I saw a post from Modern Daily Knitting about marling; the image intrigued me, and I made a mental note to go back to look at it. Well, several days later I couldn’t find it. So I googled Marling and found a post about marling on Tin Can Knits and a quick and easy hat pattern to try out the technique.
4 strands for my Snap hat
Marling is knitting holding 2 or more different strands of yarn to create a speckled fabric. I tried out his technique with mostly the same weight of yarn I had in my stash. I knew I wanted to do something with an ombre and decided to get the Snap hat pattern to try out this technique. I’ve been looking for a quick pattern during my rest periods between sections from my Shawlography Westknits MKAL 2021. Haha.
Here’s what I got. One of the benefits of this marling project is I got to use yarn from my stash, and it turns sock and lace weight yarn into bulky to make knitting up the hat a quick and very satisfying project.
For my marling project, the colors I started with were navy, teal, pink, and variegated yarn.
Most of the yarn I got from Savers, only the variegated yarn, was from my yarn gift from a friend who was getting rid of most of her stash. My plan was to do an ombre from dark to light. The pattern said to change the one yarn every 4-6 rows to create the ombre.
Switched out the navy with gray
After 6 more rows, I switched out the teal with medium magenta. I continued with this colorway till the decrease section. Then I swapped out the variegated yarn with another strand of pink.
This is what it looks like as I knit the hat (left); This is what it will look like when it’s to be worn, reverse stockinette (right)
Ta-Dah! My finished Snap hat with a big fluffy pom-pom in all 6 colors. Love the way the ombre turned out. I would love to make a blanket with this technique. I’ll just add it to my to-do project list and look out for a colorful sock or lace yarn sale.
Back in New Jersey, I had gangly geranium that was started from seed. My mom sprinkled seeds in a pot on one of her spring visits and to my surprise, I found a little seeding near the end of summer. Growing inside during the winter, gave its gangly-ness due to the filtered winter light. But for all its legginess, it produced the most beautiful blossoms. They look like cherry blossoms.
I just started a plant from the seeds from this geranium here in Hawaii. The blossoms aren’t as beautiful but I’m giving it time to come into its own.
From our trip to Montreal as the end of a scorching summer
I’ve been fighting a good fight against the weeds in my front yard. It seems like a neverending battle. I thought this was an appropriate pic from my struggle. Weedy seeds make their way into someone’s garden; it could be mine. Sign.
This took me a while to write up. I haven’t been in the mood to post. I hope to feel inspired to post more regularly–phf
During my girl’s zoom meeting, I mentioned that I wanted to see the eruption at Kilauea Volcano. Thinking no one would be interested, “J” said she would go with me to my surprise. Three weeks later, four more people, including one husband, were off to Hawaii Island for a two-day visit.
With no solid plan, only to see Kilauea at night, we started the day off meeting at Ken’s House of Pancake for breakfast and a planning session. Ken’s is a Hilo landmark, close to the airport, great to start the trip with a good breakfast.
After our breakfast and planning session, we were off to the Bayfront area to check out the farmers market and the shops. My list from mom was avocados, fishcake, and anything else that’s good.
Under the pavilion, full of beautiful produce from Hawaii Island
The produce farmers market is under a pavilion, and across the street is the craft section. Here are a few things I picked up there.
After an afternoon of roaming, we made our way to KTA supermarket to pick up some dinner and snacks for the evening adventure to Kilauea volcano. Then off to evening accommodation at a friend’s Airbnb. It’s a two-bedroom guesthouse in Kurtistown halfway between Volcano and Hilo. There were animals on the property to distract us from unpacking: a steer called Red, a horse (I forgot his name), Pluto the goat, two shy cats, and many feral chickens.
After a quick snack, we were off to Volcano National Park to start our adventure to see the current eruptions. With a quick pit stop at the visitor center, we follow the line of cars to the end of the road to Uekahuna. It was a little past sunset, and the sky had cleared to present us with beautiful blues and oranges.
Beautiful remnants of the sunset
From this vantage point, we could see the orange glow of the eruption. It was just beyond the cliff. It had turned cold, I forgot my rain jacket to block the wind. Luckily I was smart enough to bring my shawl and I used it as a head/neck scarf to keep me warm.
The Glow
The skies cleared to present us with a beautiful show of stars and planets. Several of my friends were using an app to identify the stars. In our stargazing, we caught the attention of a friendly man that helped us identify more stars then pointed to the people on the other side of the Halema’uma’u Crater. He told us that you needed to hike into the viewing point. He said 3/4 of a mile from the parking area 3/4 mile to the viewing point (I think most of my friends only heard 3/4 of a mile). We all agreed it was doable and off we went to our next adventure. (Thank you to “C” for bringing all of her torches as I forgot mine back at the Airbnb)
This view started our stargazing
The almost full lighted our way to the viewing area. The park rangers did a great job at directing us and the hundreds of others making our way to see the lava flow. Once we got there, it was pretty amazing. I didn’t expect the flow to be so steady.
The Flow. My lowly S10 does not do it justice.
It was a pretty magical night. The skies cleared for a beautiful starry sky, there was an almost full moon rise, and Madame Pele’s show was spectacular. What more could I ask for. Sometimes it’s good to say out loud what you want to do. It may just happen.
Here I am, on the walk back to the car, happy I came to see Madame Pele’s beautiful show. You can see the almost full moon behind me.
I haven’t been feeling up to writing, and I haven’t been taking pictures. Could this be due to the COVID? Hmmm. The numbers have been very high in Hawaii, keeping me close to home for the sake of my parents and myself. The three of us have gotten our vaccinations, but it seems to be better safe than sorry with this new Delta variant.
crochet leaves for Joyful Return—Recover
I wanted to share this little side project I’ve been crocheting. It’s for a HOMA (Honolulu Museum of Art) exhibit, Joyful Return—Recover. They asked for handmade ʻōhiʻa leaves in crochet, knit, or sewn for use in this exhibit.
ʻŌhia Lehua, a beautiful native plant, is suffering the plight of rapid ʻōhiʻa death—killing millions of trees across the island. It is a fungal infection that once the trees are infected, they die, and there is no cure.
ʻōhiʻa from the trail
This plight makes me sad as the mighty ʻōhiʻa is one of the plants we see on the many hiking trails in Hawaii. We find them perched on the sides of the mountains trails, standing firm in the winds.
From wind sweep trail of Palehua
This community-based project creates fiber installations around the museum to bring awareness to the ʻōhiʻa’s plight and its recovery. It uses the handmade leaves from the community and pompom ʻōhiʻa to transform the space into an ʻōhiʻa lehua forest. Here’s the link to the Joyful Return Exhibit at HOMA: https://honolulumuseum.org/current_exhibitions/joyful-return/
Princess Hot Flash 