Progress Update

I know many of you love to see photos of the grand daughters to see how quickly they have grown. This post will be devoted to that and sharing pictures of a quick trip one of my sons and I took on his day off. The only knitting reference is that scarf I am wearing below. It is the same Anisette wrap written about here.

Here we all are at Miss A's baptism. Photo thanks to M. Shaffer.

Miss E had a lovely sugar filled morning running around with her cousin and Miss A did fine until someone she didn't know started putting water on her forehead. That made her angry, but once she was returned to Mom, all was good with the world.

Here's a close up of Miss A.

Posing on Mom's hip

Miss A has grown so much; sitting up on her own, enjoying solid food and rocking on all four soon to be crawling. She has a big sister to follow around so moving is an imperative. What has not changed is her contented personality. This girl loves her life. It was fun to be a part of this family event.

Yesterday my oldest son decided to take a day off from work, and he asked me to join him on a short road trip less than a hour south of the Twin Cities. We traveled to Hastings, Minnesota to see the Vermillion Falls.

It was really flowing in my photo

It has been raining a lot in this part of the world and the Falls was flowing very fast as the Vermillion River was overtaking areas that had been dry before the rains. As a comparison, here's another photo taken from roughly the same vantage point at a drier time of the year.

A far cry from what I saw yesterday.

We then crossed the state line into Wisconsin and visited Prescott where the St. Croix and the Mississippi Rivers converge.

The muddy Mississippi in the background and the clear blue St. Croix closer to the boats.

You can see the darker Mississippi as it runs parallel to the St. Croix which appears more crystal blue. Somewhere downstream the two completely merge and the Mississippi muddies up the St. Croix as it heads to New Orleans, Louisiana.

Finally we stopped at Red Wing, Minnesota where the famous Red Wing Shoe company was started in 1905 and continues to operate today. At the front of their retail store/museum is this giant 877 style steel-toed shoe. This model is size 638 1/2 US. It is impressive.

My chauffeur and travel buddy with a giant work boot.

He and I had a nice day riding around together and we were home in time for him to mow the lawn before dinner.

I head back to Vancouver in a few hours, but the past few days have given me a lot to be thankful for. Friends have had me stop by for a meal; family has gone out of their way to spend time with me. Thanks to everyone for going the extra mile to say goodbye. But not to worry, I will be back soon.

Ode to the Cat

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing. I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away. Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close. Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening. As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend. Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration. I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned out finished, and

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time. One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock. So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep. Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot. And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms. (BTW

Yarn Barf

It's back to quirkiness and time to step away again from the cuteness for a while. But as you see I'm someone who slips from one to the other without much effort so anticipate this back and forth to be my new normal. A dramatization of me in the midst of my startitist frenzy Yarn barf . I'm willing to bet you hadn't thought of putting those two words together, had you? It just so happens yarn barf can be a reoccurring pain for those of us who use yarns that come in a skein instead of a hank. (No pun intended regarding the current Noro virus, well maybe a little pun.) Skeins of yarn wound by the manufacturer These are hanks which need to be wound into balls If you look closely at the picture on the right you'll see the start on the millet yellow skein at the centre right of the photo. Its start can easily be seen coming from the centre of the skein onto the violet skein to the left. Easy to find, right! Sure but what about the remaining 4

Nancy23 May 2017 at 10:13
The girls are absolutely adorable. And I agree with Miss A about not liking a stranger putting water on a head--quite justified. We will visit the State Capital on your next visit.
JFlag23 May 2017 at 11:02
Perhaps Miss A was only confused or surprised, but she let everyone in earshot know this water thing was not part of what she signed up for. Capitol then would be fine. Hope you found the envelope in you mail slot.

Flagel Knitting Files

Search This Blog

Progress Update

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ode to the Cat

Anatomy of a Sock

Yarn Barf