Author: missouristar

I love making little baby things! However, at my age my friends are no longer having babies and I have all the grandchildren I'm going to get. Aside from the occasional great niece or nephew I really don't get a chance to knit for babies. So I was excited when our knitting group "adopted" the birthing center at our local hospital. The goal is for every baby to go home with a sweater, hat and small blanket. Here's my first offering:

This is a great little pattern from Leisure Arts. You can see the particulars on my project page. I made this little set in just two days. There was some car knitting involved, but still it was quick and easy. I did make some modifications to the hat. The notes are on the project page. One blanket is finished, but needs to be blocked before a photo and another is in the works.

In other news, there has been a change of plans regarding the half marathon. Several weeks ago during my 10 mile run, my left knee seized up on me at mile 7.5. I thought I would just walk the last few miles, but by 8.5 miles, I was really hurting. Hubby picked that opportune moment to call me and I had him come pick me up. Since then I've been icing, stretching, foam rolling and strengthening. It has gotten a lot better, but it still hurts to run. The good news is that I can walk – and I can walk fast. I've done one 8 mile walk that came very, very close to the time it took me to run it. So instead of running the half, I will be walking it. After all, 13.1 miles is 13.1 miles, right? The other good thing is that this will be sustainable and I think I've even talked hubby into joining me – not on the half, but on future, shorter walks.

In sewing news, I've had a little doorstop in our bedroom made for me almost 20 years ago by one of my Sunday School students. Over the years it's suffered the slings and arrows of fate, including having the face chewed off by Maggie when she was a puppy. It finally bit the dust last week, so I made a new one:

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I just installed a new app on my iPad that I hope will help me blog more regularly. Spurred on by Marguerite’s success (not sure yet how to link to her blog) I’m giving it a try. I have become so attached to my iPad and only get out my laptop for my digital Scrapbooking projects.

Latest in my completed projects is Pretty Thing, a cowl by The Yarn Harlot.

This was made using the pink mink I got at Madrona with Sally and Lorette. It’s a fun, quick pattern that takes very little yarn and feels oh-so-soft around my neck. Sally has come up with a pattern for wristers to use up the rest of the yarn. Stay tuned.

No time to dilly dally around. I’m actually just sitting here wasting time waiting for it to warm up a little before I go for my 10 mile run. Yikes! I can’t believe I’m saying that. Only two more long runs before the half marathon. I’ll get up to 12 miles before the big day. Most of the plans I’ve seen recommend at least 10 miles, so after today I’ll feel pretty confident that I can finish. My time won’t be spectacular and there will be some walking, but I will run the majority of it and I will finish!

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For those of you who come here for knitting content, stick around.  For those of you who don't, move along; there's nothing to see here. Lots of knitterly fun and games going on this week. At the last minute I decided to drive down to the Madrona Fiber Fest in Tacoma.  It turned out that Sally, the developer of Knit Companion, was going to be there!  How could I pass up the opportunity to meet her?  I quickly contacted Lorette, reserved my room and headed down there.

We all had a wonderful time!  As usual, John and Lorette treated me to high class accomodations and food, including wine and champagne.  On Friday morning we headed to Madrona.  We had a good laugh when Lorette asked me how we would recognize Sally.  I said, "She'll be the one knitting."  Well, that did differentiate her from the ones spinning!  We managed to locate her and headed off to the market, where lots of fun, laughter, and – let's face it, yarn enabling ensued.

First of all, let me say that Sally is just a genius.  She shared with us some of her thoughts on developing Knit Companion and some of the upcoming developments.  I've shared my enthusiasm for this program, but it just keeps getting better and better.  What a treat to spend the day with her and get an "inside" look!

It's really unrealistic to expect one to stick to a yarn diet at Madrona.  I think I did show incredible restraint, however, and came home with only two skeins.  The first is a lovely merino/bamboo blend:

I've been wanting to try some bamboo since seeing it profiled on Knitting Daily.  This is destined to become an Alexandra Shawl.  I'll probably have enough for another project too, because the yardage is incredible – 1120 yards!

