Victoria Day After

It's a sleepy Tuesday-as-Monday kind of day here in the woods. We are getting much-needed rain, so the house is dark and makes you feel like going for a snooze.

The weekend was quiet here, since both kids had other places to be. The lake was pretty quiet, though we did have neighbours up on either side. The kids on the right all went into the water and on the water. The son on the left said it wasn't bad - but we did the water testing and I know it was 19 Celsius. Not swimming temp for me quite yet.

This week will be a day short and very busy getting ready for a business lunch in Toronto on Thursday and then leaving for Kingston early Friday morning for the OHCG Annual in Kingston. I am doing a tutorial-type workshop on Saturday which means dragging along a lot of stuff - again! We hookers do not travel light.

This week's post is a mix of this and that. I am working on a hooking project, but can't share it just yet, so have some other goodies for this post.

First my little Bolivar story from Friday.

Let me begin by saying that I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Bolivar, but it hasn't been feeling well for a few weeks and despite my best efforts to administer first aid, I was just not "cutting it" (no pun intended). When I spoke with Bruce at Bolivar, he made a suggestion over the phone, but somehow,  instead of helping, I made things worse - if that was possible.

Enter Walter!!!! He is the very handy husband of one of my students. She suggested before I shipped it off to the east coast (I can't imagine the postage to send it there), I let her hubby have a look. And yes indeed-y, he was able to solve the problem and put me back in the cutting business. Walter - I love you. Note to self: move "handy" up the list of things to ask for in the next husband (AS IF!)

The rest of the weekend was spent in full black fly avoidance, sewing and knitting. I have now got a few knitting projects on the go, and they are triaged into categories such as "Perfect for TV knitting", "Pay Attention While Knitting" and "Knit While Repeating the Pattern, Either Out Loud or In Your Head". Needless to say, the last one is a bit of a stinker.

Here it is - it is called Void and is a Norah Gaughan pattern - not particularly difficult - but with slippery yarn, dropping a stitch means starting over!!! So far, after 5 starts, the back is done and one sleeve. Now the front is under way and I am only allowing myself to work on it where and when there are no distactions.

This is the Perfect for TV pattern. It is called Relax and the hardest thing was finding the perfect yarn. I finally did - in Peterborough - and it is a merino, bamboo and linen blend in a creamy white. Here is a picture of the pattern.

The Pay Attention is the ongoing parade of "hexipuffs" for the Bee Keeper's Quilt from Ravelry. The pay attention part is to keep remembering not to cast off the puffs before stuffing them - I can't tell you how many times I have done it.

My puff count is now at 132!!! And I have divided them by colour to get an idea of proportions.
I am still so far from the total that I haven't even really contemplated the construction, but am pretty sure I would like to have an even number of puffs in all colours. (That picture is from Ravelry, not my actual puffs.) And I have not done any of those cute little duplicate stitch puffs.

Hopefully next week's post will be jam-packed with rug news from the Annual.

Such Devoted Sisters

My friend Elizabeth, who happened to organize the Orillia Photo to Mat  workshop, was very excited to try and do a mat from a photo of her sister and herself. It was a challenge, but one she was willing to rise to, since the relationship she had with her sister was very special indeed.

She recently lost her sister but managed to find two photos from a recent visit.

Here is the photo that she started with.

And here is the wonderful memory mat she created.

I think she definitely captured the essence of each of them - the eyes have it, I suppose.

And although she originally had hooked some of the detail of background from the photo, she decided to simplify things and focus on the faces. A wonderful decision in my estimation.

I am sure the journey of hooking from this photo was very bittersweet. But Elizabeth has created a mat that captures the closeness of the relationship in a medium that brings her joy.  It doesn't get much better than that.

Thanks Elizabeth, for letting me share. 

A Mountain of a Mat.

At a R.U.G. meeting this past Saturday, one of my students from last fall at OHCG school held up her photo mat for Show and Tell.

Here was her original photo (or this might have been a print out of the photo).

And here is her mat.

I think she really did a great job in capturing the shadows and the light. Mountains are hard enough to photograph, let alone hook.

Great job Lorna. I do feel very proud when I get to see them finished!

My Latest Photo to Mat

This is the little mat that I started before heading to Orillia, so that I would have something to work on if we hooked at night.

We didn't hook at night, knit instead, so I wanted to finish the little bit outstanding before starting something else.

This is from a picture my husband took in the fall -  me sitting outside and hooking. It was a perfect day - the sun was warm, the light was beautiful, and I hooked for a couple of hours down close to the water.

This was the original image.

Although the sunshine on the deck was nice to see, I decided to crop in a bit closer to the action.

 So this is the composition I used for the pattern - actually getting rid of a bit more of the trees.

And this is the little mat, which measures about 9 x 12.  It is hooked mostly in 6 and 8 cut and from whatever was in my stash.

Now that is a memory worth hooking.