Stitching on the water.

While chatting with my wife the other afternoon, mostly about knitting and crochet and my design career, etc, I said I needed to get my blog going again. She came up with the idea to take pictures of me knitting or crocheting in different places and then to do a write-up about those places, and whatever is on my mind at the time and connect it to knitting and crocheting in some way. “Brilliant!” is what I said, or something along that vein. So for the most part, that’s what this blog will entail for the next little while: “Great Places to Stitch”

Today we went on a canoe ride south along the Welland canal which flows through our city. It’s a short 2-block portage from our back yard. Our 7-year old English Cocker Spaniel, Duncan, came along for the ride…he likes to watch the ducks.

The Welland Canal connects Lakes Erie and Ontario. This branch of the canal is now closed to the lakers that now cross through our city at it’s east-most boundary (ever since 1973).

The lift-bridge in the backgroud is covered in scaffolding and tenting as it’s being sandblasted and painted. It’s an historical structure and is no longer a functional lift bridge.

Crocheting in a canoe is quite nice…when the wind picks up you get tossed lightly around and I had to stop stitching a few times to keep the canoe in the centre of the waterway. I’m holding up a washcloth made out of crochet cotton. It’s either Lion Brand’s Kitchen cotton in Kiwi or it’s Lily Sugar n’ Cream in Hot Green. Lost the band months ago.

I’ve been trying to develop a very open crochet stitch so that the dishcloth can dry quickly. I think I’ve come up with a “new” stitch and I’m calling it a hitched double crochet (or hitched treble for UK stitchers). Once I practice the stitch and test drive the washcloths I’ll get a pattern written up.