And as soon as I saw this I had to have it!

Pink mink!  Who knew?  Sally and Lorette and I are going to host a KAL over on the Knit Companion Ravelry site.  We thought a Pretty Thing cowl and matching mitts would be just the thing.  Did I mention they both bought mink yarn too?  Although not pink mink.

My other purchase was some Chiaogoo needles.  I've been eyeing them online and once I saw them in person, I was definitely onboard.  Here they are on my current pair of socks, Hedera, in Knit Picks Stroll.  

Oh. My. Goodness!  I love, love, love these needles.  The tips are nice and pointy:

The finish is just slightly brushed so the stitches slide along easily, but do not slip. The cables are firm and have no memory and no kinks.  And the joins!  Oh, the joins.  They are the smoothest I have ever encountered.  And the price???  Only $8.00 for a 24 inch.  Bargain! Recently I caved and bought a couple of Signature needles.  Now, they are really, really nice and a pleasure to knit with.  And until I ran across the Chiaogoos I was going to give them a glowing report.  But I honestly can say that they aren't any nicer than the Chiaogoos and much more expensive.  As luck would have it, I happened to mention this at the Knit Companion class I taught yesterday and one of the ladies offered to buy my Signatures.  Deal done, and with the money for that plus my fee for the class, I had enough to buy a set of the Chiaogoo interchangeables.  Can't wait until they get here.  I'll give you a full report.

On the needles now – Evenstar.

It's at the amorphous blob stage right now.  The body to Dark and Stormy is done and sleeves have commenced:

I'm still not sure how the fit is going to work out on this.  This is my first top down adult sweater and I'm hoping the armhole is deep enough.

That's it for now.  Tonight I have to get at least one row done on Evenstar to free up the Signatures so I can mail them to their new owner tomorrow.  But I'm really itching to get back to my socks on the Chiaogoos!

Life has been pretty exciting lately, so grab a cup of coffee and sit a spell while I catch up.  Two weekends ago we took the granddaughters to our church's snow camp.  This is held up in the Cascade Mountains in a beautiful valley set in among the mountains.  We were blessed with lots and lots of snow, which is the whole point of a snow camp.  Fortunately, the roads were pretty decent.  It's always a balancing act to have lots of snow with clear roads.  It was a lot of work for the grandparents (we're not as young as we used to be!), but both girls seemed to really enjoy themselves.  Mei-Mei was a bit of a pill as she was determined NOT to wear her snow suit.  Once she realized she was not going out in the snow without it, she would relent, but she made us work at it!  Most of the time, however, she was utterly charming and everyone fell in love with her.

The big highlight of the weekend was that she lost a tooth.  She was delighted to find out that the Tooth Fairy could find her way through all that snow!

Isobel proved herself an outstanding athlete!  She took to cross country skiing and snowboarding like a champ.  Someone asked her how many times she fell down.  She replied, "About a million times."  How many times did you get up?  "A little over a million times."

During the church services hubby played the banjo with his bluegrass group, but found it a little hard to concentrate with someone hanging on his leg.

All in all, a great trip and one we will repeat next year.  Mei-Mei has promised to wear her snow suit without fuss.

This morning I came to a little epiphany about both my knitting and running life.  They both concern doing things for others' expectations and not my own.  First off – knitting.  I think I was a little rash jumping on board the Dragon KAL.  I am hating knitting this!  Usually I love lace, even the difficult lace. This one is just plain no fun.  I've dragged along, hating to let everyone down on the KAL, but considering this would probably take at least 6 months to a year to complete, that's a long time to spend on something you hate.  So it is being frogged.  Right now I'm concentrating working on Evenstar and am looking for another lace project to utilize the yarn from the Dragon.  

