Some garden colour

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The garden is planted, here are a few of things that are in bloom.
Lily of the Valleys- this picture was taken on Saturday and these lilies are past their prime now- they were starting to fade on the weekend.

This flower is nestled in amongst some LofV- the wide leaves are from the LofV. Does anyone know what this is? It has very thin green leaves - visible in the pic - top right side.


This Oriental Poppy hasn't changed from this since Sunday. None of the other buds are showing signs of opening. I wonder if this bud was damaged by something.

Blue flag iris - these look loaded with blossoms - last year they had very few blooms.

I purchased this plant from the Doon Heritage plant sale. Any guesses on what it is - hint there is some in my stash.
Two vests for Dulaan (Challenge Vest 1.0 and 2.0). The vest on the pink one gave me a massive headache, and is part of the reason the project was lingering for so long. I think it just has to do with the neck opening - it doesn't seem big enough. I ended up just crocheting around the edges. It needs some ends trimmed and a good blocking, the purple vest (Dulaan Challenge vest 2.0) was finished, but needed a small repair job. It was a casualty in Keeper's attempt to get at the Alpaca lace weight that he loved - both were in my knitting bag. All is fixed now - I just need to photograph the rest of the items and send them to Arizona.

Some finished comments on the vests. This started as Guild challenge - we swapped a single ball and had to come up with a project to use that with. I received a ball of homespun
with many colours. What to do with it? I pondered it for a while and then thought of using it a project for Dulaan. I got out Ann Budd's Knitting Pattern book and went through my stash. I didn't think I would have enough of pink or purple for a vest by themselves so I figured I would use both in a vest with stripes. I knit the pink one first - realized the yarn guidelines were generous, the horizontal stripes makes the colours muddy and pink was just too pale in comparison. (I thought after I could have overdyed the yarn - oh well). The second vest was born - I cast on fewer stitches but followed the length size as for the pink vest. I tried my hand at intarsia - the six stitch stripe allowed the colours to develop - Not get muddy next to each other. I used most of the challenge yarn - and the purple (Cascade 220 left from this). I like version 2.0 much better than first one. The pink yarn is Patons Classic Merino left over from a Sophie bag pre blog.

Muggles

Last night was freak out the Muggles night at the Indigo bookstore in downtown Toronto, Sarah, Ali (as photographer) and myself decided to attend. Arriving around 7pm (work and traffic prevented arriving earlier) we of course had to stand. (I later found out you had to arrive before 6 to get seats).Indigo just didn't have a large enough space to set chairs up for all the knitters.
Although they were able to manage the crowd and allow their other patrons (hard to believe that people would go to the bookstore not to hear Stephanie) to maneuver around the store.
This was the fourth time I have seen Stephanie (at Maryland SW, Doylestown PA, Knitters Guild and last night) as she as usual kept me laughing. I think I may be stalking her.

(from this picture it looks like I need a little bit of sun - I didn't realize I was so blindingly white)

Before we headed off to the the Spotted Dick for a pint we got to hold the sock.


Stashed with: ,

A heritage weekend

** Warning Picture heavy post**

A couple of months ago my friend Betsy emailed me to let me know that she would be attending a conference in Toronto this week and was I available for a visit. I checked the calendar (not that I had anything planned) and saw that last weekend was Victoria Day. Excellent, her visit was to coincide with a long weekend. (What works great for Betsy is she gets two back to back long weekends).
On Monday we went to the Doon Heritage Crossroads, this historic village is set during 1914, a crossroads in Canadian history. The country was on the verge of war, and industry and mass production was beginning to affect small towns. People were beginning to travel more and not rely on local items, you could order clothes from the T. Eaton Co. catalogue.

This was the largest house at the site and was built by an Amish family in 1820, Peter Martin. It had additions added - it had three pumps for running water inside), including a dowdy house.

A view from the house into the garden waiting to be planted.

A small selection of preserves from the garden.
Covered wagon
Towns would have a weavery, although they were on their way out as mechanization was beginning to make it unprofitable for the cottage industry. (This is where you can tell I didn't have the camera as their was only one picture from this building.) I am not sure what this equipment is -can any one help me out with this. My guess is it was instead of a warping board.

The sign above the bridge tells us not to travel faster than a horses gait over the bridge.

The tailor in many place s became the postmaster.
At the repair shop where wheelbarrows were being made, we got to use stilts - a common childhood game. I immediately had to try them out since I use to play with them as a child. (What does that say about my childhood). Betsy got the hang of it but Ali didn't try.

The blacksmith - whose items will be soon on sale at the gift shop.


Some sheep and kids. There were knitting baskets in all the houses.


Thats it for the photos for now.

Entrelac socks

The lilacs are in bloom:


When I haven't been enjoying the beautiful lilacs that are infusing the air with their aroma, I have been working on the entrelac socks. Do you want to see proof ( I am not sure if I have shown you these socks before).

Hopefully not much longer and I will be able to move these too the FO column, although they will have to wait for the fall before they get any wear. Entrelac has stretch too it and looks much better once it is on the foot then loose. Do you want to see?

Update

On Monday night when I got home from teaching self defense, I started to upload the photos to the blog entry (I had problems on Sunday). My husband checked the voice messages and gets a "It's A, Call me as soon as you get this" the message was in that tone that you know there is not going to be good news at the end of it.

A little back story:

Ali and M were room mates through most of university, and it was through M that I met Ali. M and P got engaged about a month after Ali and I did. I was ecstatic for them, not only for the public declaration of their commitment together - but that since they are were a gay couple that they could make this declaration. Their relationship helped me to understand why I wanted to get married (as opposed to live common law together). They had a commitment ceremony later that year (although they had to wait a couple of years for their "legal" wedding).
M and P have been great friends over the years. Hosting Christmas parties for the university crowd, helping us move (well helping Ali mostly since I wasn't around). P always had a smile on his face, and always quick to make a joke. P was a marathon runner, and ran the Boston marathon this year (his fifth time) and even though he was running in a Nor'easter had a great time and lots of fun doing it (marathon running and fun do not exist in the same sentence for me)
What no one knew besides and M was that P has been tormented by his childhood, and suffered from severe depression. (I still can't reconcile this with the P that I know).

So Monday night when Ali called our friend A, and passed the message on "P is dead, he killed himself" I was in disbelief - there is no way that I heard those words correctly. I kept waiting for more information to that the words "P is dead" didn't mean what I thought it did. I must have heard those words wrong. After sitting there for several minutes I began to realize that I had heard correctly, that those words don't mean anything else besides what I know them to mean. I went into shock.

I probably should have put a little explanation at the bottom of my post. But I couldn't think straight.

On Tuesday, we went to the visitation and saw M. He was actually handling the situation well (much better than I could imagine). Talking to M, helped me realize that P was in mental torment and had been for the entire time that M had known him. I wish he hadn't been in so much pain or that P didn't feel like he had any options on Sunday.

P was loved by many and the world lost a great friend on Sunday and will be sorely missed.

Two Finished Items

Details:
Sailor Booties
Yarn: Dale of Norway's Baby Ull in white and navy
Pattern: Zoe Mellors's 50 Baby Booties to Knit
Needles: 2.75 mm
For: Aiden Thomas


Details:
Louvered Fence
By: All About Fencing

Jenni said I should have shown a picture of the old fence. She is right but I am have been a negligent blogger lately. The old fence was a 30+ year old chain link fence 3 feet high, that was rusty and falling over. Phil at All About Fencing did a great job and came a week before he said he would, not something that usually happens with contractors.

I just got some bad news, I will write more later this week though