Tag Archives: hawaii

Best laid plans, volcano edition

Posted on December 14, 2022 | 4 comments

The news that Mauna Loa was erupting when we already had plans to be on Hawaii kicked my planning instinct into high gear. Kīlauea has been erupting since September 2021 (it stopped in 2018, and started up again), so we hoped to see Kīlauea and a distant glow from Mauna Loa if we drove from Kona over to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and stayed overnight.

I booked an AirBnB in Volcano (the town) for Saturday night so we could drive over on Saturday, bask in the glow Saturday night, and come home on Sunday.

We scoped out the overlook on the Crater Rim Trail so we’d know where we were going to go after dark, planning a viewpoint that would include both Kīlauea and Mauna Loa. Halema’uma’u (the crater inside Kīlauea) was smoking that afternoon

and looked beautiful at sunset from Volcano House. (Although suspiciously less steamy?)

I spoke with a park ranger, and she pointed out Mauna Loa’s steam in the distance, but said that things had quieted down quite a bit. (Steam from Kīlauea’s Wahinekapu steam vents in left foreground.)

We went down Crater Rim Trail to the overlook after dinner, and this is what we saw. Yep, nothing. No lava glow from either Kīlauea or Mauna Loa. Too dark to see steam (the moon wasn’t up yet). I guess Madame Pele (Pelehonuamea, the volcano goddess) has her own timetable, which didn’t coincide with ours! But I have to say that the sky was stunning, with more stars than I’ve ever seen at once.

We rose before dawn to see the sunrise (in the rain) over Halema’uma’u from the Kīlauea Overlook. (We picked a different overlook, because there was no need to try to get Mauna Loa in the same view.)

No lava glow, but it was beautiful anyway. It looks like both Kīlauea and Mauna Loa are now taking a break. I think Pele is laughing at us! (If you’d like to see more glow from a previous visit in 2015, see this post.)

Of course I took a picture of my knitting with the volcano. I didn’t actually knit…it was rainy, windy, and cold. This is the little sample I’d be using the next day to review increases and decreases for the Brioche Buddies cast on party.

The nice thing about getting up before dawn is that there was nobody on the Chain of Craters Road, and we were the only people looking at the Hōlei Sea Arch before 8 a.m.

The arch in 2013 and 2022. It’s 90 feet tall, and was formed 550 years ago. You can see by the angle that they’ve moved the viewing overlook; heavy surf in July made the cliff less stable. The heavy surf also took some chunks out of the arch leg; at some point it will fall into the sea.

It was a beautiful, quiet, windy morning.

I’m glad we took this road trip, even if we didn’t get to see hot lava!

Sometimes you just have to chill out and go with the flow…

4 Comments

Posted in travel

Tagged hawaii, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, volcano knitting, volcanoes

Christmas aloha

Posted on December 23, 2021 | 18 comments

It’s been a minute or two, hasn’t it? I came home from Minnesota on a Friday, did a book signing and taught on the weekend, and left for Hawaii on Monday…two and a half weeks ago?!

We had planned for the kids to be with us, but after traveling at Thanksgiving and then learning of the omicron variant, they decided to opt out this year. That left us with the usual 3 BR condo, and lots of room to spread out. We worked *and* played.

Not a bad place to knit! I decided that I wanted the Dotty Bed Socks to have the dot pattern on the top of the instep, instead of an all striped instep, but some of my test knitters loved that wrap around stripe. Which do you like?

Knitter’s choice! Instructions for both insteps will be in the pattern. I’ll publish it next week, or the week after, along with the Slip Away Cowl. If you’re interested in a combo deal, make sure you’re subscribed to my newsletter!

Now I’m home, and scrambling to catch up. (More aloha pictures at the end of this post.) I put up new Christmas lights on the house on Tuesday. I still need to put the knitted fairy lights on my wreath, hopefully today.

The tiny tree is up, and both Biscuit…

…and Calvin have investigated. One of my Korknisse was missing, but I found him under the piano, and all is well.

I just made a batch of Irish Cream for gifts. The recipe is in this post, and the picture is a re-run because it’s biz (Bisquee?) as usual around here! Onto the next thing! But I’ll leave you with a little more aloha…

Mele Kalikimaka to you!

18 Comments

Posted in cat, Knit, pattern design, travel

Tagged Aloha, birds, christmas, hawaii, honu

Aloha and brioche to ring out 2019

Posted on January 3, 2020 | 7 comments

We had our annual getaway to Hawaii in December; it was warm, wonderful, and relaxing. As one son said, it was vacation, not travel. Reading, knitting, long walks, watching the waves, the birds, the sunsets…and one day of turtle spotting.

You know I have a thing about moonsets. Our first morning coincided with the full moon, and this is what I saw at 5 a.m.