On the running front, I had joined a running club and was so happy to know that I was not in training for the half marathon alone and was looking forward to running with others.  It has not worked out that way.  I am the slowest runner in the club and despite their promises that "no runner will be left behind", on our runs they drop me like a bad habit.  One of the other slower runners and I decided to beat them at their own game and start out early to get a head start.  This morning it occurred to me that this is insane!  Why am I trying to keep up with people who clearly don't care enough about me to include me?  In trying to keep up I am running harder and faster than is good for me and am risking injury.  And I am becoming discouraged.  So as of today, I will resume training on my own.   One of the things that running is teaching me is that I am only in competition with myself.  I will always be one of the slowest runners, but that doesn't matter if I'm doing it because I love it. 

This raises the whole philosophical question about why we do many of the things we do.  I know that there are things in our lives that are less than pleasant but that are really necessary and we must have the discipline to do them.  But how many things are we doing because of pressure or expectations from other people?  I hope this year I will have to courage to either not start them in the first place or to stop when I realize that I am doing them for the wrong reasons!

Next week I hope to have more knitting news for those of you whom come here for that.  On Thursday I'm driving down to Lorette's and we're going to Madrona together.  We'll not be taking any classes, but are excited about meeting up with the developer of Knit Companion!  Should be lots of knitterly eye candy for you next week.

While marital mongamy has always been a slam dunk for me, project monogamy has been less so.  I'm not sure what the record is for the most projects in progress, but it seems as if 8 or 9 was probably the norm at one time.  Lately, I've been a little more faithful to my projects and it certainly pays off in FO's! Our knitting group started a project last January in which we all picked a pattern for a gansey.  I don't think any of us were doing the same one.  I thought for sure I would be the last one done because I picked Cape Cod by Alice Starmore.  At her hellatious gauge, I had to use fingering weight yarn and size 0 needles.  It just goes to show what a little project monogamy can accomplish because I am one of the first to finish her gansey.  Behold Cape Cod in all her glory!

I love everything about this sweater!  The yarn, Knit Picks Gloss is a luscious blend of silk and wool.  I like that it's fairly lightweight so I don't get overheated.  I like the intricacy of the knit and all the classy little touches that Starmore is famous for.  And I love the fit.  A little loose and comfortable, but not baggy.  This will definitely get a lot of wear.  And I have to add that this would have never been finished (or at least not so soon) without Knit Companion.  Recently they released a new version featuring smart counters which helped me with the multiple chart repeats and shaping on the sleeves.  

I also managed to finish a pair of fingerless gloves for my sister:

The pattern is October Leaves, yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy in Chinatown Apple.  Wonderful pattern with lovely detail in the thumb area.  And I have enough left from the skein to make another pair.  Brown's not really my color, but I think I'll make them anyway and put them aside for a gift giving occasion.

That leaves me with only two wip's (and one in hibernation that may be frogged).  Neither Evenstar or Dark and Stormy are real portable projects, so I cast on for a pair of Cookie A socks – Hedera.  I keep saying I'm going to knit my way through her book, Knit Sock Love and they are the first in the book, so it's a start.  No promises as to how far I'll get.

I did have a little moment of insanity and jumped on board a KAL.  The project is Dragon of Happiness.  Go take a look and come back laughing.  Insane, no?  Of course, I did have to break my yarn fast (hey, I lasted all of 3 weeks!) to order the yarn.  And I think I just may have, in a moment of weakness, ordered some Signature needles to go along with it.  This project is not going to go fast and will need frequent breaks, but I might as well be deliriously happy while knitting it!  Of course, I know that I'll want to go throw all my Knit Picks needles in the trash.  Or win the lottery. 

My training for the half marathon is coming along, but not without a few bumps in the road.  Today our club did a spin class.  Let me go on record as saying that I hated it with a passion that is just a little scary.  The endurance part was hard, but I could probably get over that.  But without getting too technical, just let me say that the bike seat was painful!  Even with an extra cushion they provided I was miserable the whole time.  Next time they schedule a spin class I'll just go for a little run.

