TGIF :)

Well, it hasn't really been such a grueling week, I'm just sick of being sick -- this summer cold is hanging on for dear life and making me crazy!

But a knitting cruise is always good therapy -- we had seven people join us on Wednesday! We headed out to Albert Head but there was about a 4-5 ft swell, so we changed direction and ended up anchoring in the nook behind the Fisgard Lighthouse -- it was calm, and hot, and lovely.

Then the wind came up so we headed back in to the harbour, but we were having fun and it was too early to come home, so we docked in front of the Empress for a bit... that was lovely, too!


That pair of black socks is nearly off the needles, but more importantly I've finished several pattern repeats on the lavender heather shawl (about a foot) and now you can see it:

That's the main pattern down the centre back, and this is the pattern that repeats on each arm...

I'm loving it! Today is Knit'n'Cafe so I'll probably have the socks ready to graft by the end of the day.

I keep forgetting to mention that my blogiversary contest garnered precisely three entries, so .... I'm going to see that each of those folks gets a 'consolation prize' of some kind.I know from my stats that I have a lot more than three readers, so I don't know what happened, but I appreciate those of you who took the time to enter, and you'll be hearing from me!

CHATHAM/DISCOVERY ISLANDS

We went with Julie, Erin and Hailey on an overnight cruise, and got back day before yesterday. Instead of turning right at the harbour entrance to go to Albert Head, we turned left and went over to the Chatham/Discovery Islands off Oak Bay. Hailey's young eyes spotted the blow of the gray whale that's been hanging around, in Enterprise Channel, so we hung out and watched it for a bit.(Sorry, no pics -- sometimes you can either HAVE the experience, or you can RECORD the experience!)

Here's where we ended up anchoring.... it was lovely. Haro Strait, San Juan Island and Mt. Baker in the background...

A whale-watching excursion cutting through...


It was busy and we weren't 'tucked in' quite as much as I'd like, but it went fine ...

Today we're off the dock again, this time on another knitting cruise -- it looks like we'll have seven or eight guests, and I think this time we *will* go to Albert Head -- we just have to anchor further out than we're used to. I'm looking forward to it!

THE NON-CRUISE BOAT CRUISE

The day started out gloomy and gray, but the sun eventually came out and it turned in to a lovely day. Unfortunately the 20-knot wind never abated from the moment we woke up ... so the knitting cruise was unable to go cruising!

Six intrepid knitters turned up, though, and to my delight, they all elected to stay and make a day of it ...


We knitted, we chatted, we laughed, we ate great pot luck contributions -- all on the bridge of the Wind Walker, which never left the dock. By the time I remembered to take pictures, Anne and Ruth had already gone, but Deb, Della, Wendy and Louise and I hung out until almost 4 pm. It would have been really nice to actually untie the ropes and change the scenery, but we had a great time, anyway!

I have started another shawl of my own design .... it's in a heathery-lavender color in Jagger-Spun 100% wool, and it's already looking like my most challenging project to date:


Some time today Hailey arrives from Whistler for a week or so -- I'll finally be able to put FibreFest 2010 'to bed' with her help! But more importantly, we'll celebrate her (last week) 33rd birthday by following the tradition we started when she was about 18 -- we'll go to the Salt Spring Island market for the day tomorrow! Then by the time we get home, Julie and her friend Erin should be arriving from up-Island, and we'll hopefully go for an overnight cruise Sunday and Monday.

Looks like lots of 'R & R' and knitting time for me ... "just what the doctor ordered" since I'm still not 100% back on my feet yet.

KNITTING CRUISES

Tomorrow is our first knitting cruise of the year, FINALLY! (If you're a local fibre person and you didn't get the memo, we're doing three fibre-y day trips on the Wind Walker this summer -- tomorrow, next Thursday, and the final one is on Sunday, August 15th). You're welcome to come along for any or all -- admission is: a fibre-y project in hand, a pot luck lunch contribution, and a $10-20 donation for fuel and maintenance. I'll be supplying tea, coffee, bottled water and soft drinks.

We'll leave the dock at 10 a.m. and return between 4 - 5 pm. There's still room on all those dates, so get in touch with me if you'd like to come along! (Call or email me, or leave me a comment with a way to contact you...)

Meanwhile, I'm slowly feeling better every day ... and I'm staying warm...

This is the first moebius I've made for a long time, but I love it and I loved knitting it! (It really is magical, the moebius)! The wool is hand-spun, gifted to me by someone who took a bag of my raw fleece in the spring, and in my perfect colors.


Now ... I feel a shawl coming on...

NOT HAVING FUN

But before I start whining about that, someone I know and love has a BIRTHDAY today!

Our Hailey is 33 years young today -- that picture is her dipping her toes in the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France a month or so ago. We don't get to see her nearly as often as we'd like, but she's carved out a lovely life for herself as a professional organizer in Whistler -- and she's smart, fun, funny and thoughtful, too. Have a happy, happy birthday, Hail -- see you later this week, I hope!

