Saturday, July 11, 2009

Artful Knitting

I'm quickly falling further and further behind on my 52 craft challenge, but I'm not stressing about that so much as the fact that a local artist's co-op has asked me to participate in a show that takes place in September. I have TWO months to come up with about 5 show-quality pieces of knitting. And here I thought the most exposure my knitting was going to get this year was at the Skagit County Fair. I might have to skip the fair this year, unless I can come up with a piece I don't plan to put in the art show. I'm excited about the opportunity to show off my knitting in a gallery setting, but I've only been knitting for a year and a half now... do they really think I'm good enough? I have one piece done, one bag that is knit and felted but needs lining and accessories, and a scarf that is almost half done. As the gallery prefers we display works that have not been displayed before, I kinda feel like I have to wait until the show starts to share the pieces I'm contributing. The pieces are in ravelry if you want to guess which ones they are.

Something I can share is item #25 in the 52 craft challenge. We're just wrapping up week #28, so that puts me on the verge of 4 weeks behind. My cousin is due to have a baby any day now, so I made her a hat and bootie set for the baby. I didn't know the gender, so I grabbed some fairly neutral yarn from my stash, found a couple of cute and easy patterns, and went for it.
Baby set

I just sent it off in the mail yesterday, so I haven't heard from her yet... but I'm hoping she enjoys and appreciates them. Since I knit them as a set, I'm only counting them as one item for the challenge, but if I get too much further behind, I just might change my mind!

I've been wanting to do some scrapbooking lately, but keep getting distracted by the "prep work" that seems to go into it. Yesterday, I started to brainstorm ideas, go through photos, and figure out what I wanted to work on and ended up scanning a box of old photos into my computer. Yes, it needed to be done and its a project I've been procrastinating on, but it isn't scrapbooking. Since I don't have a dedicated workspace for my scrapbooking, its a major event to get out all the stuff and when I do, Ethan always wants to "help." I've given him his own scrapbook and stickers to play with and that helps some. This week he'll be visiting his dad, so I might take the opportunity to spread out in the school room and leave the stuff out all week. Maybe I'll get inspired and get caught up with my challenge, but I still have all that knitting to do...javascript:void(0)

Back on the Wagon

Yes, it is summer... I seem to have trouble finding time to blog in the summer and yet, there is so much to blog about!

Our camping trip to Orcas Island:
Yakima
Orcas Island is beautiful. I love visiting the San Juan Islands, and Orcas is my favorite. I've been there 3 times now. This was my first time camping on the island. We camped in Moran State Park and though our campsite was a little closer to the road that I would like, this was offset by the fact that we were right on Cascade Lake.
Moran Arch campsite
We were hoping to be able to fish from our campsite, but the water was a bit too shallow to fish from shore. It rained.

It rained lightly on Friday night, and we went to bed early because we were all tired from our ferry boat ride and setting up camp.

On Saturday, we drove up to the lookout on top of Mt. Constitution. This is the highest point in the San Juans and on a clear day you can see about 100 miles in every direction.
Moran Lookout
Unfortunately, it was cold and cloudy at the top, so we didn't stay long. On our way down the mountain, I took off on a side road to do a little hike. We ended up finding Cascade Falls about 1/2-mile off the road, and it was beautiful. The kids enjoyed being able to get right down to the bottom of the falls.

IMG_1965
waterfall

Sunday, we were just finishing up breakfast and starting to leisurely pack up when the sky opened up and it started to POUR! We scrambled to get everything packed up and get out of there but missed the ferry by 10 minutes and had to wait 2 hours for the next one.

We had a fun weekend, despite the rain, and look forward to one or two more camping trips this summmer.