a day trip to the west coast

I know what you are thinking. Am I not already on the west coast? Well, not exactly. I'm on the east coast of Vancouver Island. The west coast is a three and a half hour drive from here. So, on Saturday, Toni and I headed west!

The first place we stopped was Coombs. Coombs is this lovely little touristy town set in the middle of agricultural land. It is the setting for a number of interesting and quirky shops. I've been on the Island long enough to not be to drawn into all the quirk, but I do love stopping in at the Coombs Country Market, where, in the summer time, you should be able to see the Goats on the Roof. The goats weren't on the roof of the main shop on the day we went, but I knew they lived out back, so we had a look. I saw this sweet little guy itching himself on the fence and went over to give him a scratch under the chin. They see people all the time, and because they are kid-height, probably get a lot of loving.

Here is is his buddy, overlooking a very steep ravine. 

 The washroom at Coombs Country Market.

 The Market is a neat place for all kinds of reasons. Their schtick is to have lots of interesting import food, some of it healthy, some if it just interesting. Dan and I have a habit of looking for the latest in new beverages. I hadn't seen this one before, different flavors of ginger ale.

 We arrived in Ucluelet some time after 1:00. We stopped in at our friends' house, then the four of us went to the aquarium. It used to be just a little trailer, probably not more than 200 square feet, with no heating or bathrooms. It was a long time fundraising goal to be able to build a new aquarium. When I left in July last year, they had reached their goal and had started pouring concrete. It was finally open!

 They did a good job of the buildings and displays but I have to say, I found the selection of species featured here a bit disappointing. Above is the octopus, which of course is sleeping (she is always sleeping!) but it is much better to see her here than how they had it set up in the old trailer.

 Suction cups!

 One of the two jellyfish displays, this is one of the tanks from the old aquarium. Kind of boring.

 With the lighting coming in from the windows and creating glare, and with my little iPhone camera, it wasn't easy to get a good shot. The above photo is taken from the back of the aquarium, looking towards the door. It's all one big room with a main display in the middle. They used as much local wood and materials for construction as possible.

 I think the flatfish display was my favourite. Mostly it was Starry Flounder but the guy with the big dot on his side is a C-O sole. Why is it called a C-O sole, you ask? Well, it's because when they first identified this species and were thinking of a name, they couldn't decide if the spot looked like a 'C' or an 'O'. I know, right? That's what I was told when I was training for my fish job a few years ago.

 At one point I felt like I was communing with these guys. A bunch of these flat fish with buggy eyes came near to where I was sitting. It's a low tank, maybe no higher than my knee, so I could squat down and be really close to them. I know they could see me. I wonder what they were thinking with their swively eyes?

 I don't think I caught it very well but there are two sculpins leaning on the starfish, having a conversation.

 Same tank, different sculpin.


After the aquarium we headed to Tofino to visit Ellie at Knits by the Sea, the yarn shop I worked at when I lived in the area. Then to Tacofino for fish tacos. Stopped back into our friends' house for a snack and to look at photos, then Toni and I were back on the road.

Oh yeah! This is the bread I bought at the Coombs Market. When my sister was visiting last year, she bought this loaf called Triple Spiral Rye bread. We loved it and it has since been made into legend in our family. I got another one in her honour. Also: fudge. This helped fortify me and Toni as we spent Sunday gardening and laying around, the Skipper had some when he got back from fishing.



We left for our trip just before 9am. With all the stops and the construction on highway 4, it took about four hours to get there, then three and a half to get back. It was a l o n g day, we got home just before 11pm. I think if we do it again before I leave, we'll do an overnight trip.

Also, if you are reading this and you live there and I didn't visit you, it's because we didn't have time!

spinning at Providence Farm

On the second Monday of every month, a few spinners gather at St. Ann's Garden house at Providence Farm to spin up the roving from the Farm's sheep. That yarn then gets knitted, crocheted or woven into items that are sold at the Farm's store. All this work is done by volunteers.

I was the first to arrive at my first spinning day, so I had the use of the spinning wheel that lives in St. Ann's. I spun up one bobbin of wool, then passed it on to another lady. There were seven people and only three wheels, so we took turns. There was also a bit of knitting. It made me really wish I had my own wheel. Here are the the wheels that were there:

I learned to spin when I was living in Ucluelet, attending Stitch Night at Knits by the Sea in Tofino. One of the regulars, Carol, decided it was time I learned to spin so she brought in her wheel and taught me. One of the other local gals (I am embarrassed to say I can't remember her name) also brought her wheel into the shop for me to use. I think I was still working at the shop at the time, my memory is a bit hazy. At any rate, I learned to spin and ply and I have wished I had my own wheel ever since.

