Norah's mittens

[Photo: Liz H-K] A brisk November morning

with 12 volunteer happy hot hands for a photoshoot

I have been assisting my friend Norah Curtis of Norah Curtis Designs, with getting her hand made sweaters and mittens finished and ready for two big sale events, one in Calgary and the OneofaKind (that's how they spell it, really) annual show in Toronto.  Norah has won numerous craft awards for her work over the years.  She has studied craft in Iceland, Japan and Canada that I know about but she's probably studied everywhere she goes and she goes to a lot of places.

Norah doesn't do anything half heart-ed and I mean anything  (cooking, gardening, biking, etc.)!  Take her sweaters, she doesn't just design the sweaters, she designs the very fabric, then makes the fabric (she makes knitted fabric which looks like woven), fulls the fabric, designs the sweater, designs the trim, sews it together, designs and makes the buttons! Then uses the fabric remains to make matching mittens. And then attends only juried craft shows and sells them and boy  do they sell!

[Photo: Liz H-K] A pile of sweaters ready for steaming.

 My job? Chief steamer.  That's like ironing but, err, more professional.

[edited to I forgot to post this on my blog (it did get on Facebook ) until after the craft shows. Norah sold every last mitten and most of her sweaters.]

[Photo: Liz H-K] And a pile of 

freshly steamed vests.

In the light of day

It was a dark and stormy night. The wind came from an unusual direction, sou'west. In the pitch black all I could see was white caps breaking and spray hitting the windshield. The waves got bigger closer to the protected gap between the islands. The wind now blew directly between. White caps where calm waters prevail.
It was hard to dock with waves breaking along the dock. With a head lamp on I managed to find extra lines to tie our boat more securely to the dock and then to Tom's boat and checked the lines on Cathy and Roger's. Then wobbled my way along the heaving dock and up the ramp and was happy to get home.
Half an hour later Roger phoned 'the dock is gone!'.
The coast guard was called and came to find the dock broken in two. The end with the boats was fine and near where it usually floated being anchored with new chain but the shore end had split, jacknifed and was blown down to the next dock. The ramp now rested one end on shore and the other below the water.
I suppose I should have used those extra lines on the dock rather than the boats.

Racoon Invasion. Again

This is a raccoon's view of what is left of eleven ravaged 70% Dark Chocolate bars and a bag of cat nibbles (most of which were left on the carpet). This is what was what remained after a raccoon broke in and attacked my chocolate bar stash. Who knows how many he ate. This theft was not an easy feat. The raccoon had to figure out how to get one of his claws delicately wedged under the magnetic cat door and carefully pull the bottom of the hinged door towards the outdoors. Then it had to sneak under the door, past the cat (that was probably easy) through the living room, past the kitchen, through the dining room into the hallway, then rise up on his hind legs, stretch and somehow be able to grab onto the round slippery door knob and turn it while at the same time pulling the door towards him while balancing on two rear legs. Once in the laundry room, he had to figure out how to hop up 3.5 feet onto the top of the clothes dryer, reach above that and grab onto the small carton of chocolate bars (let's ignore the fact that I have a store of chocolate bars) and open the bars and peel off the tinfoil. Let's think about that. This raccoon not only has a highly sensitive nose, but he ignored all the kitchen food smells and honed in on the chocolate bars which are wrapped in tinfoil, then paper and in a cardboard carton (okay, I admit it, it was a carton of chocolate bars), and down at the other end of the house in a laundry room! That is some nose and a gourmet one at that. The cat door has now been blocked off. I just hope that raccoon is suffering from constipation.

Island Rainbow

An amazing rainbow this week. It covered Protection Island. Of course it was even better than this picture portrays.

Reef Party

We had a two hour window in which to set up a party, have it and begone, before the tide came back up and covered the party grounds. This was the challenge that Jurgen had to deal with in organizing the first annual Satellite Reef party. The loest tide of the year fell mid-day on July 22, 2009 the next tide that low to expose the reef would be midnight sometime in December. He wisely chose the July date. The barge boys, Will and Gonzo his trusty helper, loaded the barge with a piano, BBQ, table and a few lounge chairs, filled the space with people and off we went. It was a lovely party. The Gabriola Ferry had been warned to slow down when passing the reef, else we might have been awash. We sand, some danced, we ate and drank and two hours later packed it all up just before the tide once again covered the reef, and all signs of a party vanished into the sea.