Too bad the fireplace is sketchy ...

I keep chipping away at my reduce project, making some slow but steady progress. 

Today I decided that the file drawer needed to be dealt with.  This drawer has been a repository for everything, forever.  And today was the day for making a significant dent.

Before, during and after ...

  Look at that newly found space!

Out with the old and in with someone else's old!

In a case of synchronicity,  Spun Fibre Arts in Oakville, sent a note a couple of weeks ago about a yarn swap.  Fantastic!  I dove into the stash and came up with a number of items.  I dove a little deeper this morning, the day of the stash, and found a few more items to add to the pile.

The swap was fun.  A bunch of nice ladies who I think all left with yarns they will enjoy knitting.

I achieved my goal of coming home with less than I left with.  Most of the items above were taken by others in the swap which feels good.  And I left the small amount of remaining items for the Project Linus representative for blankets.  I would have used the yarns to knit for charity anyway and this should, hopefully, speed up the journey into the hands of others in the form of finished projects.  And I can concentrate on my charity hat knitting.  Win-win!

The new-to-me yarns to the right.  Two balls of my kryptonite, Noro or two different types, a ball of sock yarn and a couple of other pretty skeins.

Reduce

I have been listening to the podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin for quite a while. While not a new concept on the podcast, this year I was attracted to the concept of having a word for the year. The word represents an intention for how you want to spend your year.

Stepping back for a moment, I have always thought about new year's resolutions, made a few, but, like everyone else, lost sight of them shortly after jumping back into post holiday real life. When this Jan 1 rolled around, I did not have any fully formed thoughts to write down as resolutions. But, in listening to Happier, the concept of having a word of the year really jumped out at me. 

One thing frequently mentioned on Happier is the premise that "outer order leads to inner calm". I have lately been feeling overwhelmed by my stash of crafty things. I love them all but am surrounded.  I have been chipping away at the yarn for a while but not making much progress on the fabric. And there are all of those other fun things I have picked up at various places that I wanted to try but have never unwrapped.  So, I thought my word of the year (or maybe the next decade but we'll see how this year goes) is Reduce. 

Reduce the stash, reduce the number of items in my closet, reduce my weight a bit, reduce stress by working from home more often, just reduce. And it is working. Slowly, but working. I've started to make time for quilting once a week. I've been more targeted about finishing knitting projects, I have reduced my Ravelry queue and am not buying patterns randomly. I have found myself saying "reduce" to myself in other decisions I have made to date. And it is easier than having a list of 5 resolutions. It is one word, to be interpreted how I want to interpret it in the moment. And a pleasant side effect, reduce leads to reduced spending and a few more dollars in my jeans. Perfect. 

Just some of my stash to be reduced ...

North to Alaska

This summer, we went on a cruise to Alaska.  It was our first cruise.  And while I wouldn't rush back to take another cruise and will be very selective regarding location if we take a cruise again, it was the perfect way to see the sites on our way from Vancouver to Anchorage.  The fact that you can't get to Juneau by road is just part of the reason to travel here via cruise.

Alaska is stunningly beautiful.  The air is clear, the skies in late June only got as dark as the picture here, which I could really get used to.  Fortunately the curtains in our room were very good at blocking out the light so it didn't impact sleeping.  Since I can sleep most places, that might not have bothered me, but glad we didn't have to test it.

We had fantastic weather until the end when we were in Denali National Park and the mountain did not show its face for a second.  But that's how it goes with travel.

Our excursions off the boat included kayaking in the ocean near Ketchikan (fantastic), hiking in Juneau (also fantastic), and a jeep ride into the Yukon from Skagway (slightly less fantastic … two jeeps broke down, the off road part was not terribly exciting, but on the positive side, we saw two bears and got to go to the Yukon).  I purposefully picked excursions with a some physical activity involved.  Never being on a cruise, I wasn't sure how much activity this trip was going to provide but I was pretty sure that there would be a lot of food.  The activities were great, and with a couple of visits to the gym combined with walks around the deck, I kept active and felt a little less guilty for enjoying dessert after dinner!

The towns of Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway were nice to wander around and I had fantastic fish for lunch in Juneau and Skagway.  I had Halibut tacos in Juneau that I am still dreaming of.  The fish was so fresh and the tacos so creative and tasty, I would go back just to have them again!

Without much difficulty (thanks to the internet), I managed to find yarn stores in all of our ports.  In Juneau, I bought Alaska-themed fingering from Blue Moon Fibre Arts and some fabric with Alaskan motifs at the fabric store next door.

In Skagway, after much deliberation, I bought a skein of Qiviut fingering which was not inexpensive but the cowl that I've essentially finished is so soft that I almost can't wait for winter so that I can wear it … emphasis on the word almost.

The main benefit of going to Alaska on a cruise was the trip into Glacier Bay National Park and the College Fjords.  Breathtaking.  Our ship is one of the ones allowed to go right into both of these areas so the views were stunning.  It is so difficult to describe.  And to see these properly, you need to be on a boat.

So the trip north to Alaska was well worth the money.  I would love to go back and spend some time in one of the villages or at a camp in the bush.  I've added that to my very long places to go list.

Vancouver

A very delayed post on summer vacation which consisted of a few parts and which will hopefully get posted before our next vacation.  This year we went on an Alaska cruise.  More on that at a later time.  This post is about Vancouver.  Before and after the cruise, we spent a little bit of time in Vancouver.  Our approach to city sight seeing is to walk everywhere, which we did.  