One day, it will happen. I'm sure I'll be able to come by a spinning wheel in North Carolina. 

knitting content! I finished a hat!

I'm sorry I've been so AWOL lately, dear reader. I have been extremely busy doing lots of stuff and I realize I haven't given you any knitting content in a long time. So here is my most recent finished object.

It's called the Hermione Hat. See, I woke up one morning with a strong compulsion to knit something in red, the colour of the base chakra, Muladhara. Don't ask me why I'm suddenly interested in chakras, that's a long story that I'll get around to sometime. At any rate, I went through my small and dwindling stash to see what red yarn I had. This I bought when I was working at Knits by the Sea in Tofino. It's Blue Sky Alpaca sport, I had two skeins of it. I went to Ravelry's advanced search and asked what I could do with this amount of yarn. It said, among other things, this hat! It's a free pattern, I had the needles, and I could get started just as soon as I wound up my yarn into balls.

Sigh. I so desperately wish I had a swift and winder. It's not so bad doing it by hand when it's a skein of worsted or heavier yarn, but when you are doing, say, sock yarn, that has 400+ yards, that means winding for like 20 minutes, precious knitting time! I just can't afford a swift & winder at the moment, so I go by hand.

At any rate, this project consumed me until I got it done, and I couldn't put it down until something like 11pm on Wednesday night (started on Monday). It's pretty. I like it. It's soft. Today I will cast on for an accessory to match this, with colours that are next up the chakras.

I'm not ignoring my friends

I'm sitting here in the living room at backyard feast while our good friends from Stellar Coffee are here visiting. We are curled up on comfy furniture, knitting and beverages to hand, having had sushi and pound cake for dinner. It's been an awesome New Year's Eve party.


So when I say I'm not ignoring my friends, I mean my friends in the room. I'll rejoin them shortly. But you know me, I'm a bit of an Internet junkie so I just had to come see what you are all doing. Go see Amanda - she has completed her goal of knitting/sewing/crocheting a scarf/cowl/neck thing for every single day of 2011. Stop by and congratulate her for getting there! And while you're out visiting my friends, go tell Ellie you're glad she's finally joined Twitter.

Right, not to partying like it's 1999 (but I admit I'm having way more fun tonight).

Knitting considerations

This post may seem a little incongruous, given that it's just before Christmas and I have all my Christmas knitting done and wrapped. I have been thinking about a post like this for more than a week now, have even made notes! So here we go:

I listen to a lot of knitting podcasts and communicate with hundreds of knitters on the Internet. Lots of people have large yarn stashes to knit from and still seem to acquire more yarn. When the hot new pattern comes out, many people will simply go to their stash and find the right yarn for the sweater.

Knitting isn't really a cheap hobby. It can be if you choose to use acrylic yarn or yarn found at garage sales or thrift store yarns. Just over a year ago I came into a huge amount of yarn, which was mostly natural fibers but much of it was so old or had an acrylic content that I was not happy knitting with any of it, so I gave it all away. While working at Knits by the Sea in Tofino, I came to really appreciate knitting with good yarn and good fiber. So, here is my list of things to consider when knitting something:

1. How much money to spend on yarn?

While working at the yarn shop, I was given a generous discount on my purchases, which is mighty dangerous. I wasn't making a lot of money overall so I had to be mindful of how much I could actually spend. Depending on the pattern and the yarn, a sweater's worth of yarn can run anywhere from $50 for cheap yarn and averaging about $120 for anything I would want to knit. So that wasn't going to happen. They say it takes the same amount of time to knit a pair of socks as it does a sweater, and since one skein of sock yarn is much cheaper (ranging $18-30, most landing in the $22 range), that seemed a more economical way to go. Lace weight yarn makes your yarn dollar go even further, as lace is slower to knit and you get way more yardage per dollar.

