COLD!!

We are having a record cold spell here on the coast right now ... with the wind chill, it's been getting down to -18 at night! That's pretty rare here, and we're feeling it. My computer corner is on the starboard side of the boat, toward the bow .... which means that it faces the 'weather', wind and all; there's an air scoop on the hull right outside my window, too. The result of all this is that it's especially cold to sit at my computer for any length of time right now ... hence, no posts the last few days.

Even this heron was 'hunkering down' to avoid the cold!

 Wanna see that a little closer?

We're off on a little road trip this morning, up to Parksville to a special community Christmas dinner we try to attend every year, and a pre-Christmas visit to my sister Julie and her partner Robert, and our old friend Sri and his new wife, MaryAnn! Home tomorrow....  :) 

YUP. IT SNOWED.

I stopped at Blackburn Lake this afternoon to knit a bit between Welcome Wagon visits. It was cold!

 This is ice in the little creek, not water....

 ... and I just really liked this view across to Mt. Maxwell.

But I was there mainly to prove that it snowed here on Salt Spring Island last night...

See? :)

FIRST SNOW

So it's 7:30 pm., and  I've booked a full day of visits and errands to run in Ganges tomorrow - 12 miles away, by the way. I've been sitting here beside the fire knitting, oblivious to the world outside in the dark .... and Michael just got home from Ganges, informing me that it's snowing outside.

Sure enough, I opened the blinds to see if it really was true ... and it's snowing outside.

Guess I have to wait until morning to see if I have to start cancelling my plans. What a shame it would be if I had to stay home and knit tomorrow.... lol. After all, I've just started the 2013 Advent Scarf, so I'll have  some knitting to do!

Well, I was tempted to take a day off from blogging after succeeding in completing NaBloPoMo, but I decided I better not ... I've got a habit re-established here!

I had a pretty lazy day today ... it rained off and on so I started a little fire in the woodstove, knitted a little, did a bit of housework (why, yes, I do housework .. but only when I really need a break from the important stuff I'm doing. Like knitting.) and finally blocked a shawl I finished over a month ago:

It's Harbour Lights by Sivia Harding, (one of my all-time favorite lace designers), but I used a narrower border ... probably about the 6th or 7th one I've knit since she debuted the pattern at the Victoria FibreFest several years ago. This one is a gift for someone I hope to see tomorrow, so I'm glad it's drying quickly!

Next up ... I've *got* to get the red baby blanket blocked and ready to ship -- it's going up-Island to Parksville with us on Saturday morning so Julie can take it to Alberta when she goes for Christmas. My niece, Doneen, had her baby shower today... she's due on January 4th, and I think this is the first preggo picture any of us has seen of her!

I might have to have another lazy day tomorrow... there's an outside chance there will be snow on the ground when we wake up in the morning, apparently.

HIGH FIVES!

Hey, I just blogged every single day for 30 days for the first time in MONTHS! Now... let's see if I can keep it up....

Had a great day today -- finished teaching the 4-week intermediate class at Stitches Yarn Shop here on Salt Spring. Great class, great students -- it was a lot of fun!

Michael met me after the class -- it was 'Light Up' day today in Ganges, and it had all happened before I finished my class, so we drove around and looked at the lights a bit. Christmas on Salt Spring is a pretty big deal around here! Santa comes by floatplane, for one thing... that happened at 1 pm today:

There's a chili competition going on in Ganges right now (we were cold and tired so we came home), kids' entertainment, et. ... and lots of other Christmas happenings. Fun!

Day off tomorrow ... I'm looking forward to doing some Christmas knitting, catching up on some paperwork, and not much else! :)

Over and out for November....  :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

I had a lovely birthday day today ...

It started when I woke up to a gorgeous bouquet of flowers on the table.

 And then Michael, who can't cook, cooked us 'breakfast' -- how cute is this?

I stayed in my jammies, knitting and drinking coffee, until almost 2 pm. Then I had to go into Ganges because today was the opening day for 'WinterCraft', the Salt Spring Arts Council's Christmas season Show and Sale ... and yours truly is one of the artisans in it, and I hadn't finished setting up my display and pricing yet! Didn't quite get done before the doors opened, but it worked out okay...

Wanna buy a lace shawl? Or a cowl? Or some Christmas doilies and 'mug rugs?' I got 'em.

Here's an overview of the whole show, which looked amazing ... my stuff is in that first aisle just to the left of the woman in the burgundy coat.

 This is Richard Steel, the manager/creative genius behind this whole shindig:

The show goes from now until Dec. 23rd, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, so if you're in the neighborhood, come check it out. :-)

Anyway, when I got finished at the hall, I got home in time to pick Michael up and we went to the Rock Salt for dinner. It's been a lovely day!

Tomorrow... my last intermediate knitting class. It'll be fun!

