near failure on 365

so my 365 projects has more become a ‘maybe once a week project’. I hope to pick up the photo taking more and more as i go. here are the photos i have taken over the past 2.5 months

i am cute

still cute

mandy and bella – they have matching hair

lunch under a willow

in need of a cool down on the cold cement

this awesome looking cake was awesomely delicious

give me a moment

definitely still cute

wolfishly cute

birch

wedding crafts

hello tulip tree

tamarack buds!!!

🙂

hanging on the rocks – bachelorette party

*sigh* georgian bay

down

up

badlands

badlands

squirrel?

tooba the awesome

tooba the great

there be dragons… made entirely of mosquitos

this weekend was to be a camping weekend.

may is terrible for camping. the temperature is lovely, but many insects share this sentiment. mosquitos, in particular, are around in droves. i don’t know why i ever think it’s going to be better than completely awful.

despite the liberal use of bug spray, 20 minutes of  hiking into bon echo’s backcountry left my arms covered (i mean covered) with mosquito bites. An executive decision was made and the camping weekend abruptly turned into a cottage weekend. we all but ran back to the car and drove the extra hour to the nearby family cottage. at the cottage there were plenty of bugs (as evidenced in the photos below) but the most conspicuous were dragonflies. which is alright by me as they are the kings of the insect world. i had a moment of panic when i thought i had found a asian longhorned beetle, but it turned out to be a white-spotted sawyer beetle. phew.

i’m still really itchy though.

05-31-14 to 05-01-14

sugar maple/beech canopy

‘i lerve the cottage jen’

not to be confused with the asian longhorned beetle

pushing buttons

a tool i picked up for the upcoming nuptials. there will be fun.

05-30-14

new camera – new post

i picked up a new camera this week. save for travel photos, i have neglected my photography in recent years. in large part this is because i have grown sick of lugging around a big DLSR. i  figured i would try out a compact systems camera for a change of pace and picked up the fuji x-m1. so far i’m rather happy with the results. i think i’ll try to take photos daily again. another camera, another 365 project.

trees will likely feature heavily as i’m attempting to expand my tree identification skills and because trees are awesome. bella will also feature heavily, because she’s bella (see below for evidence)

here is 05-27-14-05 to 05-29-14

dead fern

gala apple

white spruce

sugar maple

freeman maple

blue spruce

cedar

willow seeds

japanese maple

black locust… or honey locust

a different kind of paw paw

really hard work

bella on a bridge

getting photos taken is hard work

behind you bella

a certain someone

Casting on – using Judy’s Magic Cast On as a provisional cast on

Hello dear fellow Knitters.

I’m sure I am not the first to figure this out, but I haven’t found an instructional video out there for how to use Judy’s Magic Cast On (JMCO) – which is a fantastic way to start toe up stocks or slippers – as a provisional cast on for working flat.

What I like about using this method is

1. I get the same number of stitches for my working stitches and my provisional stitches. Having one less stitch when you pick up your provisional CO is the fly in the ointment of provisionally casting on. There are, of course, several other ways around this (ie. decreasing a stitch from you working stitches, or picking up another stitch from the edge when releasing your prov. CO) but I’ve come to love this method. It’s my go to for when I need a provisional cast on.

2. Your provisional stitches are already live and ready either to be knit if you are working in two directions, or seamed if you are seaming. You can hold them ready on a cable with two cable caps (if you have interchangeable needles) or on a stitch holder, or on scrap yarn.

I suggest this method in a couple of my patterns and figured people interested in trying it out could use a tutorial to make it clear what I’m talking about.

what i saw yesterday…

yesterday Dave and i went a little hike. well, a long hike. in total we walked over 20km. we started out in cape spear, the (disputed) most easterly point in north america and hiked north back to st john’s along the east coast trail. aside for some irritating moments where the trail was poorly marked, it was a great adventure.
there are many photos, so i will break them up into sections related to the hike.

cape spear – blackhead

we played in some of the WWII-era tunnels at cape spear before heading off. Shortly after leaving cape spear we noticed some whales breaching. we expect they were humpbacks. Mostly we saw explosions of water and heard the ‘slap’ of their fall back to the water. it was magic. we continued out hike to the small fishing community of blackhead