Many new knitters opt for big yarns and big needles, but what they don't realize is that is the fastest way to burn through your yarn budget. If you give me a skein of bulky weight yarn, I can knit that into a hat in about three hours. (I know this for certain because it happened last Christmas). If you give me a skein of sock yarn, it will take me 40-60 hours to knit that up, which leads me to my next consideration:

2. How long will this take to knit?

I was at the Moss Street Market Christmas Fair recently and saw a number of hand knit garments. I don't think there is ever a way to make money selling hand knits, unless you think you are worth 10 cents an hour. As I looked at the garments and the prices, I thought - those handknit socks that have a $45 tag on them would take me 40 hours to knit, but a faster knitter could get them done in 30. Subtract the probable cost of the yarn and that knitter probably earns $1.25 an hour. While $45 seems expensive for a pair of socks, it's cheap compared to the labour that went into it. At another stall I saw a knitter selling hats made with bulky Lopi yarn. The yarn cost $6.00/skein (I know because Lopi is a favourite of mine), the hats probably took 5-8 hours, she was selling them for $20 per hat.

I was commissioned to knit a hat for a woman's baby while working at the yarn shop in Tofino, but when she heard the price of the hat, she decided not to pay for it after all. (I still have the hat). That made me realize that I will never make money from knitting so there is no point in even trying. The only way I would accept a commission is if it were for an art piece and I would be paid for my artistry.

As mentioned in a previous post, I have had rather a lot of time to knit in the past few years. I love knitting, so this is no real hardship for me. When I was planning my knitting before the Cookie A retreat last April, I figured I could bang out one sock per week, even working almost full time (I knit during every coffee and lunch break). That turned out to be optimistic, and instead of the planned eight socks, I got through four and a half. So now I am getting a sense of how long things take to knit and planning accordingly. How much time do I need to knit X amount of things before Christmas, for example?

Also, as mentioned in a previous post, I hadn't planned on knitting gifts. And then I ended up knitting ten gifts. Some of them were small, completed in just a few hours, some of them took a few days. I'm getting the hang of estimating how long it will take and I planned well; I finished everything yesterday. (What will I do with myself on Christmas eve if I'm not finishing last-minute projects?)

3. Knitting from Stash

As a part of my Great Migration and in an attempt to pare down my possessions to only what will fit in my truck, I have been knitting from my stash. In a #knitchat earlier this year, we had a conversation about knitting from stash as a way of coping with these rough economic times - that having a sizable stash insulates us from the brunt of less money to spend on our hobby. If I look at my stash as it is right now, I have enough yarn to get me through about six months, assuming I'll be working full time from February onward. That's pretty good. My informal goal was to not have more yarn than I could knit up in a year - partly for ease of transport but also because it felt insensible to me just have yarn laying around, yarn that I would have to keep track of, move, keep from getting dusty, organize, and think about. (Other people are way better at keeping track of their yarn, so I am not suggesting *you* are insensible, I just know my own habits). I am trying to be methodical about my knitting plans and goals, so I would rather buy yarn with a project in mind rather than just buy yarn because it's pretty. There will always be more yarn. I repeat: there will always be more yarn. I don't need to buy this bag of yarn because it's a screaming good deal - I've done that and then that bag sits and collects dust. No thanks.

4. Knitting for others: will the person actually wear and care for the thing?

This can be tricky, especially if you have never given a person your hand knits before. I lucked out with the family I married - everyone loves and appreciates my knits, which always encourages me to knit more for them. (I'm planning to do a post about some of the more creative knit projects I have done as gifts over the years, as a sort of recap). My own family needed a bit of training about my knitting - washing instructions, the mending of things, and how long it will take things to knit. My niece (my sister's daughter) asked me for yellow mittens, so I knit some and sent them off. She *loves* them, then asked for a scarf, some slippers and a pair of socks. All in good time, kiddo, but it is a tall order. I have fifteen other people to knit for too.

