Mini mug rug!!

One of the woman in my knitting group is the fastest crocheter in the east. She produces clever, detailed items constantly. Last week at knitting group she brought me a gift! She had made these little mini mug rugs to give to all of the members at Christmastime. Unfortunately, I was out of town and missed the party, but she brought some for me last week.


The mug rugs are based on a rug design that she uses to make life-sized rugs out of leftover dishcloth cotten. All you do is make a chain however long you want the rug to be. Then you work rows of single crochet, slipping the yarn through the last stitch in each row and leaving a short tail. You work the same number of rows on either side of the centre chain. When the rug is wide enough you just stop adding rows. There's no finishing at all. I think this is a really cool idea and I might make one myself to use up a bunch of dishcloth cotten that i am never going to make into dishcloths.

Manitoulin Island.

Two weekends ago, Nat and I took our second roadtrip to Manitoulin Island. We had visited the Island once last summer and had such a good time we new we wanted to return this year. Last year we had explored the eastern portion of the Island which is more densely populated. This year we planned to see the western point. We took the ferry to the Island, camped out, and drove around to see all the sights. Nat did most of the driving and I recorded our outing on a newspaper map we found at the information desk on the boat. I had done the same thing the previous year and it was really neat to compare our trips.

Here's the rundown:

Day 1 - Friday, July 17
-leave Guelph at 7:15
-arrive in Tobermory at 11:00. Apparently, if you have reservations you're supposed to arrive at the ferry one hour in advance of leaving. We were only 20 minutes early. Their website is really poorly laid out and tricky to understand, so I'm sure they have a lot of people not following the rules.
-land in South Baymouth at 1:15. There is a ton of tourist literature on the ferry and we found out that an island-wide art tour was on this weekend. We decided we would stop at any of the interesting studios as we drove by.
-snack at South Baymouth Gallery (salsa and chips), browse gallery on Given Road.
-Blue Jay Creek Art Farm and no fruit stand. Guest artist Marc Brzustowski.

One of Marc's paintings, not my favourite, but the best I could find online:


The greenhouse at Blue Jay Creek Art Farm. Made from the remains of an old stone barn and abandoned glass windows:


-Lynstudio 5 painters and a potter
-old mill Edward's Studio, post office museum and mini lighthouse



-Ravenseiyre Studio
-Life's Little Pleasures quilting and knitting store
-Twin Bluffs restaurant in Gore Bay for fish dinner
-Twilight Isle Campground. Out tent, cottages, construction workers. Camped out on the tip. Wake up to rain. Ate breakfast on the porch on on of the cottages. Couldn't start stove = PB and Nat's jam sandwiches and brie. Best showers in a looong time; hot water and good pressure, too bad about all the spiders.



Day 2 - Saturday, July 18
-Mindemoya farmer's market, lots of interesting handcrafts, lots of not-so-interesting handcrafts, no fresh produce. We need to come a little later in the season for this sort of thing on Manitoulin.
-There was a community fair down the street from the market. I bought the book, Birds of Manitoulin for a quarter. We tried to find pie, but there was none so we settled for rhubarb cake. Yum. Good alternative.
-Wool'n'things
-Roadside pseudo-alvars with huge cracks, campanula
-Luc Lachance studio, he paints on black canvas and had about 20 Art Tour signs leading to his house from all different directions. He almost drew us in twice.
-Hawberry farms, samples and preserves. I bought raspberry honey, asparagus spread, and onion chutney.
-We saw Sandhill Cranes in a field. Nat was really looking forward to this and she spotted them right away.



-Farquhar's butter and ice cream snack in Evansville
-Set up camp at the Mississagi lighthouse campground. We had a beachfront site on an alvar. It's so nice to sleep with Lake Huron crashing against the rocks in the background.



-We snacked then headed out in an attempt to find the Queen Mother Provincial Park indicated on the Ontario roadmap.
-On the road out to the main highway we found Lakeside Daisy and Coreopsis in flower on the roadside and a tiny patch of mini wild strawberries.



