to do so.  However, its operating system, the very popular XP, does not and I'm sad about this. I imagine a lot of people are.  XP was a good system, easy to navitate and I had learned it well.

The new Acer is running Windows 8 - a bit of a learning curve.  Where are my files, where is my e-mail, how do I get from here to there?  And the most disconcerting thing is that this system seems to have a mind of its own - deciding for me when really I want to decide for myself.

The cursor, for instance, moves itself around at the most awkward times.  I really have to keep my eye on it to keep it in line, rather like learning to make a dog heal beside me if you get my drift..

I like the machine though, and if this new Acer is as much of a workhorse as my old one, I'll be happy with it.  I like the bigger screen, and the lighter weight of it.  And my fingers are getting used to the new keyboard...mostly .

Anyway, this has been occupying my time for the past week, first while I set it up with the help of my wonderful son who, although he doesn't look it, is super geek when it comes to this stuff.  Then we had to migrate all my files over to the new machine.  Then I had to learn where everything was - and I'm still learning all that, and then...I had to figure out what didn't come over, and re-install it.

So, excuse the temporary absence from the wonderful world of blogging.  However, I'm back and if I can keep the cursor in check, I should be able to post this without any problems.

I'm keeping myself sane by knitting -. 

This is a shawl full of lovely colour and texture in garter stitch using up odd balls from the stash .  I cast on 300 stitches on a 6.5 mm needle and am stopping at about 70 rows before I fringe the ends.  It has been a great way to use up some of the stash, although I did top up with some multi coloured wool - I changed colours every 3-5 rows just to amuse myself but it does have a sort of theme going on.  You can do this with just about any colour combination and just about any weight of yarn.  When it is finished, it will be donated as a prayor shawl to someone in need of comfort. 

OK.  There is a strange blinking light I have to figure out.  Talk soon.