5. Searching for patterns versus being captivated by patterns

Okay now here I get a bit stuck. We all have our own pattern-searching methods. Ravelry makes it so easy to find just the pattern for the yarn, skill level, technique, and yardage that you want to knit from. It is the best database I have ever encountered.  For example, when Zola asked me to knit her a turban, I went to Ravelry and typed in "turban". A bunch of stuff came up. Some of the patterns were patterns that you pay for, so I rule them out. I clicked on the "free" search criteria and the list of turban patterns was significantly diminished. So if you are in a position to pay for a pattern, especially a popular one, then go for it. But I'm limited to free just now, so sometimes I just have to make something up. (I really do need to start writing down my one-off designs. I will have some time after Christmas, I think). When you find the pattern you want on Ravelry, you can either "cast on" right away or put it in your queue. Then you can organize your queue into categories (hats, neck, mitts, sweaters, etc.). If there are enough things in your queue, and you feel like you need to knit a hat, you can go to your hat folder in your queue and maybe find the yarn in your stash to knit it with. This all sounds very organized, right? These kinds of plans get derailed when the new knitting magazine comes out. It happened to me last week. I had to knit Escargot, it was haunting me. So is the Bandana Cowl, but I don't think I have the right yarn in my stash (and I can't buy yarn until I have a job) so it will have to wait.

Sigh. At the moment, given my dwindling stash, I'll be knitting mostly socks for the next few months, but that's good. I like knitting socks. In fact, through the knitting of the Christmas gifts, my hands were missing sock knitting. So, sock patterns? The only knitting book I have with me in Cowichan Bay is Sock Innovation. I do also have the Internet at my disposal, so we'll see how many socks I can knit between now and when I leave.

knitting!

I've been busy. I can't post everything that I've been working on with my knitting just in case a recipient is a reader. But here is some stuff: 

  Mittens for my niece that she requested. The yarn is Sandnes Garn Smart, I knit on 4mm dpns. I really didn't like this yarn, it made my hands hurt as I knit these mittens. I know it isn't just a function of doing stranded knitting, because when I was knitting the pink & white mittens for myself, which are also stranded, my hands didn't hurt then. So I'll never use this yarn again, but it was a DK superwash and didn't cost very much. And they're done.

 These are for my mum, who I'm fairly certain doesn't read my blog. Mum was telling me a few weeks ago that she needed to get some mittens. I asked what colour. She said "are you going to knit me some mittens?" and I said "I'm not promising. Just what colour would you like?" Navy. I happened to have some navy Cascade wool that was almost three different things, including a hat and a scarf, but the yarn didn't want to be either of those things. Also knit on 4mm dpns, I really enjoyed this, actually. 32 stitches, 2x2 rib for a bit, switch to stockinette, did afterthought thumb. Instead of a tapered decrease at the top, I decreased evenly all the way around and I like the effect. Someday I will knit mittens from a pattern. I finished these last night at the coffee shop with all the knitters!

 This is the Molly Beret by Alana Dakos. I bought a few of Alana's patterns while I was working at Knits by the Sea in Tofino. I've been carrying these patterns around in my head, wanting to knit them because I hear such great reviews of them. This is the second of Alana's patterns that I have knit now, the first is a secret (for now). The yarn I'm using is Sandnes Garn mini alpakka. I'm realizing that I haven't met an alpaca yarn that I didn't like. They are all the same in character and I just love the hand on them. I can wear alpaca around my neck and not have it itch (which alas, is not true for wool, even superwash). So this beret begins on 2.25mm needles and holy crap that is small. I'm used to knitting socks on needles this small but knitting at such a small gauge for a hat is really an exercise in patience. I'm two rows away from switching to the the striped section, which other than increases and decreases, it's basically stockinette on 3.25mm needles, so should go way faster. This is intended for a gift but... well... we'll see. It might fit me.

This is the one I am most excited about right now, in terms of my WIPs. This is the Mezquita Shawl. I don't remember where I first saw this pattern but I put it in my queue on Ravelry and it has been niggling at me ever since. At one point, the pattern said to me "Hey Stace, I bet I would go really well with that Handmaiden Sea Silk that you bought in Kelowna last year". And I said "but I don't have a 5.0mm 40" Addi Turbo circular needle!" And then some money came, and then I went to my favourite yarn shop in Victoria, and all barriers to me knitting this pattern were removed.  This is the shawl I mentioned in a previous post, the one where I had to cast on 361 stitches. I haven't had much time in the last few days to knit on this, because it does require some dedicated sit-down-and-knit time, but I am anxious to get it done so I'll have my aforementioned matching set. The weather in Victoria has gotten cold (read: below freezing temperatures!) and I'm finding the need to have something on my neck. I have been wearing my Darcy Shawlette that I finished in the summer, but it's azure and blue, so doesn't exactly go with my hat and mitts.

