12 November 2019

Autumn colors on the Charles River


Some kind of maple tree with brilliant color.

On October 14, DH and I took the last 6-mile canoe trip of the season organized by PaddleBoston.  Our shuttle driver, and his friendly dog, took us to a launch in Dedham, with kayaks and one canoe (us) in a trailer. We were in no hurry, and just enjoyed a lazy paddle and the autumn panorama of New England in peak leaf season. Who needs Vermont?

Male mallard ducks, called drakes, have beautiful iridescent head feathers.

Egret.

As usual on the river, we saw a number of birds, including egrets, great blue herons, cormorants and of course mallard ducks and Canadian geese.

Still water = perfect reflections.


Gallant husband attempts to pull canoe.

The water level of the river was extremely low; the DCR  diverted water from the Charles earlier in the year to work on the dam at the Museum of Science, and rainfall was lower than usual. In places even the shallow draft of our canoe was insufficient to maintain clearance above the river bed, and we had to get out and walk.

In the center - my favorite tree - I look for it every autumn.

I was inspired to try and capture these lovely colors and knitted a Broken Garter scarf for myself, using PurlSoho's adaptation of a Sequence Knitting broken garter stitch pattern. 

Materials:

I used two lace weight yarns -

Dirty Water DyeWorks "Lillian" line in Topaz, a tonal gold (I love this yarn)
Manos del Uruguay "Alegria" line in Butia, hand-painted with rose, brown, gold and a bit of green
Needles US size 3, for my sins

I cast on 43 stitches

Finished size: approximately 8" by 60", a length which works for me.  At a workshop I took with her, Ms. Campochiaro, the author of Sequence Knitting, mentioned that  garter stitch items have a lot of lengthwise stretch, so I make the scarves a bit wider and shorter than other scarf patterns.

Broken Garter scarf.


Last look.