The next morning I saw the sunrise chasing the moonset. Tap the picture to embiggen. Gorgeous. I want these colors in gradient yarn!

Speaking of gradient, I finished my Aspen Leaf scarf; I love the gradient and brioche together. More on this later.

We loved the birds that visited our lanai. Mostly Java finches (Java sparrows) and yellow billed cardinals.

I learned that if you push the white still photo button while taking a video, you can get hilarious pictures of birds in action.

We spent one day at our favorite beaches, Ai’opio and Honokohau (they’re right next to each other and perfect for a walk to both). There’s a cool old stone fish trap in the water; fish would come in on the tide, and then be stuck in the pool when the tide went out. Passive fishing at its finest!

There are lots of honu, green sea turtles, lounging in the water.

And at least one petroglyph!

I love spending time with the family.

Aloha!

7 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged birds, hawaii, honu, kona, moonset, sunset

December Aloha, and happy new year!

Posted on December 26, 2018 | 5 comments

We ran away to the sun in early December, and had a fabulous time. There was even knitting involved.

We saw turtles and tide pools.

Honu at Ai’opio Beach

Tide pool at Wawaloli Beach

Shingle urchins

We visited an octopus research facility…

And watched sunsets and moonsets.

Waning crescent moonset Dec. 8, 2018

Eventually we had to come home…

It’s been a good year, knit-wise. I published 13 patterns this year (the newest one, Concentric Bed Socks, will be out tomorrow), and taught at retreats, festivals, and yarn shops. Designing and teaching go hand in hand for me.

What will 2019 bring? More of the same, I hope!

I’m working on a collaboration with Knitted Wit for March. It’s flying along, and I hope to be done with the knitting next week.

What do you want to knit in 2019?

5 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged Aloha, hawaii

Fiendishly simple? And aloha!

Posted on January 3, 2018 | 8 comments

A hat is a fiendishly simple thing. It’s a tube, closed at the top. Easy peasy, right?

I’ve been playing with this hat project all week. It’s been a Goldilocks experience. Too tall? Too short? Just right? The top of this pink hat has been reworked a couple times, but I can’t complain about the view.

The pink version is snug and a little (but not too) short; it’s a cute beanie.

The blue version has 12 more stitches than the pink one, and at the same height it doesn’t feel quite secure on my head. I’m re-working it to be a little taller so it can come further down over the ears, or folded up at the bottom.

I’ll be knitting one more for a size in-between. Who said hats were simple? There’s a lot of planning going on here!

Oddly enough, it’s been very comfortable knitting with this wooly yarn in Hawaii! I brought a fingering weight shawl project, too, but I’ve been so smitten by this brioche I can’t stop playing with it.

We’ve had a great week. We came over on December 26, and now it’s time to go home. But here are some pretty pix from the week.

Beautiful He’eia Bay is just around the corner from our condo.

Lots of honu (green sea turtles) at Ai’opio Beach, Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park.

More turtles at Kiholo Bay, and we saw this petroglyph at the water’s edge.

When Hualalai erupted, these shells were caught in the lava. They’re being revealed through erosion. They look like frosting!

Kiholo Bay

We went night snorkeling with the mantas! (Picture from the Eka Canoe Website; I highly recommend this.) There were at least five of these magnificent creatures swimming with us, somersaulting and backflipping, close enough to touch (but you’re not supposed to. One brushed by DH; he said it felt like a shoe.

My favorite bird, the yellow-billed cardinal.

And favorite guy, on our morning walk.

Moonset in the morning (January 2)…

Sunsets in the evening…bliss.

Aloha!

8 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, travel

Tagged big island, Brioche knitting, hawaii, kona

Goodbye 2015; Hello 2016!

Posted on January 2, 2016 | 2 comments

We had a great vacation in December, and coming back to rain was tough! Missing this:

But we brought a little aloha home with us.

It seems like looking back on 2015 is the thing to do this week, so here’s mine.

I published 12 designs in 2015 (up from 9 in 2014). I began the year playing with a fun stitch pattern, and designed 4 accessories with them: The Criss Cross hat, beret, mitts, and cowl. It was also the year of the poncho, and I had two, Tilt Shift and Summertime Blues. Snowy Woods came back as a hat, and there’s more Snowy Woods in my future. I ended the year going down the gradient rabbit hole with Lobelia (Knit Circus yarns) and the Twin Leaf Crescent for Black Trillium Fibres.

There’s more in the pipeline, and lots of ideas rolling around in my head!

Are you on Instagram? You can find me there under the name pdxknitterati. There’s a cool end of year thing going on over there, #2015bestnine where you can see your nine most liked pictures. And everyone else’s, too. Here are mine:

All knitting related except for a lone camellia, seen on a walk. The Rose City Yarn Crawl is represented twice, and my lovely Edin Cardigan (design by Bonne Marie Burns) is also there twice.

