Friday, July 9, 2010

Serendipity

It has been very hot here in British Columbia. We didn't really have a Spring, so now it feels like August has hit us suddenly even though it is only the beginning of July. Even with an air conditioned house, for which I'm extremely grateful for, an air conditioned car, and lots of ice cream in the freezer, I'm still suffering from the heat. It is generally when I have to go out for something and of course I do have to walk my dog.

Yesterday I walked her in the power easement near our home, and there is a small stream there, and she was happy to step into it and roll around in freshly mowed grass, but I couldn't handle the heat. So later in the day I put her into the car and we went to a dog park in White Rock. I'd taken her there before about a year ago, but felt that it was too far to go more often. I'm so glad that I decided to take Millie there yesterday.

There is a pond or at least a small body of water and she went running into it with all the other dogs. It isn't deep enough for her to really swim, but she got cooled off and I found that the dogs at this park were well behaved and not overly excited. Millie is quite submissive and has learned to protect herself by lying down and surrendering. This works well for her but highly excited dogs aren't her favourite type of dogs to be around. She is very good with smaller dogs even if they are barking at her.

There are trails at the park and they are well shaded with lots of old and tall trees. So she got to romp around the trails and always came to find me. She's becoming very good at checking to see where I am finally.

I found a bench next to a grove of trees and there was a nice breeze. I'd taken my knitting bag with the two baby hats that I'm making for my to be born granddaughter in August, but didn't do any knitting. A very nice lady was sitting on the bench and she was a knitter. We talked about knitting, Ravelry, and quilting and doing crafts. It was like meeting a kindred spirit while at a dog park.

She found me on Ravelry and I got to see some of her wonderful projects. I now feel encouraged to finish up the baby things as quickly as possible and get to work on my many unfinished projects.

In the evenings I'm working on the baby crib sized blanket.


I'm about half done now and hopefully will be finished with it before this baby is born. I call it my neopolitan mint baby crib blanket because of all the colours that I've used for this blanket. The yarn had a knot in it that I missed in one section of the creme colour and I didn't notice it until I'd knitted away in the pink and started the brown. It was the kind of knot that was hidden and I thought maybe it was just some fluff around the yarn. No such luck. It was a very small knot. I untied it and tried to figure out how I could keep the blanket together but nothing I came up with would work. The ends were too short to really keep them together with a short piece of yarn that I could weave in. So I just knotted it again and hopefully it won't show as much to my daughter-in-law as it shows to me.

Besides, I'm not perfect and anything I make shouldn't be perfect. Hopefully with blocking it, I can make it not so noticeable even though my husband can't see it.

Once this blanket is finished, I can then finish up two shawls that I want to make. I also have a Spring sweater to make out of some Mission Falls cotton that I've had for a few years. I couldn't make up my mind what to make out of it, so I finally found a cardigan that is simple, nice looking and a top down one that makes it easier for me.

We're going on holidays to Vancouver Island soon and of course I want to visit some yarn shops over there. Not that I need more yarn of course as my stash is huge, but if I can find some handdyed yarn that is the same colour of some that I have already, it makes it possible to make more sweaters than shawls. I seem to be wanting to make more sweaters lately. Maybe I just want it to cool off and be Fall. Or maybe I want to see what my unborn granddaughter looks like. I've made her a couple of sweaters, leggings, a smaller blanket and booties. It is so nice to be able to knit with pink and my stash has recently increased in the colour pink.