Flagel Knitting Files

Last weekend we drove downtown Seattle and parked on the street.  In Seattle you purchase a parking pass from a machine, as you do in many major cities.  The machine spits out a sticker you place on the window that announces when your time is up.  Paul asked me to perform this simple task and so I walked up to the machine and put in my credit card.  It should have been a clue when I had to push more than expected to get the credit card in the machine.  However when I pressed buttons for the sticker my card popped out just enough for me to pinch it between my fingertips and thumb.  Problem was it popped out just enough  for me to get a grip with my finger tips, but not enough to pull it out.  The police and parking departments were called with both stating they were not able to help at this time, please call back. (Note to self, perhaps a credit card in a machine is not an emergency to others, just me!)   I walked up the street and found a friendly art gallery owner who had a pair of pl

Well Canadians are celebrating their hockey victories over both the U.S. Olympic Men's and Women's teams.  It is done, from my POV, as only Canadians do it, with subtlety, generally speaking.  Yes, there are the random comments about the self-described leaders of the free world, but mainly one finds statements like this: Thanks to Molson Canadian for this gem, I love it.  Not taking one's self too seriously is one of the best Canadian qualities I've identified in nearly 11 years. In other news from today, we stopped at the Little Knits warehouse location in Seattle.  It is my go-to discount yarn shop.  When I stopped last fall they said by this time they would have the retail end of their online mail order shop open in their new location.  No such luck. I was told due to the water problems they are having with the new building they won't be opening a retail shop.  Too bad because I like to touch my yarn before I buy it.  But then, perhaps the yarn gods w

Mike, the cat, turns 15 years old today, that is 76 years in human years.  Paul sang happy birthday to him twice this morning something that I think caught Mike off guard, or was it just me?  We thought we might give him a gift of two opened cans of tuna.  No, Mike doesn't like the meat, but he loves the water the tuna is packed in. It would be a very special treat for him.  And maybe we'll give him a lick or two of a stout beer.  So I do think we're celebrating this event properly. We got Mike as a socialized kitten in 1999 and he immediately bonded to me and to this day I am his best buddy.  Now that he's 15/76 I do notice a slowing down.  We're at a point where he calls out for me if he can't see me; perhaps his eyes aren't a good as they used to be or is it his sense of smell?  That hour of "wilding", about 9 pm daily, when he tears up and down the stairs in the house at full cat speed has dwindled to a few minutes per week.  He also seems to

In November 2011 I tipped my hat to my DIL for introducing me to the idea of blogging, here .   At the time she was between completing an MBA and having a child.  I watched as she took beautiful photos of the meals she made and then wrote about them.    Her blog hasn't been updated recently and been retired, but I think we all agree she had a very busy 2013.  Instead many of us receive 365 M with at least one photo or video shared daily.  The change in focus is welcome. There are others in the family who also blog and do have something worthwhile to say.  Let me introduce you to these two family bloggers. First Lee , Paul's son, has been writing about his perspectives regarding media and newspapers in the U.S. since 2009 using Wordpress.  His thoughtful commentary about topics like community attachment ,  the demise of the newspaper, how to build your own wood desk and gripes about Internet that should be written internet, is worth the time they take to read.  Lee doesn

Knitting and raising children have certain similarities.  You  invest hours of time putting together stitches or putting together activities/meals/situations (aka life) for children and hope that the end results work out in both cases.  The photo of M above reminded me that son and daughter-in-law are starting this journey with her.  (Doesn't she look happy, well fed and cared for, or am I just being a grandma again?)  The dynamic is you just don't know whether what you do at her age, or for the next 18 years or so, for that matter, will work out as you had thought it should, could or would. When one knits there is a lot of hopefulness, anxiety (am I doing the right thing?) and stress.  Additionally, there's a certain amount of decision-making, where it is hard to tell if what you are doing is going to work out or not. Questions like this pop up:  Should I change this colour, rip out this patch that doesn't quite satisfy, or look for a different use for this yarn?  Wh

 May all your Valentine's Day wishes come true today and throughout the year.  Here's my Valentine to you; of course, it is done in yarn.

The words - the  Olympics and knitter - represent a juxtaposition to me.  That is they represent ". . . two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect."  An Olympic athlete is someone who is very active in pursuit of physical excellence.  A knitter is generally not seen in the same physically active sense.  So when these two terms came together in Olympic news over the weekend I knew I'd have to write about it.  (Sue, thanks so much for this tip.) Apparently, the Finnish Snowboarding coach, Antti Koskinen, used free time to knit at the top of the course.  Talk about multitasking, you have a few moments to fill while your competitor waits to begin their "routine" so why not do something productive, like knit.  As you can see at the moment this photo was taken there was less than a minute of time before the big show. But this is not the end of the story, apparently the Finnish team is knitting this scarf to hand off to Finland'

I lived on Oahu from 1975-77 and did a fair amount of island hopping.  We spent time in Hilo and visited the volcanoes, I remember getting rather close to them on a wooden railing that circled the molten lava.  We also traveled to a large Black Sand beach, and I was so impressed by it all. During the Xmas holiday of 2011, I took my sons and their wives to Oahu.  They were born on the Mainland, and I promised for years we'd do a trip to Hawaii.  Although most of the trip was spent on Oahu, I wanted to get them to the Big Island.  Of the 13 different geographic zones in the world, the Big Island contains 11, or so we were told by the tour guide.  It was a 12-hour bus trip and a 15 hour day, but we managed the circumference on the island.  I remember thinking, the black sand beach has gotten small and we really couldn't get very close to the Halemoumou crater, an easily accessible active volcano in the park.  Now I know these observations were right. As I said, part of the rea

So we have been touring around and sitting at the pool.  No one will call me tan, but I am less white than I was a few days ago.  The ocean sounds can be heard and the ocean itself can be seen from our condo deck.  Word had it the weather has taken a turn to below freezing again in Vancouver as well.  We are happy just sitting here in the sunshine perhaps feeling just a bit smug about our good timing. The Black Sand Beach - with a sea turtle sunning itself Here's another clue both a black and a green sand beach.  Yup, you guessed it we are on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Our condo is close to the Punaluu Beach Park, which is a black sand beach, and even though we have been there almost daily, no green sea turtles have been sited until today.  But perhaps the highlight of the trip for me has been our adventure to Papakolea, the green sand beach. (-1 off the bucket list!) Yes, this is a Green Sand Beach Papakolea is formed by a large deposit of a semi-precious sto

This post actually started about a year ago.  Paul and I had stayed in Vancouver for Xmas and by this time in 2013 I was grumpy.  It has been raining (I know, poor me) for months, I hadn't seen the sun and it was the doldrums of work.  So we decided this year, 2014, we'd get away to the sun. It was left to me do to the planning.  Apparently it was deemed I do a pretty good job with VRBO (Vacation Rental By Owner) since I have had several successes in the past.  I rented the place, arranged for the appropriate flights and car rental and boom, we were ready to head out to the sun. Guess where we are yet? We have now left Vancouver for a sunnier climate, and due to a purchase made in the U.S. I have a way to continue to blog on the road.  On the way here I thought it would be a good idea to frog the part of the man's Fair Isle toque back to where it started to get too gray.  It is hard to explain why one would decide to create such a yarny mess on a plane, but I did.