I hope your 2015 was good to you, and that 2016 is even sweeter! Cheers!

2 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged #2015bestnine, hawaii, Instagram, sunset

Kilauea Iki volcano hike, beaches

Posted on January 5, 2015 | 7 comments

A little more aloha: On our trip to the Big Island last month, we made a day trip to Kilauea to hike the Kilauea Iki (small Kilauea) crater. This was the site of a huge 1959 eruption. All is calm now.

The 4 mile hike starts off at the edge of the crater, going though a beautiful forest with glimpses of the crater below.

CollegeKid noted that the floor of the crater looks like “a giant brownie pan.” Why yes it does.

But it’s not as smooth as it looks when you get down in the crater. These brownies are cracked!

You can see the steam rising from Halema’uma’u, the crater inside the larger Kilauea caldera, on the other side of the Byron Ledge. You definitely know that you’re standing on an active volcano. Science rocks!

The blown out cinder cone between Kilauea Iki and the larger Kilauea caldera is Pu’u Pua’i (gushing hill). It doesn’t look that big from the edge of the crater, but when you get down into the crater, it’s a different story.

The kids decided to see what it looked like up top.

The second half of the hike crosses the crater floor. It was pretty windy the day we were there. The floor is mostly barren, but little bits of vegetation are making their way back. Steam rises from vents in the floor. After crossing the floor, there’s a climb back up to the crater’s rim. The trail is forested again, and the birds do a great job of singing but keeping out of sight. This is a great hike! I liked it even more than the one we did last year, and that was good, too.

On our way back from Kilauea, we stopped at Punalu’u, a black sand beach. Yes, the volcanic sand really is black! And the water looks very blue by comparison.

Hawaiian green turtles (honu) come hang out here. It was pretty late in the afternoon, so we didn’t stay long. We wanted to get poké from Da Poké Shack on the way home, and watch the sunset from our lanai.

We made it with 15 minutes to spare.

We spent time on two other beaches on this trip. We visited Kahalu’u in Kailua-Kona, twice (second time because it beat sitting in traffic trying to go somewhere else). This is very civilized with a parking lot, concessions, and the easiest snorkeling ever.

convict tang

urchins

pencil urchin

You can even just walk around on the rocks and see fish in the water, but that was so tempting that we had to get in and snorkel anyway.

Apparently this year they’ve started numbering the honu. I’m curious if it’s always the same one up on the beach. Guess I’ll have to go back to find out.

The other very fun beach is Manini’owali at Kua Bay. The water is spectacularly pretty here, as is the white sand beach. The waves are pretty strong in the winter, and the ocean pulls the sand offshore. Next month there will be a lot less beach. It all comes back in the summer.

I dubbed these guys the Santa Society. There were three of them; I’m not sure how they kept their hats!

We came home just before Christmas, for a whirlwind of Hanukkah and Christmas parties. I’m happy to be home, but I do miss the warm sunshine.

And these guys. Yellow billed cardinal. They’d come after breakfast and pick up any crumbs we left on the lanai. Tidy is as tidy does!

7 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged beaches, hawaii, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, hike, honu, kilauea, Kilauea caldera, kilauea iki, punalu'u, sea urchins, turtles, yellow biled cardinal

Desperately seeking sea arch (Hawaii edition)

Posted on December 31, 2014 | 2 comments

We made a return trip to the Big Island just before Christmas to get a little sunshine and warmth.

We wanted to do a hike south of Kona that promised a number of sea arches. Having seen Holei Sea Arch at the end of the Chain of Craters Road last year, I was pretty excited.

Either we missed the trailhead, or the directions were wrong, but it was going to be a long hike over uneven lava rock gravel down to the shore. No thanks. We opted to go to another beach, Ho’okena, which was supposed to have one nice arch.

We wandered the pahoehoe lava shore for a while, and found these.

A consultation with Facebook friends later determined that they are shingle urchins. They’re about the size of a quarter, and look like purple leather buttons with flower petals under them. Cool!

Heading back, we found what we think is the aforementioned arch. It’s over an opening in the rock, so water pushes up through the hole behind the arch when the waves come in.

It wasn’t overwhelming, but at that point we were just trying to declare victory.

When the kids came to join us a couple days later, I told them of our quest. CollegeKid pointed out that there was an arch right below our condo’s lanai. Much easier to get to, and much more interesting!

This isn’t as terrifying as it looks; there is a lot of rock in front of/below them.

But it wasn’t all beach and waves. I got some knitting done! Malabrigo worsted + champagne corks = Korknisse!

