Tag Archives: anniversary retreat

Dec6

More yarn and lots of hiking

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Two more balls of Advent yarn (above) and an FO below (from DK acrylic that I brought with me).

Here’s the Ravelry link to the pattern https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/succulent-plant-amigurumi

We enjoyed a beautiful, level, sunny walk along Skaha Lake yesterday morning. Two hours total following which we spent the rest of the day at the Airbnb relaxing and enjoying the hot tub and sauna.

Today was cloudy, still in the region of minus 8 Celsius, and the two hour hike involved an uphill trek to a bluff with a view. There were signs of bear but we only ended up seeing a deer and a few birds!

Again, the hot tub was welcome after all that exertion!

And finally, the start of my new WIP https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/elevation-duster-cardigan The Elevation Duster Cardigan is a long crocheted cardigan which looked like a good option for my six shades of Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn. However I am wondering whether it’ll be enough. I may have to figure out how to get more of the yellow. Time will tell.

Dec4

Advents and Anniversaries

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Day 2 of my yarn Advent
Day 1 of our anniversary retreat

It may be well below freezing but we have a cosy suite out in the boonies with a pellet stove, a hot tub and a sauna. It has a view of mountains, fields and even a couple of horses. Oh, and the owner’s husky now and then.

Day 3 of yarn Advent

We have lots of food but still ventured out in the car this morning to the nearest town. Our accommodation is in a cellphone deadzone and Mr Fixit needs to check his work phone every now and then.

We also popped into the local Buy Low and picked up coffee and a caffeine-free coffee sub.

Last night I made a good start on a small crochet project which I expect to finish today. I’ll get some photos later and post them. And then I’ll start on the bigger project that I’m planning with one of my sweater quantities of yarn. Of course, I brought six 200 gram skeins of yarn with me. Even though we’re only away for a week!

Dec6

Blogmas Day 6

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Retreat!

Yay, the day is finally here. We had a lot of snow overnight so the driveway had to be cleared twice before we set out. Ds1 couldn’t get his Golf GTi out of the drive at first so three of us were shoveling away like mad. He was already running late because he had to scrape ice off his windshield.

That was at 7am. We didn’t leave until 11.30 but traffic was still super slow going through the city thanks to the slippery roads. There were quite a few accidents this morning.

We stopped for take-out tea and for bread and “cheese” and bananas and then we were on our way properly. Thankfully we made it to the cabin safely and are now ensconced on the couch having settled in, stocked the fridge, lit the woodstove and enjoyed our first soak in the hot tub as the sun was going down.

We’ve been here a few times before. It’s private and quiet, just the way we like it.

Nothing says “Canadian cabin” quite like Tim Hortons mugs on a woodstove eh!

This is a photo-heavy post and the app is struggling to load them all. The wifi seems strong enough so hopefully it’ll publish okay.

Today’s vlog/podcast recommendation is The Orange Couch. Kate is a vegan who I “met’ through the Vegan Knitters and Crocheters group on Ravelry. She is relatively new to podcasting but is an experienced knitter and it seems like she finishes a sweater every week!

Oh, and I nearly forgot.

The light is a bit yellow in here but the yarn is yellow anyway (and the bead is light blue).

Dec22

Deep dark December

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Deep dark December

I love December. I love that we have the Solstice, with its shortest day (8 hours and 5 minutes here on the 21st), and the long dark nights, and gloomy days, and sunny days, and cold weather that makes you want to wear all your winter knitted/crocheted accessories.

I love that it’s our wedding anniversary on the 10th (31 years so far) and we get to go on a retreat most years to just be the two of us, without anyone else around. This year it was a cabin we’ve visited a few times before, about 1.5 hours drive away, with a woodstove and a private hot tub. It also has underfloor heating in the bathroom and baseboard heating, so not TOO rustic, and it gets warm enough that we can actually open the window, regardless of how cold it is outside. It is close to some cross country (Nordic) ski trails with snowshoe trails marked out, and we tromped through deep snow for nearly 2.5 hours one day. Seeing moose tracks was my favourite part of that!

As usual, the month has whizzed by with leisure activities and work commitments and our three night retreat. While we were away, ds2 gave us a scare. Messaged us to say he had spent the night in the emergency room with chest pains. He was in enough pain that he called 911 and an ambulance came and took him in. Turns out it was a partially collapsed lung, the treatment of which involved having a tube inserted between his ribs into his chest cavity to drain fluid into a plastic container, which he had to manually empty every day. He was sent home in the morning, and in his message to us said he was fine and we didn’t need to come home early. Thankfully after three days and follow up X rays he had the tube removed and now seems back to normal, but that was a worrying experience.

And now it’s time for Christmas baking. We are not buying gifts for each other this year. We had our tree and lights set up in the living room on December 1st, and our celebrations will simply involve fancier family meals, and a visit with friends on Christmas Day. My work outfit this week included Christmas light earrings and leggings, and a string of battery-operated lights around my neck adorned with some Christmas ornaments!!