And now that I have cast off the mitts for my mum, I'll take those 4.0mm dpns and cast on another thing for someone else. Boy, after Christmas I'll have a few things to tell you all about. And look! This here is finally a post about knitting.

Wait - one more thing- I must admit I am absolutely itching to knit socks right now. I have two single socks that need to be finished, one for me, one for Dan. I really do want to knit on them just now, but I'm feeling like the gift-knitting season sort of takes precedence over knitting for ourselves just now. It will all depend on what happens in the next five weeks, really. 

The Rhythm of Life on the Farm

I've been here just over three weeks and I'm starting to settle into life here. My sister has always been one for uber house organization, having worked for Tupperware at one point. In fact, a big joke one Christmas was when I gave her a label-making machine. It was a half-joke because Lori was organized, and this would help her compulsion. She totally got the joke and started to label everything. Then she realized how much she loved the thing and it has been a valued household item ever since.



There was a time when everything in Lori's house was ordered to the extreme. It used to be that all the movies had to be arranged in alphabetical order. Even now the clothes hanging in the closet are arranged in a rainbow of colour.



Lori has her routines around the laundry, dishwasher, and other systems of organization. It is really quite impressive. Having kids forced her to relax her compulsions somewhat, but as the kids are getting older and can now clean up their own messes, the old Lori is ekeing her way back.

Lori is now working full time (which is four days a week), and has child care set up for the kids in town. She is up at 5:45 and is out the door by 7:15, to be at work for 8:00. She is home between 5:00-5:30, depending on any errands she has to do in town before coming home. On the weekends, they have gone camping a few times (as her husband has been working away, comes home with the holiday trailer so they can camp in it). In the ebb & flow of their lives, I have been finding a way to fit myself in so as not to be a disruptive house guest, but a helpful one.

While I'm here, I have taken on the task of preparing dinner for Lori & the kids for when she gets home from work. As some of you know, I do enjoy cooking but since I've been with Dan, I have become quite a slacker in the kitchen because Dan is just so darn amazing. I have gone through most of my single-gal cooking reportoire since being here, being mindful that I am also cooking for children who are probably picky eaters. Oldest child doesn't like tomatoes, for example. Youngest child doesn't like anything green. I am trying to make sure they get a healthy, well-balanced meal out of me, but I admit it is not easy.

Noodles were a big hit. I bought some Asian noodles from Chinatown in Edmonton a few weeks ago: mung bean, rice, buckwheat. As long as I don't put any "sauce" on the noodles, we're good to go. I only wish I could have found some cheater chopsticks for kids, to teach them how to use them properly.

The deal with me cooking dinner (or as they say around here, 'supper') is that Lori cleans up the kitchen afterwards. It's a good arrangement.

What else am I doing with my time? Lori had a big list of things for me to do when I got here. She wanted me to prune her trees, which I have done. We started painting the ceiling in the TV room - I do the rolling.

 Lori does the cutting in. Cutting in? I had never heard that term before now, had always heard to it referred to as 'edging'. I have been going out and weeding the garden here and there.



Lori is not a gardener. They have a huge plot of land devoted to being a garden but only a small fraction of it is used. Lori got out and planted some seeds in May, and hasn't touched the garden since. It was quite overrun with weeds when I got here, so on sunny days I have been donning my rubber boots (for the mud) and getting out there with a hand rake. The plants that have been weeded around have certainly benefited from my ministrations. By the time I make my way through all the rows once, I'll need to get back to the first rows again but the task will be way easier. Here is waht Lori has planted:
onions


lettuce


carrots


dill/cucumber?


pumpkin


corn



Alas, no potatoes. The seed potatoes are languishing in the cellar.


I dug up Lori's bread machine and have decided to start filling their mostly empty deep freeze with bread. I will bake a loaf of bread every day while I'm here, until I wear the machine out (as happened to our first bread machine) or it's time for me to go.

I've been waiting for my own stuff too. My former employer got my forwarding address wrong, so my final cheque should have been to me by now (it was mailed on July 14), but due to rerouting I expect it will be here next week. Still don't have my damage deposit cheque from my former landlord either.  Once these cheques come in, I can buy a canopy for the truck.

The plan: I want to buy a canopy for the truck so I can lock it when my mum & I travel to North Carolina. It also needs to be waterproof. I would like to get a canopy that has a sliding window that meets the cab of the truck, so that Sam can come & go from the litter box in the back to the cab in the front. But I can't do any of that until I have some money coming in.