Volcano hike and more aloha in a later post…for now happy new year’s eve!

2 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged big island, hawaii, kona, korknisse, sea arch, shield urchin

A little more aloha

Posted on December 29, 2013 | 4 comments

Besides the moonsets, what else captivated us in Hawaii? More nature! More science!

We visited Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The island of Hawaii is made up of five volcanoes, and you never forget that you’re on them. Halema’uma’u Crater in the center of Kilauea Caldera continues to smoke.

And the edge of caldera continues to steam. The heat under the ground makes the rainwater in the cracks steam.

We had a pretty ambitious day planned, and got to do most of it. We took a short (2.5 mile) hike that took us around the edge of the caldera, and down to the caldera floor.

Cairns mark the trail. I love how little plants have sprouted in the cracks on the floor, tiny attempts at new life. There’s actually a trail that crosses the caldera, but it’s been closed for years because it’s not safe.

We took a stroll through the Thurston Lava Tube. It was actually underwhelming, but out of the oncoming rain! No pic; it was over almost before it began.

We drove to the end of the Chain of Craters Road. Why is it the end? Lava overran the road in 2003. So cool that nature has her way.

Looking west back towards the usable road…

Looking east. Road closed, indeed.

Hōlei Sea Arch is here, too. You’re 90 feet above the water; don’t lean too far out over the edge to see it!

I’m not sure why there’s a lone stand of palm trees near here; I tried googling but didn’t come up with a definitive answer.

I wanted to visit the petroglyphs at Pu’u Loa, but it was near dark when we left the end of the road. And it gets really dark. No lights on the road, and it was raining, too. My biggest regret? I forgot that I wanted to see Halema’uma’u Crater glowing in the dark! I guess I’ll have to go back, soon.

We went snorkeling at Kahalu’u Beach the next day. This is the easiest snorkel spot, ever. You can walk into the water and see fish, but they really look better if you put your mask on. Lots of honu (sea turtles) visit here, too.

They’ve named this fellow Rocky. Maybe he’s the same one I saw in January.

We toured a chocolate farm, Original Hawaiian Chocolate. This is the first chocolate venture to go from farm to chocolate bar in Hawaii. Single origin Hawaiian chocolate, mmmmm. Cacao pods form from tiny flowers on the wood of the trees.

They come in different colors, but they all make chocolate. Inside the pod, the beans are covered with a white sticky substance. Geckos find it delicious.

We like the part from the inside!

We also visited Pu’uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park, or Place of Refuge. In olden times, if you had broken the strict kapu laws, you could be put to death…unless you made it to the pu’uhonua first. My family thought of it as “base,” and they felt a need to visit. Feeling guilty?

Safe!

Last sunset…

And remember how I said that you never forget that you’re sitting on a volcano? Our last evening there we felt a disturbance, unnerving enough that I checked with the US Geological Survey’s site. A 3.2 earthquake, off the coast. Just a little rumble.

Back home, and back to knitting!

4 Comments

Posted in travel

Tagged chocolate, hawaii, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Kahalu'u, Place of Refuge, snorkeling, volcanoes

Chasing the moonset, and Korknisse aloha!

Posted on December 24, 2013 | 7 comments

Our vacation in Hawaii last week coincided with the full moon. I love watching the moon set over the water, and this time I was prepared! The moon set later each successive morning, so my pictures were different every day.

Monday, the 16th, 5:24 a.m. HST.

By 5:51, things were looking distinctly reddish!

Tuesday, 6:23 a.m. The moon was full last night at 11 p.m., so this is the full moon setting. The sky is a lot lighter, closer to dawn.

Wednesday, 6:25 a.m. The moon is a lot higher than yesterday’s pic at this time.

By 6:51, the sky was pretty light. No more lovely moonlight on the water, but I do like the puppy-shaped cloud.

At that point, I wasn’t planning to wake early for any more moon pics, but on Thursday, I woke up early by accident, and saw Jupiter, below and to the right of the moon. 6:25 a.m.

I learned a lot about my new camera, and have a lot more to learn. Looking forward to it!

On Friday and Saturday, the surf was unusually high, and the beaches on the west side of the Big Island were closed. This meant less beach time for us, but we enjoyed watching the waves from our lanai. All the comforts of home, and surfers to entertain us, too.

I’ll tell you about our close encounter with a volcano in another post…

Have you finished your gift knitting? I don’t like scheduled gift knitting; it’s too much pressure for me. But I do like a little knitting for a personal touch. Do you remember the Korknisse I knit a couple years ago? (Pattern: Korknisse by Manne)

I decided to knit a few on vacation. But my gauge was a lot looser this time around (a little too much aloha?), so I had to dress up champagne corks instead of regular corks.