Today I baked two fruit cakes (I completely forgot I was going to make them gluten-free, and dumped regular wholewheat flour in with the dried fruit, apple juice and oil before I realised what I’d done). I also baked two dozen mince pies using my own  mincemeat, which I made four weeks ago and tucked away in the fridge.  I will have to bake more fruit cakes using the GF flour so I can share with friends and co-workers.

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The meals have been planned for the next few days, I have done my last Costco shop (amazing that I actually found a parking spot on my first try) and now I have lots of cooking and eating to look forward to. (Of course, we will be going to the gym now and then to try to burn off some of the extra calories. We had a great yoga class at 8.30 this morning; different teacher, different style.)

There has been some knitting and crochet. I took the garter stitch wrap with me to the cabin…

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I played around with a knitted rat sweater and a crochet version too…

 

I made a Secret Santa gift for work’s Christmas party (sadly I didn’t get a photo of the nosewarmer with its white pompom as it was an afterthought)…

 

I bought some clearance yarn at Michaels (whoops)…

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(Caron Cupcakes)

I sewed a quick tube skirt out of some sweater fleece in my stash so that I could show off my Christmas light leggings…

 

And I’ve been making a toque similar to the Joyful and Bright Slouch Hat that I made last year…

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(Using the Candy Cane colourway of Bernat Pop, left over from the knitted Fair Isle toque I made recently.)

What a picture-heavy post this is, but it has been a while since my last update. I didn’t think I’d done much, so hadn’t posted because I didn’t think I had anything to show you.

Here’s wishing you all a very Merry Solstice/Yule/Christmas/whatever.

 

Dec5

Little things…

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Little things…

 

 

Again, I’m distracting myself from my main WIP with little projects. I finished the pink dishcloth that I started ten days ago as a portable project with Scheepjes Linen Soft in the colour Hummingbird. And I threw together a very plain grey dishcloth with some leftover Knit Picks Comfy Fingering in the colour Whisker. I triple-stranded the Comfy by using a Navajo plying method that I’ve seen on a You Tube tutorial. You do it as you go. It’s very clever.

I have to confess that the soft focus on those dishcloth photos is caused by a smear on my iPad Mini’s camera lens!    >_<    I only realised later on when I went to take a photo of my Thermos cosy.

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This photo therefore benefits from a cleaner lens! I love making things to fit stuff as I go. This shape is pretty easy to cover, though I found once I’d covered the base I had to decrease on about three of the lower rounds to get it to suck in a bit. I thought the popcorn stitches would help with grip. And I hope you can tell that that’s a teacup appliqued to the front!

I was also rather tickled that the cosy coordinates with my Christmas cactus. 🙂

I have added this to the thread in the Little Drops of Wonderful group on Ravelry, where we can post about our makes in the Cosy Up to Winter MAL.

Another couple of things I made for Christmas gifts this week are these:

They are knotted fleece blankets, each made from two metres of fleece fabric (one for each side). I cut down the bear print and the tan pawprints to make a square blanket, and the green dog print and green pawprints I left at one by one and a half metres (the full width of the fabric). I’ve seen these made before but this is the first time I’ve made some, and they are simple to do. I had both finished in one evening. As you can imagine, we sell a LOT of fleece at the store where I work at this time of year. They make cosy gifts that anyone can manage, even if they can’t operate a sewing machine.

I’m coming to the end of my medical leave now. Back to work Friday. I also work Sunday and then there’s a stretch of a few days until my next shift. Tai Chi Man and I have booked a three night retreat at a little cabin in the woods that we know of. It’s our 31st wedding anniversary on the 10th and we always have a little getaway around this time. (It wasn’t so little last year, as we had a week in Maui.) The main room has a decent kitchen/living room/bedroom set up, there’s a woodstove, heated floors in the shower room, and a private hot tub outside. I really hope that there will be snow, because we can take our snowshoes with us. It’s always extra special to be in a hot tub when it’s really cold and snowy out too.

If you take enough food, there’s no need to leave the cabin at all! Though we may take a drive up to the nearest town a little way north.

I hope you’re loving this time of the year and enjoying all the good things about it. What’s your favourite way to spend a winter day?

 

 

Sep13

Skylark Scarf

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I started this scarf this week because I was itching to use this yarn. I had two full balls plus a partial one of the Lion Brand Unique (Garden colourway), and if I need more I can move on to the Stylecraft Harlequin, which I blogged about last week.

The Skylark scarf is asymmetrical and crocheted in rows that are staggered. Each row is always 90 stitches long but they are offset by 5 stitches every other row. The pattern was written for Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable, which is worsted weight, but I’m using bulky yarn with a 6.5mm/K hook. I don’t know how big it will end up – right now it’s about 48″ long, and 8″ at its widest point

I worked 8 hours yesterday and 6 today, so I’m looking forward to a couple of days of homebody stuff. I’m covering someone else’s shift on Wednesday so will get a few extra dollars in my paycheque this week. Tai Chi Man and I have decided how to use our week’s vacation in December. We’ll be going to a vegan spa-type retreat for a whole week, right here in BC. Maui can wait!