A COLORFUL DAY

I mentioned yesterday that I had to get my entry in today for the Eye For Color show the Guild will hold in the spring of 2014. Thursday is the regular Guild meeting, but I couldn't get there until it was almost over because of several other stops I had to make first. When I got there, a color workshop, facilitated by member Rosemary, was just ending.

This is Rosemary.... (wearing a sweater that she knit from yarn she spun and dyed, from a fleece she processed, in a pattern she designed herself, by the way)...

... and this is all that color they were working with, close up... :-)

I was sorry I missed it! But I did get my Eye for Color registration in on time, though. :-)

And then, after a Welcome Wagon visit way up a mountain here on the south end, I stopped for a few minutes at one of my favorite viewpoints. Only I couldn't see much because the fog was rolling in. But I got some great pictures ... great color, great light.

So it was a colorful day!

I was at the Fulford ferry at 7:15 this morning and watched the sun come up ... this is looking southeast out of the harbour toward Schwartz Bay where the ferry comes from.

 And speaking of ferries, the Skeena Queen appeared as I was watching.

And then I heard a noise below me on the dock...

Check out that rebel in the middle!

Made it into Victoria and, of course, after all my errands were done, and before time to go to the lunch I made time to do some knitting at Clover Point. When I left I took the long way around the harbour and I was sure glad I did... this massive BARGE was sitting at the cruise ship dock at Ogden Point. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it!

Oh, and lunch was lovely, too...

:)

WinterCraft

As a juried member of the Salt Spring Arts Council, I am now invited to participate in the annual winter Art Show and Sale ... opening this Friday and happening daily until Dec. 23rd. Today was set-up day at the hall, and I wasn't actually ready .... so I was relieved when I arrived to find that they weren't sure where they were putting everyone yet, so they weren't ready either! That meant I got a reprieve ... until Thursday morning.

I just have a few little things left to do ... a couple of I-cord ties for some lacy little knitted gift bags, finishing up the descriptions/care instructions on all the tags, making sure everything is properly priced, etc. I will have several coaster ('mug rug') sets in Christmas laciness there, as well as some of my shawls, and several cowls. I lowered most of my prices since the summer show, and I'm excited to be part of this one! Here's one of the pieces I'll have at WinterCraft...

It's a circular tablecloth (or christening shawl?) in crochet cotton, knit on size 2.75 mm needles. It took a little while to knit. ;)

Tomorrow is the Welcome Wagon Christmas staff lunch in Victoria, so I won't have time to do any of that until tomorrow evening. I'll take along a couple of toques I've started for the ferry rides ... one has to get mailed away to our old buddy Mike, who has moved to Winnipeg, soon, if it's going to make it there before Christmas. The other is for the local Santas Anonymous Christmas dinner ... I'm hoping to create several little gifts for that event, and get some other local knitters to help, too.

And then Thursday is the deadline to get my application in to the Salt Spring Weavers and Spinners Guild (of which I'm a member) for their spring show at ArtSpring Theatre called 'Eye for Color.'  I'm *really* excited about this project .... each Guild member partners with any other artist in the community (many choose painters, but the other artist can be a photographer, a painter, a graphic artist, or whatever), picks a theme, and then collaborates within their respective skills to produce two coordinating pieces. As you can see if you clicked on that link, the results are amazing!

I'll be partnering with a very talented local young photographer by the name of Billie Woods (who is also a knitter, that's how we met) - and if you click on that link, that's her voice singing as well. She's in Europe doing some singing gigs and taking pictures as we speak... so I wouldn't be surprised if our theme will be 'architecture' or something like that. :-)

Then on Friday, apparently our children have invited us to Victoria again for  dinner (because apparently it's my birthday) - fun! :)

AMPS AND VOLTS AND WATTS OH MY

People sometimes ask me why I don't post more about being a liveaboard .... about life on a boat. Well, the answer generally is that, most days, my life doesn't look much different than yours -- even though I live it afloat.

But some things really are different when you live aboard, and I became painfully aware of one of those differences over the last few days while it's been cold outside.

You see, we don't have the same electrical power that you have in a house. From my limited understanding of the difference, I'll try to explain.... 

There are 15 amps in a standard '110 volt' outlet -- the kind that you all have a few dozen of in your homes. And you could plug something in to every single outlet in your house and be using all that electricity ... and probably never blow a breaker.

Here on our boat .... and in many marinas ... we have a total of 30 amps of power available to us at any time. Period.

Your average coffee pot, while perking, uses 6 - 9 amps. An electric heater of any sort generally uses about 13. A hot water tank uses about 15 amps. A TV and satellite system and computer and printer and cordless phone and fridge and a lamp to see them all with will use a total of about 15 amps.

Can you see how this could be a problem?

Right. In the summer, 30 amps is plenty of power for us ... we don't have heat on (and neither does any other boat in the marina), and our hot water tank is a 'mini' version so it only uses about 7 amps or so. So we can run our 'house' and never blow a breaker.