-Drive to find provincial park, found creepy town of Burnt Island instead. Park not functioning? Big fishery, chicken farm? Hiked into alvar with Indian Paintbrush.
-Tried to see world's largest drum, peace pipe, and dream catcher. They apparently exist only on the billboards.



-Back at the park, we visited the lighthouse museum, campfire cooked times two. Veggies and sausage for dinner. French toast and hashbrowns for breakfast.

Admiring my annual breakfast smore:



An old crochet-covered bottle in the lighthouse museum. All of the artifacts belonged to the families that lived in the house over the years:


Day 3 - Sunday, July 19
-We got up, packed up, hiked along the shoreline, then visited the town of Meldrum Bay. Cute town. Checked out the Netshed Museum, had a tour from a 17 year old local, stopped by his aunt's thriftstore (some promise, no good finds this day), snacked on popsicles and icecream at the general store (Dukes of Meldrum Bay).



-Visited Misery Bay alvars. Had a good chat with the volunteer on duty. He confirmed that the provinical park is not operating. Their interpretive centre is great. I love this place. I bought a Friends of Misery Bay membership and a Misery loves company patch for $15. This morning I received my first e-mail update. We hiked to the shoreline.



-Drove back to catch the boat at 5:40 and made it home by midnight.

We had a fantastic time and we'll definitely be going back. Perhaps we will try driving up and around through Espanola. Several of the locals told us that was the way to go; just as quick as the ferry and much less expensive. There are a few things we didn't get to this year and have on the list of things to do during our next trip:
-at the interpretive centre at Misery Bay the volunteer told us to check out the west shore of Misery Bay. You need to hike across the water to get there and we didn't have time this year.
-walk up to the base of the windtowers. They are completely massive from the road and seeing them up close would be really interesting.

Talking about our ideas.

Awhile ago a friend pointed me in the direction of ted.com. Ted is an annual conference created to bring "together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives" about Technology, Engineering, and Design. The ted website was created to archive these talks and spread these good ideas across the world for free. I've been watching some of the clips and trying to find the right one to post here. Today I noticed ted mentioned on the Ravelry chat boards in the Geekyknitters group and was led to this clip:

I knew I had found the right one. This video is very interesting. I've actually seen a lot of photos of the crocheted coral reef. I love the idea of incorporating mathematics and sciences into my crafty endeavors.

Umami.

I have so many things that I need to mention here right now that I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. I feel like it's been ages since I posted last. It's fairly obvious that I need to keep on top of this interspace and visit often in order to manage the things in life that are making me feel a little stressed out.

So, on six seemingly unrelated notes (not really though, it's always so much more complicated than that...just remembered a 7th item to mention), allow me to dazzle you with the going-ons in my life.

1. I try really hard to eat like a vegetarian. I'm by no means perfect and I definitely do through some meat-eating phases. These usually coincide with special occaisions when large family meals are traditionally served. Summer BBQ time is also tough. The thing is, I really an a bit of a foodie and I truly miss the flavours that get left out when I don't eat certain food groups. A long time ago Em and I came across the term umami in biology class. Umami is a Japanese word that means something along the lines of meaty or savoury. It is the fifth taste to go along with sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. So, I'm hunting for some good ways to eat more veggie umami tasting foods. As I type, there is a large crock pot of chili bubbling away in the kitchen. It's full of cremimi and other little mushrooms that I can't remember the name of right now. I also added a whole bunch of vegetable protein because I need more of that in my life too.

2. Awhile ago I had personal information cards (I'm not exactly part of a business) printed by a really cool company from the UK called Moo.com. I uploaded images from my work and travels last summer then designed the info part including a picture of myself. I used 23 different background pictures for 60 cards and I could have used 60 different ones if I so desired. Moo.com is a really cool website and a great company to work with. I would highly recommend them for any of your printing needs. You can also make personalized postcards and stickers at the site and I will definitely be partaking in the future. Last time I attended a conference I ended up ripping about 6 pages out of my notebook to scribble down my contact information. I hope I'll get to hand out a whole lot of these this summer instead.