It's me again.  At least I'm starting off on the right foot.  Don't know how long his will last!  In looking over my previous posts, I realized that I left a few things hanging, so here's some catching up.

I left you with my son's cardigan lying in pieces.  It's since been finished, declared acceptable and worn on a regular basis.  Here's my handsome son:

Now I have to get busy repairing his other sweater.  He tore a hole in the elbow, which you may recall I repaired once, but it has since come open again.  I finally decided that in the time it took me to repair it again, I could knit a whole new sleeve.  Here's the rub – all the comments on Ravelry indicated that the sleeve as written was too full.  So I input some data in Sweater Wizard and calculated a new sleeve.  Did I save it?  Duh, NO!  And I can't remember what figures I used, so I'm going to have to do some counting on the present sleeve and see if I can figure it out.

I also left you all hanging right in the middle of our bathroom remodel.  That, too, has been finished and we couldn't be happier.  I must admit hanging the striped wallpaper was a little challenging when we realized that the walls are not completely plumb and the corners of the room are actually curved a little.  Here's before and after:

It's a little hard to get a good picture of such a small room, but the remodel really did make a big difference – it's so clean and updated now.

I have been knitting like mad on Cape Cod and have finished the first sleeve.  I tried it on for the first time and am really, really happy with the fit.  

I am not, however, happy with the underarm gusset.  

It appears that the gusset is totally unnecessary and just adds a lot of bulk to the underam area.  Those of us ladies of a certain age certainly don't need anything resembling wings!  I'm debating what to do.  It's not just a simple matter of ripping back the sleeve, although I certainly would consider that if it was.  I'd also have to rip out the fronts and backs down to the armholes, and I am not willing to do that!  Since it's not really obvious unless I hold out my arms and since that is a stance I seldom take, I'm pretty sure I'll just leave it be.  Any and all suggestions are welcomed.

 In other knitting news I started some fingerless mitts for my sister.  I stuck some sock yarn in her Christmas stocking with the promise of a new pair of socks, but by mutual agreements we decided instead on mitts.  These are Hedgerow Mitts.

I had made a decision several weeks ago to sell my spinning wheel.  I even went as far as to put an ad on the local website for the spinning guild.  I admit that I was motivated a little bit by my inability to spin the yarn I really wanted and I know, as Kathryn has so wisely pointed out that I probably need to give it some more time.  But I was also moved by consideration of time.  It seems that I have so many interests that compete for my time – knitting, spinning, quilting and digital scrapbooking (to say nothing of the time it takes to train for the half marathon).  Sometimes I look at people who are a little more "concentrated" on one craft and envy them a little.  I feel so torn with my time.  On the positive side, I am almost never bored!  Thankfully I have had no bites on my ad and I think I will have it taken down.  

And, speaking of quilting, I finished the top on a project that several of my friends and I have been working on.  We all did the same pattern, but in our own individual fabrics.  I chose a palette of Asian fabrics and was a little apprehensive that the "country" feel of the pattern would not be a good match, but I am pleased with the results.

One of my goals this year is to work on my machine quilting skills.  I have a stack of tops that will never be finished in my lifetime if I don't learn to machine quilt and finish them!

As the year draws to a close, it's once more time to think of New Year's Resolutions.  I'm a big believer in them.  Not necessarily in slavishly accomplishing them all, but I think setting some goals at the beginning of the year is a good way to start.  I certainly don't end up doing everything, but I think I do a lot more than I would without them!

One of my first goals is to try and keep up more with the blog.  At times I do get a little discouraged that my readership is pretty paltry (in quantity, definitely not in quality!), but this is as close to a journal as I will ever get, so I need to keep it up for that at least.  Periodically I will go back and reread posts from years past and it's fun to read about meeting Abby for the first time, the wedding and the birth of my two granddaughters.  Time flies by so quickly and it's a little astounding to believe that almost 9 years has passed since I started keeping my record!