Last Thursday(has it been THAT long since I posted??) I mentioned that I had an appointment. That appointment was with a dentist, and little did I know that I would end up having five extractions that day, four of which required dental surgery! On top of the cold I still had, that would have been bad enough to cause me some discomfort for a few days -- and I'll spare you the worst details -- but by Saturday morning I knew things were not healing up the way they should, and now I'm on yet another course of antibiotics and eating anti-inflammatories as often as I'm allowed!

I've been out of the boat maybe twice since then -- lots of sleeping, knitting, resting, sleeping, knitting, going on here. (You notice I didn't say 'eating?' That would be because that activity is pretty limited -- good thing I like cold smoothies...)

Okay, enough of this whining. I have knitting projects to show you!

This be-ribboned hat was a test knit for a designer on Ravelry, and I had Charlotte and Renate model it for me at Knit'n'Cafe on Friday:


Can't say much more about that until the pattern is published, but it was a quick, fun knit.

I also finished the scarflette (hmmm, is that a word?) ...

... and a hat for charity:

And last night, I cast on for a new Moebius cowl -- I'd forgotten how to do the cast on, so it's a good thing Cat Bordhi gifted it to the world last year in the form of this YouTube video!

Today, now that I know I'm going to live , we might go for a little cruise out and about -- so if you don't hear from me again until Wednesday, it means we found somewhere lovely to anchor for an over-night!

ON THE MEND

I must be feeling a bit better ... I have three projects on the needles again!

Here's a better pic of the lace 'scarflet' ...

I love it. It's an easy 12-row repeat, but looks like I've been messing with cables on every row!

I also cast on a new pair of socks FINALLY. I seem to have, in my possession, an abundance of leftover self-patterning sock yarn, and about 8 skeins of plain black -- so the next series of socks I make will be black with self-patterning cuffs, heels and toes. Great way to use up the stash!

Yesterday -- instead of going out to Wendy's, where they washed and played with raw wool:

... and admired her 5' high flax field in flower (yes, I did that on purpose :))...

(Thanks for the pics, Wendy, I *knew* I should have made the effort to get out there!)

Instead, I managed to drag myself out of the boat long enough to run one errand, and go to Clover Point for an hour. On the way up the ramp, I was entertained by this little guy fishing in the low tide:



This morning I need to drag myself out again for an appointment, but otherwise still don't expect to accomplish much!

A DAY OFF

Ha! That's the only kind of day I seem to be having since the FibreFest -- still sick, still have no energy.

Yesterday morning our Galiano friend Mike was coming for coffee, so when it was time for him to head back to the ferry, Michael and I locked up the boat, shut off the cell phone, and drove him back out to Sidney. (Mike always arrives at the ridiculous hour of 9 a.m. when he catches the first boat over, so it was before noon that we were taking him back out...)

Then we treated ourselves to a late lunch overlooking the Sidney harbour, and then we drove over and parked at my favorite spot near the Anacortes ferry. Michael read the paper and dozed, and I played with lace...
Wanna see that closer? :)

It's a stitch pattern sequence from a knitted dress out of an ancient Vogue magazine, and it may become a cowl for me -- but it's fun to play with in the meantime until I decide.

Today already looks like more of the same for me ... I'm pretty sick of being sick!

ALBERT HEAD :(

The last time we were out at our local paradise aka Albert Head, we had a pretty negative experience that I didn't tell you about. At 8:30 a.m. on the Monday morning (after spending two nights there), we were up on the bridge of the boat enjoying our morning coffee and listening to the kingfishers (read: peaceful, quiet, calm) when a soldier drove up to the head of the DND dock there, and came walking -- quite purposefully -- out to the end of the dock. He yelled 'Good morning,' and we yelled 'Good morning' back to him.

(Let me back up here to tell you -- or remind you if you've heard it before -- that Albert Head is a military establishment with a little dock, and signs all over the place warning visitors not to come ashore, anywhere, ever. So we don't. We anchor usually about 100' off that little dock, tucked into the cove, and behave ourselves admirably.)

Back to our soldier on the dock, who then yelled, "You people will have to pull up your anchor and leave immediately. It is against the law to be within 150 metres of Department of National Defence property -- and it's a boaters responsibility to know that!!"

To which I yelled back, "We've been anchoring here for five years, and no one has ever said a word!"

To which he yelled back, "As I said, you'll have to pull up your anchor and move now. Right. I'll be back in ten minutes."

The guy had an attitude a mile high, and he'd already ruined our peaceful morning coffee, so we did what he said -- pulled up and left. At the time we wrote it off as someone who was having a bad day, and decided we'd go back and try again, soon.

Well, yesterday morning that was the plan, but the wind came up before we could get off the dock. But later yesterday afternoon a fellow from our marina who went out sailing (I hear those sailboats like the wind much better than we do) reported that he'd just set down his anchor at Albert Head for a little lunch break, and the scene was repeated -- same bully soldier, same bad attitude, by the sound of it.