3. Today I received a phonecall from the mother of one of the students I tutor. Apparently he achieved a Gold Medal at the science fair I judged last week! There were just so many displays at the fair that I didn't come across him at all. He didn't see me either, and only knew I was there when he noticed my name as one of the judges in the handout from the award ceremony. Awards were handed out at 8:30 pm and I was only at the fair during the morning. I'm disappointed that I missed him, but I'm very proud of his work.



4. Last week, my good friend Bronwen, from Ottawa, sent me a package in a colourswap. This was a little mail exchange I organized with a few of my crafty friends. Everyone had a secret person to send a package to full of knit, found, made, or thrifted items in the recipient's favourite colours. One of my favourites is blue and she sent me a lot of really neat treats along with a handmade, bound notebook. Bronwen is a great bookbinder and I love receiving notebooks from her. This one is called good notes. I'm going to write in all sorts of little quotes and poems I come across that inspire me. The first one is a favourite of mine by e.e. cummings. He was on my mind from two posts ago.



5. Before and after this post I've been working on a new crochet project. I rarely crochet, it jsut isn't my thing, but I will always love the mindlessness that is the creation of a granny square. The most traditional pattern in all of crochet has to be one of the most aesthetically pleasing patterns in Canadian history. Image a cottage without a granny square afghan? Last weekend, I was home and Belva gave me a giant bag of cast-away wool. Even though I'm trying to pare down my belongings, I will gladly accept any offering of wool. In the bag there were 11 balls of Shetland Chunky Tweed in horrible, coordinating colours. So, now I am making a giant granny square tweed blanket and taking into consideration everything I know about colour theory to make this mix into an appealing blend of warmth and coziness.



6. Yesterday and today I received e-mails from the ESA conference in Albequerque, New Mexico and Perth, Australia, saying that my abstracts for oral presentations were accepted. I'm very excited to travel a bit, but I really need to get my thesis finished. Today I caught a little snag in the results section and it definitely brought me down. I was feeling pretty rough and had to leave work and get some fresh air. Tomorrow will be a new day though and I'm going to forge ahead with the discussion.

7. Last, but definitely not least, this morning Doug was talking about the Guelph Guitar and mentioned that Robert Bateman had offered him a piece of Tom Thomson's coffin for the guitar or case. The thought of this is sort of overwhelming and the entire web of stories about art, science, history, life, people, culture, everything inbetween that I can't even think of right now just blows my mind. I'm so glad Doug is putting this all together and I've had the chance to see behind the scenes. I'm a huge fan of early 19th century Canadian landscape art, the work of the Group of Seven and everyone associated with them. I could go on and on about this part of the story, but my fingers are getting tired. I don't know if Doug will take this piece for his work because how will he ever sum up the circumstances that led to this offer in one chapter of his book?



That felt really good. Getting all of this out of my brain allows me to realize that there are many more important things to consider in the world besides my protein intake levels. Got to stay humble,
Cass

Inspiration.

This is so beautiful:



I found it on one of the crafty blogs I follow for inspiration. Every time I finish a section or a bit of thesis I get to look at one. This prevents me from sitting around and daydreaming about all of my knitting projects at home. Uh, yeah, I do that. It's so strange how you can care so much about so many different things and yet some things just seem so much more fun to do. I suppose knitting is easier for me than this science gig since I've been actively practicing craft for so much longer. Not to mention, science still has that schoolwork vibe attached to it for me. I can't wait to be a free agent and just float around in the world for a bit.

For now, I'll type away and post pretty things. This particular blankie is made with a wide range of Koigu Premium Merino (KPM). The colourways are rich and beautiful. Imagine the possibilities with this stuff for giant granny squares which happen to be one of my favourite crafty items. A throwback to easy days in Warsaw at Nana's house. And possibly every summer weekend in Cottage Country, Ontario.



Okay, I'm out. Enough pretty internet pictures. I've promise myself that I'll send my Hypotheses, Predictions, Methods, and Results to Uta this afternoon for proofreading. Got to buckle down and show up, I just had to post this first.