Next up – I want to try and do better at record keeping for my knitting.  I realized in looking at Ravelry that there are several projects that never made it to my project page.  I also didn't tag the items I finished in 2012, although I may still try to go back and do that.  Just like my "journal", these project pages remind me that I have at least accomplished something.

Knitting goals – this year I'm going to try and knit from my stash as much as possible.  I'm not vowing to forgo any and all yarn purchases, but I do want to try and resist the latest bright shiny new thing.  If nothing else, I could knit socks all year and still be knitting from stash.  I do have two large sweater projects and a shawl already cast on and I'm going to work on finishing those before starting another new project.  This has a practical aspect in that I find myself wanting another bright shiny new thing – a sewing machine.  My last machine was a major investment, but as with all computers (and it is a computer), it is becoming outdated and has some limitations.  I still can do the majority of what I want and this is definitely a want and not a need.  But perhaps some money that I would ordinarily put toward yarn purchases can be redirected.  Here are my current projects:

Cape Cod

This was started as a challenge with my handknitting group.  Last January we all started ganseys.  Insanely I chose a pattern that is fingering on size 0 needles, but oddly enough, I am not behind the group.  Everyone seems to be dragging their feet on this one and only one member has finished hers.  I have finished the back and the front is almost done and ready to join at the shoulders.

Dark and Stormy

I have not blogged about this one yet.  Faithful readers may remember that this poor yarn has suffered through quite a number of false starts and I was reluctant to post yet another one.  I think this one is going to stick as the body is almost completely done and then it's only sleeves and collars.  Worst case scenario is that it doesn't fit and then it will be gifted, NOT frogged!

Evenstar

I made one of these several years and ago and absolutely loved both knitting it and the finished shawl.  I gave it to my niece for her college graduation and immediatedly

vowed that someday I would make one for myself.  Someday is now.

BFF socks

These will be for me to replenish my stash of socks, which is sadly wearing out.  These will be finished in the next day or so and then on to some fingerless gloves that I promised my sister for Christmas.

Can you believe it?  Only four works in progress.  I think that's something of a record for me.  There is one other project hibernating that may or may not be resurrected.

And, of course, there are always the same old resolutions to eat better and exercise.  I think I may just be getting the exercise part down.  I am still running and bit the bullet and signed up for a (gasp!) half marathon in April.  I have no doubt I can do it if I keep on track.  I'm already up to 7 miles – over halfway there.  I am SLOW, but I have no illusions about winning any prizes.  I just want to finish in an upright position and hopefully not be last.

Christmas was wonderful this year.  Having the granddaughters close by certainly adds a layer of contentment over the whole holiday.  This year we started a new "tradition".   Ben, Abby and the girls came up from Snohomish on Christmas Eve and we opened our gifts.  The plan was for us to go there on Christmas Day for dinner and stockings.  The girls begged to stay with us, so we had them overnight.  It was so much fun to wake up with them here on Christmas Day.  

I made both of the girls sweaters for Christmas.  Mei-Mei had actually picked out the pattern for hers, and although I know she was pleased, it was a little overshadowed by a pink sparkly dress given to her by my sister.  She immediately put it on and we all knew who had been hugging her because they were covered in pink glitter!  She'll come around to the sweater eventually, but in the meantime – no pictures.  Isobel, however, made up for it.  She adored her sweater, put it on and didn't take it off for two days!  Even though it was a worsted weight, she wore it all day Christmas – usually with the hood up.  I do need to get better pictures, especially of the hood, but here you can see how cute she looks in it.

I'll leave you with a few more pictures of our Christmas celebrations.  We were so pleased to have Abby's aunt and uncle from China with us.  They were utterly charming and we had a great time looking at the photographs that Daniel has taken on his travels around the world.  They were amazing – think National Geographic quality.

I also close with pictures of some small snowflakes that I've been embroidering.  Several of the embroidery sites have encouraged us to make snowflakes to send to the teachers of Sandy Hook so they can decorate their classrooms for the childrens' return.  It seems like such a meager contribution, but other than tears there doesn't seem much I can offer.  The closeness in age to our own precious granddaughters was so difficult.  Here's hoping and praying that the New Year will bring some sense of comfort to the families of those sweet children.