On our first day there, before catching the ship, we spent most of the day in Stanley Park.  But on our way there, we stopped into a concourse shopping mall to pick up umbrellas and find somewhere for lunch.  And we found a fantastic place … the best Dim Sum I have ever had.  As a very in-the-moment kind of traveller, I have no idea what it was called or where it was.  This is the same for the fabulous Chinese dinner we had when we flew back into Vancouver at the end of the trip and the pub lunch by the cruise ship dock and Gastown that we had the next day.  Oh well.  Everyone needs to make their own memories, I guess but I'll try to do better in the future.

After lunch, it was on to Stanley Park, with the umbrellas we didn't need for the rest of the day and very satisfied tummies.  Stanley Park is beautiful.  There is no other way to say it.  And we only scratched the surface, walking about 6 km round trip through one section.  

After a stop back at the hotel to change we popped over to Gastown and looked around.  Very touristy but we found some great shops with Native Canadian art, spent some time talking to a man carving a totem pole and watched the clock steam away with all of the other tourists.  

On our return trip from Alaska, we spent most of our time walking again, this time in a steady downpour.  The purchase of the umbrellas was not a waste!

Our main focus this time was Granville Island.  I love it there.  Neat little shops to look around in, the food stands and the water.  I found a great quilt shop and another place with art supplies that I wish I could live close to for their classes.  I am pretty sure I could pick up some new hobbies there.  

We went on one of the cute little people ferry boats just because and ended up touring another part of Stanley Park as we made our eventual way back to our hotel.

My favourite thing about the area, aside from these guys painted on storage tanks … a bakery that I read about on the internet when researching, Beaucoup Bakery.  The peanut butter cookies are apparently the best things ever.  Not that I would have any idea.  I fully intended on the peanut butter cookie as we walked in but, on the counter, shouting my name, were chocolate rosemary cookies.  I love, love love chocolate and can say the same about rosemary, although perhaps with a little less passion.  Chocolate and rosemary together?  Rosemary used in a sweet preparation?  I had to try this mysterious combination.  And it was fantastic.  Super rich, almost like a brownie,  with a hint of rosemary and salt that just make the cookie sing.  

I vowed that I would get creative, suffer failures, but work to figure out how to make them when we got home.  And I did figure it out, but without any blood, sweat or tears.  The recipe is online!  And just as delicious made by me as I remember them being in the bakery.  Thanks to the owner for sharing the recipe with Food Network Canada.  And I should add that the bakery also makes good coffee and my husband quite enjoyed his chocolate croissant, but I'm glad I had that cookie.  

Motivation

I'm still feeling that motivation from the last post and the overwhelming desire to reduce the amount of materials in my crafty space.  That one is a bit harder due to a visit to the Knitters' Fair but if I keep the output larger than the input, I consider it a win.

As I was moving stuff around in an effort to at least reduce the number of bins full of yarn, I stumbled on this partially completed Farmer's Market bag from Weekend Knits that I started eons ago.  And by eons, I mean generously 3 years ago but more realistically 6.  I started it to make a dent in the random balls of Lopi I had picked up over the years, most leftovers from sweaters.  Given my recent attraction to fair isle patterns, little convincing was required to get going on this bag again.

The bag is slightly wider at the bottom than the top do to quite a large change in my tension since I started.  Life has been a bit more stressful so not a complete surprise.  But despite the bag's slightly bottom heavy figure, it turned out pretty well.  I don't think I'm going to bother lining it so probably won't use it as a market bag but it will come in handy for other purposes, I'm sure.

And to keep things interesting, I made a pair of Camp Out fingerless mitts from one of my Kitchener purchases.  I always forget how fantastic Malabrigo Rios is to work with.  Love it.  I'm tamping down the urge to go out and buy a sweater quantity by reminding myself of all of the other sweater quantities, not to mention unfinished sweaters, that are in the aforementioned bins.

Do It Again

Although it is still quite warm outside (but not even close to how painfully hot it was this summer), it feels like Autumn to me.  The sun is in a different place, the days are getting shorter, and I am getting the urge to knit all the time.  The urge to knit never really goes away, even in the heat, but Autumn hits and I want to finish Wips, start new projects and clear out stash, all at the same time.  And production generally keeps up with motivation.  It is a great time of year.

In trying to reduce stash bit-by-bit, I generally knit hats.  Three more done.  One bound for charity, I haven't decided on the blue one and a baby gift.  Photos of all taken, unoriginally, on the same deck chair.

In order, they are ...
 - the Spin Cycle Hat, knit with some Colinette I bought many years ago at the factory in Wales - this pattern hurt my hands and turned out very large (although it still fits me so it will fit someone out there with an equally big head and possibly more hair).

 - Sitka Spruce, a gift pattern at Christmas from Tin Can Knits.  This one hurt my hands too, a theme of some of the patterns I've been knitting the last little while.  The learning from this is to pick my patterns a little more carefully.

- the Swirl Hat, a gift for a friend who is due to have her baby any day now.  I made her a blanket, also green, so this will probably go in the box with it.  I always think a baby should have a hat.  Especially if Autumn actually arrives.

So on I go with my Autumn knitting.  I'm almost finished a bag that I can't remember starting and think I might actually add a few rows to one of my sweaters in progress.  Aaaah Autumn.