Something else I have been doing: spending a lot of time with the kitties. So many kitties! I step outside and they come running toward me. Some of them in particular approach me first.
I can always count on the smallest grey cat (Runt) and the middle grey cat (my boyfriend) to arrive first at my feet. Their mom, Tiana, is a good hunter. She'll bring home mice and moles, and
the occasional dead chicken from the chicken barn. I've seen her devour a chicken leg in under a minute. It's gross and fascinating at the same time.

I am also spending some time on Lori's treadmill. It's handy that it is in my space (I'd call it my room but I am staying in the basement which is mostly just one big room). I started out with 40 minutes, am increasing my time on it by 5 minutes every time I use it, and am alternating my way through the programs. I do this and listen to a new-to-me podcast called Marathon Training Academy. It's a fantastic podcast and I am inspired to consider training for at least a half marathon once I arrive in North Carolina, see what kinds of races are around Kinston/Greenville. I'd prefer to run outside but there isn't really much running space on the farm (gumboots in cow pasture not with standing) and with the way I've seen the gravel trucks screaming past,  I'd rather not risk my life on the highway. Treadmill it is. It's good, actually, simple, easy to use, and just what I need. See, Lori's brother-in-law came by the other day and said "Holy crap have you  ever lost a lot of weight". And while I have lost 31 pounds, I still have 18 more to go. It's getting harder, so I have to seriously increase my exercise intensity.

I am happy to report that I have also been able to get a fair amount of knitting done. This morning I finished the Darcy Shawlette, a pattern I was test knitting for my Twitter pal @knitpurlgirl, in Indigo
Moon sock yarn. I was given this sock yarn as a gift and while I love the colour, when I went to block it the colour started leaking out of the water in the sink. Out came the vinegar, so I could set the dye.
I'm so glad I know that trick.

I am about 30 rows away from finishing the Victorian Ruby lace scarf from Victorian Lace Today, which I started sometime in June. It was easy travel knitting when I was doing the middle section, but the ends are charted which has meant I had to be anti-social while knitting them. I'm hoping to get that done & blocked today.

The day after I arrived, my sister had her Yorkie-Shihtzu groomed, Roxy had most of her fur shaved off. Then the weather turned cold and poor Roxy Dog was shivering. Roxy had a few sweaters from
her previous owner, but they weren't up to Lori's esthetic. Lori had never really considered dog clothing and then I told her about Ellie and her dog Juliet, and how Juliet has her own wardrobe complete with summer party dress and Santa costume. And then I offered to knit Roxy a sweater. It's kind of crazy, really, having never knit one before and without a pattern. I knew it had to be machine washible (enter acryilic yarn - shudder) and she wanted it to be black. Black! I hate knitting black! Well, it knit up quickly and now I have only to weave in the ends and decorate it with flowers or 'Roxy' or something. That too will probably get done today.

And then what? What will I knit? I have three Cookie A socks to finish and the long-ago begun Brother Amos (a la Brenda Dayne) socks to finish. Maybe after I finish those UFOs I just might treat myself to some Auricania Multy from Liv With Yarn in Camrose.

yarnsalad finds the LYS in Camrose

I've been in central Alberta for two weeks now. I was starting to get twitchy about not having a stitch night to go to, and with the crappy Internet connection out at the farm here, I also haven't been able to participate in Thursday night's #knitchat on Twitter.

On Tuesday, I stopped into Liv With Yarn in Camrose. I was pretty excited when I saw the Auracania Multy in the window display. (I used the Auracania in the Dan & Stacey socks I knit a year and a half ago, early in my sock-knitting career, and *love* using that yarn). The shop was quite large, especially compared to what I was used to with Knits by the Sea in Tofino, but I saw she also carried the Diamond line of yarn, same as Ellie.

I was poking around the shop, seeing some yarns that familiar and some that weren't. I had never held llama yarn before, for example. Eventually I made my way to the back of the shop where the women were knitting, dropped in, introduced myself. Leana is the shop's owner and was working on a piece for yarn-bombing the main street. I also met Bonnie and Amy, who I gather are sometimes employees, but both who seem to have a second home in the LYS, as many of us knitters do. I caught all their Ravelry names, found out when their stitch night was, and said I'd be back on Thursday.

