Tide pools

Friday I took Ethan on a field trip to Rosario Beach, where there are great tide pools. There we met Adam, the interpretive guide for Deception Pass State Park, who gave us a guided tour of the tide pools.
Here is the pool area of Rosario Beach:


We saw a lot of marine life that day, and I hope Ethan enjoyed it as well as learned from it. I'm sure we'll be back often as it is fascinating to see what lives in the pools and its close to home.

The first thing we saw when we got to the park were rabbits. It was late morning, and rabbits are plentiful on this island. They're also pretty fearless... I stayed on the trail and one that we passed didn't run away until I was about 2 feet away from him.

In the tide pools we got to see some cool things that aren't common unless there is a minus tide and you are looking for them.

We saw Red Sea Cucumbers:


Tube Worms:


and Anemone:


We also saw various limpets, chiton, shore crabs, a large rock crab, hermit crabs, barnacles, fish, and finished the trip of with an eagle flying over head.

Ethan finished the morning by throwing rocks in the water and jumping waves.


You can see the rest of the photos from our tide pool adventures on Flickr.

52 craft challenge #21 Booga Bag

I have a group of internet friends that I do a monthly knit-along or crochet-along with. Our project for May was the Booga Bag. I decided to modify mine because as the pattern was written, the finished bag is about 4 x 7 x 8 and this just seemed too small for me. So, I made it bigger. I used Plymouth Boku in color "4", which is purple, green, and orange, and just a gorgeous colorway. I had a big problem with this yarn; 4 out of the six skeins had knots. Two of the skeins even had multiple knots. For a 50 gram skein, that is just WAY to many.

Now that it is done, I still LOVE the colors, but I've decided that I like the look of this bag as originally written, taller than it is wide... mine was much wider than it was tall. I just kept knitting until I ran out of yarn, and I bought 6 skeins.

The photo really doesn't do the bag justice... the colors are much more rich. I was having lighting issues when I took it.

A Gift

So my birthday is next month. About a week ago, I mentioned to Cliff that I planned on buying myself a new camera lens for my birthday and showed him which one I wanted. Well, he bought it for me! I know my birthday is still a month away, but he gave it to me now so he wouldn't forget what I wanted or get the wrong one. I got out and played with it a bit in the garden. It is a Canon EF 50 mm 1:1.8 II. From all the research I did, this appears to be a great priced, versatile lens. It is supposed to be great for portraits, but I didn't have a human subject handy, just flowers... so I played with bokeh.

I've not used a fixed lens before, so it was definitely a new experience. Here are some of my first attempts:






and



I think I LOVE this lens!

52 in 52 #20

I'm still a week behind (about to be 2) but I whipped up this easy little cozy for my Zune (mp3 player). I needed something that I could wear around my neck when I'm walking or biking because the belt clip just doesn't cut it. I improvised the pattern, which I find so much easier to do with crochet than knit. The strap is just three chains braided together.

52 in 52 #19 Socks

I finally finished these socks. I've been working on them since February. They are a gift for Cliff's birthday next week. I'm afraid they'll be too big, but I hope he likes them and will at least wear them for house socks if they don't fit. I CO 80 stitches because that is what was recommended in Sensational Knitted Socks for the pattern I was going to do. After I finished the cuff, I decided to knit them in stockinette instead because it was my first time knitting two at a time on Magic Loop, and I didn't want to complicate things further. Well, I didn't account for the negative ease that the pattern would have had to make the socks more fitted.

Anyway, here they are, on LARGE sock blockers:


It occurs to me that we are finishing up week 21 of the year (its Friday May 22) and I'm only on #19. Fortunately, I have another knitting project just about done, and have a couple of small/quick ones in the queue so hopefully I can get caught up.

I took Ethan to the fabric store last weekend so he could pick out his own fabric for his next apron and that should be another quick project.

52 in 52 item #18

I finished project #18 for my 52 in 52 craft challenge. It is a really cute apron for Ethan. The pattern is a freebie I found at Joann.com and the fabric was from my stash. He absolutely loves it. The day I gave it to him, he put it on and wore it for about 4 hours. We've decided this one is going to grandma's pottery studio so he has one his size to use and get dirty in. I learned from my mistakes on the first one, which were purely my fault and not the pattern. I plan on making at least one more of these. I even took Ethan to the fabric store with me to pick out fabric. Next time I think I'll use cord rather than making a 44" long tube that I have to try turning right-side out without tearing the fabric or losing my mind.

Here's a photo of the boy modeling his new apron:

52 in 52

So, Nicole over at Stash and Burn is challenging herself to do 52 craft projects in 52 weeks... not just knitting but sewing too. I've decided to do this too, hoping it will encourage me to sew and scrapbook along the way. I've created a flickr set with photos of each of my projects that I'm counting toward the 52. The trick is going to be not compromising on the projects out of a need to crank them out and stay on track. I've decided to include DIY projects that I take on that have a crafty spin, like my "photo studio" and the bookcase for the school room.

Yes, the bookcase is done. It took 2 coats of primer and 3 coats of red paint. I probably could have done another coat of red, but I ran out of paint. Red is HARD to paint with! I'm wishing I had the primer tinted to a darker color because painting red over white primer is NOT fun or easy. So, the bookcase only looks okay in my opinion, but I figure its going to get used and abused so it really doesn't matter. Here's a photo, in its permanent location, already all loaded up with books and school supplies (I say permanent because I had to screw it to the wall, it is a bit top heavy):


My first completed sewing project of the year is a clothespin bag. I decided to hang clothesline over the back deck so I can dry laundry. I had the clothespins but nothing to put them in, so I searched online for a pattern or tutorial and finally settled on this one. I used some flannel remnants from my fabric stash and came up with this:

The tutorial recommends a child's size plastic hanger and I can see how that might have been better size-wise but I didn't have one and wasn't going to go buy one... its all about making use of what I have. Of course ever since I finished it, it has been raining and I haven't gotten to use it but it will be helpful next laundry day.

I've been working on piecing a quilt-top style tablecloth. I actually started cutting the pieces about 5 years ago and didn't get very far. I've started assembling the blocks, so hopefully it'll go quickly.

My next sewing project is an easy apron for Ethan. He loves to help me in the kitchen and always asks to wear my apron when we bake. Of course it is too big for him and doesn't really do its job on a 5 year old, so this new one will be just his size. If they are as easy as the pattern makes them look, I might be making a bunch of them for Christmas presents. Wow, it is only May, am I really planning Christmas presents already?