When you left our intrepid travlers, we had just left Costa Rica on our way to the Panama Canal.  We had another formal night, which gave me a chance to wear one of my beaded shawls:

The Panama Canal was really the highlight of the trip – definitely a "bucket list" kind of thing.  To truly appreciate it, you have to know the history.  It was a massive undertaking and it was amazing that it was ever built in the first place with the technology that was in place at the time.  And it was built at a great cost in lives – thousands due to the harsh conditions and disease.

Our ship was one of the largest that can currently go through the canal.  There is a new canal being built that will accommodate ships twice as large!  As we approached the first set of locks, we could see massive cargo ships ahead of us:

As the ship enters the locks, cables are attached that tether the ship to "mules" (locomotives) on either side.  These don't pull the ship through the locks, but rather serve to keep the ship centered.  It was amazing to see the low tech way the cables are attached – two guys in a little rowboat row out and throw the cables up!

Not sure I'd want their job.  Here you can see looking down from the ship how little clearance there is.  We could have reached out and touched the side of the locks!

That's also a good view of the "mules".  More pictures of the locks:

Once again, Typepad is not playing nice and is rotating my photos.  (Edited – hooray!  figured out how to fix it).  I should mention how terribly humid it was here!  When I first went out to take photos, my camera lenses (including the interior ones) fogged up so badly the camera was useless.  I had to go inside, defog and then put my camera in a ziploc bag with all the air pressed out.  Then I had to go back outside and wait about 10 minutes for the camera to acclimate to the humidity and then I was ok.  From Panama it was on to Cartagena, Columbia.  Some of the passengers on the ship didn't get off there because they were afraid.  I admit to being just a little apprehensive myself, but the city was completely safe – well, maybe except for the traffic.  We just closed our eyes and trusted our driver!

We had a wonderful guide – Dora the Explorer herself!

Cartagena was beautiful – lots of churches with beautiful courtyards and flowers cascading down wrought iron balconies.

Lots of interersting art.  I was hoping not to look like this lady after all the good food on the boat!

And I made a new best friend:

We were on Celebrity Cruises and I can't say enough for the customer service.  Our room was spacious (as far as onboard rooms can be), the bed extremely comfortable, the staff extraordinarily kind and responsive and the food – oh the food!  We did pretty well – Bill only gained one pound and I didn't gain any.  We did do a lot of walking and tried to restrain ourselves!

I have to admit it was a little difficult to come back home and not be spoiled every day!  Would I do it again?  In a heartbeat!  However, the next cruise will have to wait a bit while we work on some home improvement projects.  We wanted to do the kitchen first, but decided to start small with the bathroom as a trial project.  I guess it's got to be worse before it gets better!

In other news – you may remember that months ago I posted a review of KnitCompanion for the iPad.  Well, I love it so much that I have become a KnitCompanion instructor!  I've already taught one class and it was very well received.  My next class is scheduled for Sunday, November 11 at Wild Fibers in Mt. Vernon, WA.  So if you're in the area and interested, give Sarah a call.  There are still openings in the class.  Between that, the bathroom remodel and gearing up for the holidays, I can't promise to post regularly, but I'll certainly try. 

The conundrum of blogging is that if your life is exciting enough to blog about, you have no time to blog.  If you have time to blog, there really isn't much to say.  And so it has gone during these last days of summer.  I was shocked to see that it had been almost two months since I posted, yet pleased that my cousin Margaret emailed me to say that she missed my blog.  So I promised her that I would bring things up to date.

This summer has seemed way busier than usual, but until this past month, not with anything earth shaking – just the usual doting on granddaughters, gardening, sewing, running and so forth.  However, on September 21st, things got a lot more exciting!  Bill and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary with a 17 day cruise through the Panama Canal.  We've never cruised before and this was a bit of a gamble taking such a long cruise for our first, but we figured, "What's not to like?"  And we were right!

