Yellowstone, the hat!

Grazing elk at Wraith Falls Trail, Yellowstone.

Sigh. Happy memories. Everytime I see a picture, I feel like that's MY National Park!

So, I'm 3/4 done with the tee I cast on during the flight to Yellowstone.

I tried it on with help from people at my LYS and it looks like the size might fit. It is supposed to be loosefitting, but since my gauge is way off, I've been eyeballing it the whole way. Luckily the yarn is drapey! (Ty-Dye in Tropicale colorway)

Here is my Yellowstone Hat, homespun, handknit, and happily worn during windy snowstorms and icy rain while hiking! I'm loving the bobbles.

Of course, I had hat hair after wearing this: some of my photos show this. But hey, who wants to be perfectly coiffed in the wilderness?!

This shrug I finished at least 6 weeks ago! I just never got around to photographing it.

I've worn it to work a couple times when the morning is very cool, and it's been just enough.

I feel well-adjusted right now =D
There is nothing like a nice vacation to wash away your worries and put things back into their proper perspective!

KNIT ON!

Remembering is Half the Fun

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, 7:24 PM. A DIY shot, to get some sense of scale (DH was busy with his own camera). Heh. ETA: That's the hat I knit on the flight out.

Butterflies in an alpine meadow, Yellowstone. This hike was a lovely, mid-morning crossing of a meadow alongside a babbling stream. Snow still capped some areas of the hills surrounding the hike. We were very protected in this basin...and there were tons of wildflowers to photograph.

Anybody know the identity of this flower? Is it a fritillary? I've never seen anything like it before! ETA: I've since found out it's called Prairie Smoke, Geum genus.

Make sure to turn your sound way up for this:



The silence is deafening. That was the culmination of the above-mentioned hike, one of many we made in the park. The ending was like dessert, a peaceful alpine lake complete with lily pads. Those were the first bugs we saw on the whole trip!

Some knitting links to keep my focus ;0)
Butterfly vintage doily to crochet.
A vintage potholder (very cute)
Kaleidoscope Hot pads (these look cool)
True vintage potholder! I've never tried this crochet technique, looks interesting.
Sarah London's Wooleater Blanket, gorgeous.
And her Hawaiian Flowers blankie. Awesome in her colors.

Happy Knit & Crochet everyone.

Back in the Saddle....

Yep, that's me hugging a bear at the Mammoth Hot Springs Post Office in Yellowstone National Park. That's the only kind of bear I want to hug!

We had a marvelous vacation, it was everything a vacation should be. We returned as different people and are still feeling the glow of time away, centered around nature and the greatness our country has to offer!

We will be processing our photos for months! We each took lots of memory cards full =)

Yep, that's a coyote, who didn't seem too perturbed by a crowd of photographers as he trotted by! Whoa. (I like his dog-like smile!)

Another life-long dream has been met! (I'm kinda diggin' this trend!) I've wanted to see Yellowstone National Park since I was 7 years old--that's 40 years I waited!!!

I was very sedentary prior to our trip. Hiking for hours daily in the mountains was a nice forced workout, though I WAS looking over my shoulder for a bear the entire time! I have been continuing to exercise since we got home (I only took a break for 3 days of illness, and 2 days with the heat index at 105! I'm not goin' out there in that murk....)

I feel more healthy than ever. To beat the heat today, I made banana, peach, blueberry smoothies with ice, honey, and a splash of OJ. MMMMMMM

I got a ton of knitting done during the travel of our trip. I had spun up my fiber from Shell, remember this?

I really wanted a nice warm woolen hat for hiking in the mountains in springtime. I cast-on the night before our trip, so there would be less chance of airport security looking askance at my needles, and took a wooden crochet hook and plastic circs on the plane with me. I roughly followed a pattern in a LionBrand Hats book, even though my gauge was way off. I just really wanted bobbles along the folded up brim. I made up my own bobble pattern to make the yarn go as far as it could. I didn't have enough yarn to bobble all the way around, but since it is a subtle design addition, I left it partially un-bobbled, and wear that part at the back! (No pics yet, sorry!)

I finished it before we landed in Salt Lake City. So I cast on another project I packed: the simple tee from the current Knit Simple Magazine. I took along some Ty-Dye yarn. Again, I had only the needles at hand and my gauge was off, so I had to compensate. I got it about 3/4 finished by the end of the trip.

DH was laughing at me on the plane; they announced we were approaching SLC and I was starting to cast on another project. What's so funny about that?! I ended up being extremely glad I'd knit that wool hat; I needed to wear it much of the time, especially early in our week there, as it was snowing off and on and the wind was bitter. We had to buy gloves. But it got warmer as the week progressed.

Our first full day there we hiked in a beautiful alpine meadow for miles; when we finally got to the edge of the meadow and saw the trail continued around the base of some foothills, we prudently decided that we probably had done enough for our first day. We turned to go back, and saw the sky had become extremely dark and cloudy behind us!!!

A storm was blowing in over the Gallatin Mountains, and we were 2-3 miles from the car or ANY SHELTER at all!!! I was wearing Meinstein, that lovely green wool coat I knit--boy was I glad for it as the wind picked up. We hoofed it, but just before we got back to the car the heavens let loose with icy freezing rain! We were then stuck in the car with smelly wet wool drying in the back seat, but it was such a beautiful hike it was well worth getting wet! Did you ever smell bitterroot flowers blooming?! OMG it is such a divine scent--DH couldn't smell it, but I was captivated. Such a puny little flower on the open plain. I read that the Indians used to eat the flower's roots like a potato. Pics to come

So, I'm back. My ganglion cyst has been bothering me after all the knitting on the trip--I haven't knit at all in the 2 weeks since we've been back and it is now finally calming down. I have to smack that thing soon and burst it........(I'm too cowardly)

Looking forward to getting back into blogland again! I missed you all =)
Gardiner River from the bridge at Mammoth.


Aim

Temporarily Away

Hello Luvs, I'm goin' on vacation and posting will be deferred for a bit. Sorry 'bout that! But I do have a tutorial (I promise!) and a pattern to post when I come back. Life is a bit busy right now....

Happy knitting!

Aim