Unfortunately, if you anchor 150 metres from the shore at Albert Head, you are not in the protected cove anymore, which means there's not much point in going there.

I think I'm in mourning. :( Finding a new spot that close to the harbour and that beautiful will be a real challenge!

To top it off, I'm still sick -- terrible cough, no energy, and not having fun. Accomplished pretty much nothing all weekend. Well, I was an 'armchair athlete' at the newest playground on Saturday...





I expect I'll accomplish more of the same nothing today. :-)

CONTEST and ACTUAL KNITTING CONTENT

Okay, I'm going to get issues here ... I posted a CONTEST three days ago, and not one single person has entered -- what's up with that? If I don't get several entries, it's hardly a contest, so here's the info again, from July 5th:

TODAY is my BLOGOVERSARY, and I promised a contest to celebrate that and my 50th pair of knitted socks, didn't I? So, here it is -- to enter my blogoversary contest:

1. Post the contest on your blog with a clickable link to this post, and invite folks to come on over and enter. That gets you one entry into the draw.

2. Post a comment on my blog letting me know that you're 'in' and giving me a clickable link to YOUR blog post about it. That gets you another entry.

3. Every person who does the same two steps, but adds that YOU sent them gets you another entry in to the draw.

4. Answer these simple questions (which can be found in the contents of my blog without looking very hard, and you can email the answers to skipper at mvwindwalker dot com):
- what are my grown children's names?
- what are my grandchildren's names?
- what does my house look like?
- what do I do for a living?
- which blogoversary is this (in other words, how long have I been blogging?)
- where's my favorite 'get-away'?
Correct answers to four of the six questions gets you THREE entries into the draw.

The contest ends on July 16th at 6 pm PST, and one name will be drawn randomly sometime on the weekend of July 17th-18th. The winner will receive a gift basket of goodies (fibery goodies if the winner identifies as a fibre person; other goodies if not) valued at approximately $50!

Laying around being sick is NOT fun -- for the third time in my life I had a temperature approaching 104 degrees night before last, and it took almost two hours to get it down just under 102! Yesterday was only slightly better -- it fluctuated between 100-102 the whole day, but at least I could sit up (read: KNIT!), stay awake for more than an hour, and drink lots of water.

The temperature outside got up to 89 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday, so I sat in one spot most of the day with a fan trained on my face! I'm on antibiotics, so the good news is that I'm on the mend ... for example, today I just feel like someone ran over me with a very large truck - but my temperature is apparently normal.

KNITTING happens when you're incapable of doing anything else! I've finished a shawl for the Sexual Assault Centre, Gibson's hounds-tooth-check socks, and two hats for CommunityKnitters.com.




Today will be more of the same -- the heat wave, and my complete lack of energy, continues!

CELEBRATIONS

Had a lovely time up-island at the wedding (scroll down for more on that story, and photos) -- unfortunately I picked up a bug, and started feeling sick on the way home -- never got out of my jammies yesterday, and may not today, either. Yuck! However, that has given me time to notice that TODAY is my BLOGOVERSARY, and I promised a contest to celebrate that and my 50th pair of knitted socks, didn't I? So, here it is -- to enter my blogoversary contest:

1. Post the contest on your blog with a clickable link to this post, and invite folks to come on over and enter. That gets you one entry into the draw.

2. Post a comment on my blog letting me know that you're 'in' and giving me a clickable link to YOUR blog post about it. That gets you another entry.

3. Every person who does the same two steps, but adds that YOU sent them gets you another entry in to the draw.

4. Answer these simple questions (which can be found in the contents of my blog without looking very hard, and you can email the answers to skipper at mvwindwalker dot com):
- what are my grown children's names?
- what are my grandchildren's names?
- what does my house look like?
- what do I do for a living?
- which blogoversary is this (in other words, how long have I been blogging?)
- where's my favorite 'get-away'?
Correct answers to four of the six questions gets you THREE entries into the draw.

The contest ends on July 16th at 6 pm PST, and one name will be drawn randomly sometime on the weekend of July 17th-18th. The winner will receive a gift basket of goodies (fibery goodies if the winner identifies as a fibre person; other goodies if not) valued at approximately $50!

Now, back to the wedding...

Dave and Vicky's wedding in Parksville was absolutely 'fairy-tale' -- the weather was perfect, the setting exquisite and the bride and groom absolutely adorable.



Dave has been our son Jason's closest friend since high school, almost 20 years ago -- Jason, just to the right of the groom, was the best man.

Here comes the bride...



The happy couple after signing the register...

Presenting Mr. and Mrs...



For this old wedding cynic, it was a picture-perfect day, ending with a spectacular sunset over Parksville Bay:

We spent the night at Julie's and then went to Dave and Vicky's open house/gift opening in Nanaimo on the way home ... where they unwrapped, among many other gifts, the blanket I literally finished in the car on the way up to the wedding!


I'm going back to bed now....