Here we are toasting as we arrived onboard the Celebrity Infinity:

Don't we look happy?  Our second night out was the first formal night.  I had rack of lamb for the first time.  This really set the stage for food that was definitely four star!

Our first stop was San Francisco.  The first day was dreadfully cold and foggy/rainy and we had a less than memorable trip out to the Golden Gate Bridge.  The second day was better and we had a fun time exploring Chinatown and visiting the hilarious sea lions at Pier 39:

Next up was a stop in Cabo San Lucas.  I was not at all impressed!  It was mostly filled with cheesey tourist trap souvenir shops, bars and aggressive vendors.  We did hit the tail of of a tropical storm and a torrential downpour that made things very exciting!

Puerta Vallarta was a little better with more historical offerings.  Of course, a visit to a tequila factory was mandatory and I think Bill enjoyed it a little too much (it didn't help that I kept dumping mine into his glass)!

Even more rain here!  Our wonderful guide offered to take us to this stunning cathedral even when it meant wading through ankle deep water running through the streets:

Sorry for the sideways photo – Typepad is being ornery.  From there it was on to Costa Rica.  We visited a nature preserve and took a tram up into the rain forest canopy, a walking tour and a boat tour. I loved the little caution signs so that we wouldn't step on the leaf cutter ants.  We also got up close and personal with lots and lots of crocodiles.  We did see a lot of wildlife, but they were a little camera shy, so not too many good photos.

Another formal night and a chance to wear one of my beaded shawls:

And beautiful sunsets almost every night:

And knitting was accomplished – not quite as much as I had expected, but I did get a few rows here and there on Evenstar:

I'll give you a little break here and check back in the next day or so with the rest of the trip.  I wish I could share more photos – we took almost 1,000!!!  But I'm beginning to see a few eyes glazing over!

Hubby and I were discussing recently that this has been one of the busiest summers we can remember.  It seems as if we have been on the go constantly!  We've had company and have spent a lot of time doing all the touristy things.  Some friends from Texas requested that we go up to Canada, since they had never been.  So off we headed to Vancouver, where we made a stop at Granville Market.  I think of it as Pike Place Market on steroids.  There were fruits:

And vegetables:

Breads:

And desserts!

I think a key lime tart may have smuggled its way into my bag.  After battling the horrendous traffic in Vancouver (makes Seattle traffic look like a walk in the park) and a memorable wild goose chase through the hilly streets of White Rock, led by a clown (yes, a real honest-to-goodness clown who was trying to show us the way!), we finally found our B&B and it was glorious!

The weekend before I ran my very first 5k!  I was terribly nervous going into it and even more nervous when we ran out of the gate and most of the rest of the runners passed me like I was standing still!  But I persevered and finished in an upright and running position, spurred on by a fantastic cheering squad:

I came in 50th out of 76 runners/walkers and in my age group I was 6 out of 15.  Abby did even better!  She came in 4th in her age group and missed getting a medal by only a few seconds.  All in all we had a great time and I'm going to continue running and entering races.  I would so love to win my age group some day.  Oh, and my goal of running it in 45 minutes or less?  I ran it in 41:26.  Go Nana!

There has been some time for knitting.  One project I'm not sure enough about to mention, so you'll have to wait, but I have been working on Isobel's winter sweater, Iaian:

Also, I don't think I ever posted a photo of Wingspan:

This was a fun knit, but not one I think I would make over and over.  And I'm also not quite sure how to wear it.  I'll have to experiment.  But it is purty, so I may just hang it over a chair and admire it.

The granddaughters are coming for a sleepover this weekend.  Their last hurrah before school starts.  Isobel will be in second grade and Ivy will be in kindergarten (that sound you hear is a huge sigh of relief from Abby!).  Ivy is actually starting early because she missed the cut off date.  But they had her tested and her scores were sky high, so off to school she goes.