This time of year, however, we need heat ... and the other boats here, even though no one else lives aboard, still often have a little heater on board to stave off mildew. And we don't *each* have 30 amps; I'm not exactly sure how many amps we all have, but I do know that sometimes if I turn on the coffee pot at the moment that someone else's heater kicks in, the breaker to the whole dock blows.

And Michael then gets up from his recliner, puts his boots on, goes up the dock to the driveway, and flips the breaker.

But never mind the other boats. Just on this one, we sometimes have to 'juggle' our power requirements if we don't want to blow the breaker. Especially when it's cold enough that we'd like to have a heater on ... in the aft cabin (that would be our bedroom), for example, while we have the woodstove warming up the salon (that's the living-room, in boat talk).

So we do this dance, almost daily, in the winter months. Want to make coffee? Turn off the hot water heater for that 10 minutes (and don't forget to turn it back on so you have hot water for your shower in half an hour). Need to use the hair blower? Better turn off the heater for a few minutes so I can dry my hair.

Get the picture? Mostly, it's an accepted disadvantage of daily live-aboard life. But sometimes it's just really annoying!  

I did knit a hat today...

... so I'm happy about that!

I've had a *delicious* day -- and it had nothing to do with food(well, almost nothing)!

First of all, I didn't have anything I 'had' to do. So I could stay in my jammies all day ... and I did just that.

There was a heavy frost outside at daylight, and it stayed cold all day. So I started a little fire in the woodstove and kept it toasty warm in here the whole day.

(No I don't have a Christmas tree up yet ... that's an old photo).

Michael went in to Ganges to run some errands, so I had my home to myself for several hours. 

I got some carrots, onions and potatoes prepared, and put a pot roast in the oven .... more warmth without turning on the electric heat.

I did some dishes, tidied up a bit, made a few phone calls. Played mindless games on the computer ... for almost an hour.

Between ferries, Fulford is sooooooooooo quiet; I love it, and today I literally 'absorbed' the quiet all day. Sometimes I find a radio station on my computer to listen to while I work -- but not today. Just silence.

Then I soaked and blocked some knitting -- a few lace doilies that will be for sale at ArtCraft by the end of the week, and the christening shawl I knit several weeks ago (pictures tomorrow). I stopped to look outside at the world around me several times ... beautiful blue sky, flat calm, lots of wintering birds around chasing minnow. Lovely! 

And I knit. Cast on a toque this morning in a tweedy gray alpaca ... and I've almost finished it now.

Michael came home ... and went almost immediately for his daily nap. More quiet.... :)

It's now 7 pm., and dinner is ready. It's been a 'delicious' day! :)

A GREAT DAY!

This morning as I was getting out of the boat to go teach my knitting class, I heard an unmistable sound in the air above me...

This eagle was talking to one on a branch a little further along the shoreline - and I had time to get my camera out of my bag while balancing on our rocking 'porch', at the time, and get the photo, before they both flew away.

Then I got to the yarn store to teach the class, and when I walked into the classroom this is what I saw...

The piece was called 'Ode to Cedar,' and guess what? It's made from THREAD. Not even YARN, just thread. Unbelievable! (Remember that you can click on the pic to make it bigger to see more detail). 

Then we got back to the marina just about dusk... and this was the scene in the sky above me. . . 

It doesn't get much better than this. I love my life!

 

MORNING MIST

I'm almost always up by 5 a.m. That's my quiet knitting time, and I love it - the phone doesn't ring, no one will come to the door, there are no boats moving around in the harbour and the ferry hasn't fired up for the day yet. And Michael always sleeps until at least 8 a.m.

Of course, these days it's not light out until at least 7 a.m. - which is when I put the knitting down for a break, open the curtains and have a look out at the day. The thermometre has dipped below zero (but only just) the last few nights, so it's been cold out there. This is what it looked like in Fulford Harbour when I opened the curtains this morning...

Doesn't that look cold to you?

And then I looked out another window...

... and there was a mist about a foot high on the water. Out another window...

... these are some old abandoned boathouses in the corner of the bay ... and the same mist. 

Then I noticed it was moving. Within 10 minutes it had all dissipated completely, and we had amazing blue sky all day. 

It was still cold, though! 

ALL ABOUT KNITTING :)

I've been knitting.  :-)

This is a test knit cowl and I used some old hand-spun for it; it's lovely, and it'll be a Christmas present for someone!

This is another test knit, a 'shawlette' and I haven't even blocked it yet, but it's black, and it has beads, and I may have to keep it for myself. ;-)

And yes, I have spindle spun.

Both of my spindles came home with some actual spun fibre on them the other night. Not *well* spun, but spun. It's fun.... just not sure if I'll pursue this, because it may take me til I'm 79 to be able to spin laceweight yarn, which is pretty much all I use anymore!

Still working on the baby blanket.... more tomorrow.