Thursday rolled around and I arrived just after 7pm. Leana and Bonnie were outside on the bench, knitting. Leana was working on a scarf with some crazy new yarn that looks like a big ruffle when you knit it (I think Ellie started carrying this too, a month or two ago). Bonnie was working on a Cowichan sweater, which around here they refer to as a Siwash (?) I was most intrigued by this, as patterns for Cowichan sweaters are hard to come by.

See, these sweaters are a product of the First Nations people of the Cowichan Valley area on Vancouver Island, and I have called Vancouver Island home for the better part of the last 16 years. The sweaters grew popular and patterns were available for a short time, then the women of the Cowichan Valley protested, arguing that their cultural heritage was being sold and that that was not right. If you watched any of the Olympics in Vancouver last year, you may have seen the Canadian athletes wearing these sweaters. The big question was: were they authentic Cowichan sweaters or were they knock-offs made in China or India? When I was working at Knits by the Sea last year, we had *lots* of people asking for Cowichan sweater patterns. There is a lot of respect for First Nations peoples and traditions on Vancouver Island, so we of course explained why they weren't available. (This is not to say that there isn't respect for First Nations elsewhere in Canada, I honestly don't know, but I do know that there is an awful lot of racial tension and gang violence at the reservation near where I grew up in central Alberta, so much so that a 5-year old boy was shot in a drive-by shooting in Hobbema just last week. I digress.)

I thought it interesting too that they referred to these patterns as "Siwash" (SAI-wash), as if everyone knew that was their name. I had never heard this term before. I mentioned it to Dan last night, and he said they are getting the pronunciation wrong, it's SEE-wash, but yes, that is a local term of the First Nations people. At any rate, I found the whole thing interesting, that there is a class on how to knit a Cowichan sweater in a LYS in central Alberta.

Back to my story... the reason Bonnie & Leana were outside knitting was because every Thursday night there is music on the Main street. There were 50-100 people hanging around downtown, taking in the music. The band was your typical bar cover band, the female singer with a deep husky drinking-and-smoking-every-night kind of voice, who has obviously practiced all her songs a lot but isn't that great of a singer. When the wind kicked up, we knitters were blown inside and Bonnie made tea. More knitters arrived.

It's an interesting thing, going to a stitch night in a different community. It made me very aware of the demographic. In Tofino it's people with dogs, lots of single gals, lots of people just there for the summer, visiting and/or working. In Camrose, it's mostly people who have kids and a few who don't. What I love about knitters is that we are an accepting bunch. It doesn't matter what you look like or what your interests are: knitting unites us and that's all that matters. Even as a new and temporary member of their knitting group, I felt welcomed as we all tested the waters into what was appropriate conversation.

BMW socks

I just blogged about these socks on the 12Socks Blog project. Please have a look!

Knits by the Sea One Year Birthday Party

I must tell you a story.

Way back in February or March, I had an idea that for the yarn shop's birthday, I could round up a bunch of knitters to knit squares and we'd stitch them together for a blanket that we could give to Ellie. Wheels turned, ball got rolling.  I sent messages to everyone on Ravelry who was in the Knits by the Sea group. I talked to everyone who was present at the Cookie A Sock Retreat. I approached all my knitterly friends. Lots of people were on board.

Somewhere along the way, Dan, my uber-talented can-do-anything husband, suggested that we stitch the squares to bits of fabric and quilt it. Then I had the idea of putting loops on the thing so that it could be strung through a dowel and hung up like a tapestry, say, for fiber festivals...

Squares started coming in. I had no idea how many to hope for but they came from as far away as Ontario, some across the Island, some from Tofino and Ucluelet. Erin, who is about to open Tofino's new quilting & sewing shop, provided the fabric and batting.  The rest of the story is pictured below:

 Oops - upside down!

This is actually navy, the lighting didn't work so well with my iPhone camera.

 Stack of squares early on.

 Faye helped with the arrangement.

 One of the steps in the assembly process.

 My Sweety at work doing the sewing!

 Almost there!

 Dan drew a legend of the quilt so Ellie would know where they all came from!

 He also did the wrapping.

 Ellie opening her gift.

Look at that smile!

She blogged about this too - and her photo is way better:

http://tofinoknitting.blogspot.com/2011/05/thank-you.html

Thanks so much to everyone who participated in the making of this quilt. It was a really fun project