I take it back

I said I was tired of winter. I lied. I've been throwing myself into snow drifts and making snow angels for 24 hours now. Loving it.

5 pm:

10 pm:

10 am:

But mostly I am thrilled that I was able to frolic in the snow without my ankles giving out on me. I remember last winter when I could hardly walk downstairs while having all that reno going on at home and I am grateful.

In knitting, at our guild last month some of us started sock circles. There are 5 people in mine. Each person starts a pair of socks for themselves. We're doing top down, so you knit the cuff and halfway down the leg. Then you pass it on to the next person. Month by month, each member of the circle knits part of someone else's pair of socks. I started mine and passed it on. I'm using leftover red and blue bits of sock yarn. Hope it goes well. Here's what it looks like:

And now this...

There has been enough snow today to have a bit of fun. I hate to think about the fruit trees though. See how our birch is completely bent over....

An Unhemmed State

Winter seems to start afresh here in Western New York every week or two. Then the snow melts away and everything seems dull. And don't try to tell me about the days getting longer. I'm not having any of it. Winter's getting tired and I'm getting tired of it. Period.

In knitting, Fleurette and the Amaryllis Mittens are languishing on the end of the couch. I finished my relaxing project, a North Sea Scarf and just cast on for my fourth Swallowtail.  The living room curtains remain in an unhemmed state.

The wedding shawl is coming along nicely. Not so secret any more, I'm knitting the Curved Shawl from Victorian Knits Today. The main stitch, in fact the only stitch in this shawl, apart from the edging, is Birdseye, or Spider . I'm almost finished the body, just 2 or three more pattern repeats. Every couple of rows in the 12 row repeat features a series of double decreases, which I stupidly started out by following the original pattern and doing them as k3tog. I didn't want to change in the middle so I've kept at it and can only work on it for short periods since it makes my hands hurt. Of course, about halfway through, I read the side note, which suggests using other, less stressful double decreases such as sl2k1psso and the like. I now recall that I made the same mistake with the Trinity stitch from Barbara Walker once while knitting the centre of another shawl. Story of my life: forge ahead and repeat the mistakes of the past. Nevertheless, it is lovely. I have shown it to the bride and she has approved. I will be done by the end of February or else.

I won't show you what it looks like here now. It's too horrible, but here's what it was like on January 19th - a picnic in the park. Imagine. 

Have you seen these lovely aerial views of tulip fields yet? Mmmmm.

New Year

We received our first snow of the winter overnight on December 26th. It's barely stopped since. It makes going for a walk a bit more challenging than usual but it's absolutely gorgeous to look at.

Here are some things that I would like to knit in the coming months. Excuse the margins.

1) Finish my Fleurette II cardigan. I have only the top of the sleeves to do and to put it all together.

2) Knit up the Amaryllis Mittens kit that I won as a prize last year in NaKniMitMo 2012 during the month of January.

3) Knit a secret wedding shawl before the beginning of March.

4) Chug along on my current North Sea Shawl, a very relaxing project, pictured below.

5) Hem and press the bleeping living room curtains that I recently sewed and hung in place, also pictured below. The ones in the previous post only cover half the windows. I had a complete pair of beautiful, pale green ones that I found in the Salvation Army in Bath, NY, but the fabric was disintegrating. I'm blessed/cursed with 5 windows on a curved foundation. I priced out custom drapes and was horrified at the price. I bought new fabric for these, used the existing curtain rod and hooks, but had to order pleating tape on the internet! If you knew what I went through originally to concoct the curtain rings... I'm convinced there's a plot against decent homemade curtains. It's so hard to get everything you need. Some things, like those I-beam rods have ceased to exist. I      could have sewn the pleats, but these will be adjustable down the road, if I ever move elsewhere.

PS. Helen - wow, a litter of white kittens!

Cheer

I'm so thankful to have my daughter with us for a few days. We're trying to finish up sewing new curtains for the living room and are otherwise generally laying about and catching up.

I wish you all good health and cheer!

Sleeves

Lesson 1 for me. The Blogger iphone app places the most recently uploaded photo first. Hence the unfortunate reversal of tea cat and Bruno cat in yesterday's post. Sorry 'bout that.

A quick update about Fleurette II. I am still on the sleeves. It's been so warm here that on Sunday I was able to sit outside and knit for an hour while my better half circled around the woods. Still, slow progress.

Checking in

I'm trying out posting from my phone. If there's too much pointless babble from my end, I'll stop this and go back to regular posting.

I managed to make 92 shortbread cookies this evening. It was the first baking in my gas oven and it went really well. Ooh, that's 5 grams of butter per cookie. Too much?

Here are some of them, unbaked, under the watchful eye of the tea cat. Plus a bonus photo of the gorgeous Bruno.