Monday, May 28, 2007

Vacation Day #3, #4, and #5, STS edging

Warning: LOTS of pictures; lace knitting at the end of the post.

I'm really falling behind in my vacation postings, but I'm going to try to catch up a little bit.

Day #3: in Cedar City, seeing family and friends.

We spent the morning with the kids in the pool, and four of the cousins came over to swim, too. Much fun was had by all! In the afternoon we all met up at one of the great parks in Cedar City, Canyon Park. When we were living in Cedar we spent a good amount of time there.

Here's a picture of Greg with our kids and two cousins, walking from one side of the park to the other:

There are two streams that run through the park. One has bridges like this one, and the other is really wide and quite deep, with only two bridges across it at either end of the park. This is toward the beginning of the picnic, before all the kids ended up in the stream.

A view of the canyon from the park.

Ryan, debating about whether or not he's going to climb down by himself. (He didn't.)

I have some other pictures, but I didn't get permission yet from the people in them to post, so I'm going to wait.

That evening we went to my friend Gale's house (and Brad's house, too!) and hung out for a while. We all had a great time! Here's a very very patient cat that Gillian decorated. It was so funny! Gillian was crumble dandelion petals on the cat, then go look for more and the cat would follow her and then wait patiently while she put more stuff on her!



Gale and Brad have fiber animals, and this is Devo. He's a part-mohair goat and he and Ryan became good buddies.

The kids also enjoyed chasing Gale's exotic chickens, hoping to get one to let it pet it. Yeah, right, like that was going to happen! Much fun was had by all.

Brad and Gale have motorcycles, and Gale's has "Ride like a girl" written on it (in purple, of course!) so Gillian put on her helmet and posed for a picture.

Day #4 I didn't take many pictures; we pretty much just recovered from the busy days we'd had and visited with Greg's family. It was nice to relax a little bit!

Day #5 we went from Cedar City (Utah) to Idaho Falls, Idaho, which is about 8 hours. Here's a view of the back side of Cedar Breaks National Monument. One of my all-time favorite drives is from Cedar City up the mountain to Brian Head/Cedar Breaks (US Hwy 14).

Here's a picture of the back side of Cedar Breaks, with the morning light.

180 degrees from that picture, the kids and my wonderful husband, enjoying a quick roadside stop:
This is the Zion Overlook on Hwy 14, which is very special to me/us because this is where DH gave me my engagement ring more than 11 years ago. All those craggy areas in the distance are Zion National Park.


We were hoping to go up the mountain, then through Cedar Breaks and down, but Cedar Breaks wasn't open for the summer yet. Instead we went by Navajo Lake, through Duck Creek, and down over the other side of the mountain to US Hwy 89. We went up 89 through Panguitch, then took I-20 across to I-15.

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I'm really discouraged by a lot of the posts on the knitting email lists lately. There seems to be a lot of negativity going around. I posted a question on the KnitList about why more dishcloth patterns aren't charted a few people jumped all over me for even suggesting it. Honestly, I just don't understand 1.) why designers don't post charts as well as the word instructions, and 2.) why people jumped all over me for even asking about it. If people aren't open to new ideas (not that charting is a new idea!!) then why are they on lists like that? I just don't get it.

Three hours later: My dear friend Rori came to my defense with the acrimonious woman, and I was quite relieved that it wasn't just me who thought I was being rude. I'm feeling much better about things now.


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Last night I swatched a lace edging pattern for my Shetland Tea Shawl, and I'm not happy with it. Well, that's not true--I love the design but I think it's way too open for the edging on a large shawl. It might be really good on a shoulder-size shawl, but on this big shawl I think it'd catch on things. Especially as clumsy as I am sometimes. Here's my two-repeat swatch or just the outside part of the edging:


It's gorgeous, but it's really open. I'll have to keep swatching. :-)

I think I might use it as an insertion, with something somewhat less open at the very edge. We'll see—I haven't found a combination yet that has the right number of stitches.

Wow, thanks for reading all the way to the end! Hopefully tomorrow's post won't be quite so long....

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just remember, that crabby person has to look at herself in the mirror. That should be punishment enough for her. I hate being crabby! Just blow her off. There were several positive answers on knitlist. Why do the negative voices seem so much louder??? Just smile and ask another good question.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing the cool pics! I like your new title picture too.

I've noticed the rudeness on the lists too. There is one particular person that has a lot of talent, but I have rarely seen her reply to a post without being a witch. I think I'd be afraid to be in the same room with her.

I started the Swallowtail Shawl. Still not sure of the exact formula for enlarging it.

Romi said...

Wow! It looks like you had a wonderful time! :)

Anne K. said...

I've left more than one list for the negative vibes you mention. Fiber snobbery is another reason. I'm with you - if people aren't open to new ideas, why be on a list at all...and why do people think it's OK to jump all over someone else? So unfair. I feel so sorry for anyone who unwittingly mentions knitting anything, even a cat blanket, out of Red Heart...you can just FEEL the impending doom coming their way, poor souls!

Anyway, 'nuff said about this stuff. Love your blog, love your knitting, love your ideas. How's that? :-)