SAME GREAT LIFE, DIFFERENT BEACHES

Our trip to Parksville was lovely ... we really enjoy these little road trips. We always meander our way up the Island ... stop for gas just south of Duncan (because it's usually about 5 cents a litre cheaper than here in Victoria), stop at the veggie market, and in addition to much veggies, we often pick up deli items to have a picnic at Transfer Beach in Ladysmith ...

The view to the left...

The view to the right over the amphitheatre and the 'logger sports' pole...

Then we checked out a couple of our favorite second-hand shops between Ladysmith and Qualicum Beach, and ended up at one of our favorite beach-watching spots, right beside the Tourist Info place in Qualicum. To our left, that's Denman and Hornby Islands in the distance...

And right across the Strait of Georgia and to our right is Lasqueti Island (and beyond that is Texada) ...

We spent the night at our friends (and got soundly trounced in euchre, as always, lol) and then took the beach blanket to my sister Julie. It looks great as a cover for her daybed!

Sunday we meandered our way back down the Island to Victoria, and caught this beautiful sunset from Saxe Point Park before we drove home to the marina. . .


Much knitting took place, as always, and I don't have a thing to show for it -- I'll post pics of the two shawls I'm working on soon, I swear!

OF BEACH BLANKETS AND GINGERBREAD HOUSES

Day before yesterday our grandson River's (grade 3) class made gingerbread houses and I managed to catch him standing still just before it got devoured ...

ON THE NEEDLES: In the absence of current knitting projects to show off (still slogging through that long list of 'finishing/tucking in ends' projects) I'll tell you a story about my 'beach blanket'. Almost two years ago, I got an idea that I'd like to try intarsia knitting for the first time. I had a photo of a favorite beach (Tribune Bay on Hornby Island, to be precise) that I had been hoping to somehow 'reproduce' and it would require knowing how to change colors across the row. Around the same time I found an online site that will instantly change your uploaded photo into a knitting graph. Here's the photo:

And then you upload the photo at Microrevolt.org to have it magically changed to a graph.

And here, with a little creative embellishment, is the queen-sized blanket I knit as a result...

But here's the thing ... after, let's see, 320 stitches per row (which took about 7 minutes to knit) and 6 rows to the inch, and the completed blanket is 84" long ... after about 70 hours of work ... I don't like this blanket. It's not just because it took so long, either. It's because it doesn't work in the bedroom at all, it's much too busy; and because even the tiny bit of acrylic I used (for those dark 'mountains in the distance' at the midpoint) has already pilled; and because I spilled some coffee on it while it was a WIP and the cleaners couldn't get it out. In short, I don't like this blanket. It's a work of art, I guess, but .... I have to decide what to do with it now.