Finish-it-up Tuesday

Since I still can't get into my studio - we are having the outside of the house painted and it's quite an adventure. All the windows and a few of the doors are covered with plastic (and there's something kind of freaky about not being able to look out your windows) in preparation for painting and have been for almost a week which means I can't open the studio window to solder. I signed up for an online metalsmithing class a while ago, it started last week Monday and am now officially more than a week behind. Sure hope I will be able to catch up.
Anyway, while I am (im)patiently waiting for the painting to be done (I have a feeling the estimate of 7-10 days is way too optimistic), I decided against pulling my hair out in frustration and to finish up a couple more things that, yet again, just needed a few threads sewn in.
So, here goes:

I love the dangly bits in the border.

The colors shown are nowhere near what the scarf looks like in real life. I'm wearing it as I type and it's much more turquoise, but ........ lighting and not being an expert at editing ended up with it looking like this. Details here.
And another:

This time, the color is close, it's a little more bluish-green than shown. This one was fun and fast to make and it's comfy to wear. It's long enough to wrap around the neck up to three times. Details here.

Another project done

I'm trying to be good and finish up some projects that have been waiting for just a tiny bit more, like sewing in the loose threads.
Here is the latest one:

Details on ravelry.
Just a quick recap for people who don't have access to ravelry: it's crocheted, the pattern is the Half Granny Shawl also found on ravelry. I used Noro Silk Garden Sock yarn. Love the colorways, not quite so fond of the way the yarn tangles or the occasional knots which interrupt the flow of the color sequence.

A final Hawai'ian photo dump

One of the (few) decorated boats at the marina at Christmas time.

Sunset, from the terrace at the Hula Grill.

And another one of Macky's, just because it's our favorite shrimp truck.

And another one of the concrete jungle. If I had to live there permanently, I don't think I'd like it one bit, but for vacation, it's just fine.

The Ala Wai Canal at night, with the moon dipping down behind the clouds. This is what divides Honolulu from Waikiki. It started as a drainage ditch because of lot of what now holds sky scrapers used to be swamp. More info here.

 Rainbow at Aloha Stadium, home of not only the Aloha Bowl but also a very fun flea market, the Aloha Swap Meet. Three days a week, go early, it gets hot.

And the last rainbow, obviously taken from our condo.

And this is Hawai'i, too

Occupy Honolulu, obviously from a couple of years ago. The tent city was dissolved several months later. This was across from the Honolulu Museum of Art. There is quite a large homeless population on Oahu. There used to be a large homeless camp along the road to Ka'ena Point (I wrote about it here), by a beautiful beach. That one, too, has been dissolved. Doesn't mean there aren't homeless camps around any longer. We saw quite a few of them all over Honolulu and there are always people sleeping in bus stops, on bridges and even on sidewalks.

This poster was in the fancy, upscale mall in Waikiki. Notice it's mostly in Japanese?
Whenever we walk around Waikiki, window shopping, there are people on the streets handing out papers inviting tourists to visit one of these shooting ranges. Strangely, nobody has ever invited me .......... and nobody has ever handed one of those papers to L, either. The Japanese tourists, on the other hand, are bombarded with them.

Byodo-In Temple in the Valley of the Temples. Info here. It's at the end of a large cemetery overlooking the water on the North Shore. Beautiful location.
And that's it for the Hawai'ian posts. I have finally worked my way through all the pictures on my phone and it feels so good to be caught up, on this, at least.

Flowers

This is turning into a bit of a photo dump after all. Flower pictures taken in the gardens at Queen Emma's Summer Palace a couple of years ago.

Bird of paradise.

Ginger.

Hibiscus.

Orchis.

And this is Hawai'i

 Queen Emma's Summer Palace. We visit every year and learn something new every year. Every docent talks about different aspects of the royal family's life. Yes, Hawai'i used to be a monarchy. It started with King Kamehameha I and ended on 17 January 1893. Not a pretty story.
Here's a link to it.
I thought I had pictures of the Iolani Palace where we learned a lot about the history of Hawai'i, but, it seems, I didn't take any pictures. If I remember correctly, it rained every time we visited there.
No photography is allowed inside Queen Emma's Summer Palace - but here's a link that tells just a little about it. And here is just a little more. Unfortunately, neither site is as informative as the docents we have had. And google has quite a few images, inside and out.
It's kind of a magical place, calm and relaxing and so interesting. This year, we learned that Prince Albert, the only son of Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV, who died at only 4 years old, died of a burst appendix. We had heard previously that he suffered from "brain fever," but a doctor recently went over the notes taken at the time and came to the conclusion that it was actually a burst appendix and in those days (until about 1920 or later) that was pretty much a death sentence.
We tried to visit Pearl Harbor but that didn't quite work out. It was so windy that day that the boats that take visitors out to the island and the ships etc. stayed put and even though there is a bridge going out to the island, that one is not for the general public. So, here are just a few pictures from across the water:

Sorry about the poor picture quality. We did spend quite a bit of time visiting museums, watching movies, walking around and even talking to survivors. We also bought a book about Pearl Harbor that the survivors graciously signed for us.

Fear of finishing?

While trying to clean things out (yet again) a while ago, I came across a pile of almost finished knit and crochet projects. Almost finished? Yes, most of them just need to have the loose threads sewn in at the beginning and the end. Some of them have been lying around like that for a couple of years, hopefully no longer than that.
So, I decided to try and finish one or maybe two of those a day. Doesn't take long to sew in a couple of thread, does it?
Here is the first project, a waterfall scarf made with Noro Silk Garden: