#snowvember

Yes, we had a storm that kept Buffalo on the national news for better than a week.  No, it didn't affect our corner of the world at all, as far as snow went.  There was a clear dividing line that had the snow remain to the south.  We are use to snow, drifts 7' high are not that unusual.  But straight, solid 7' was very unusual.  All the highways were closed and all schools in the area were also closed, even the ones that had no snow because the driving bans kept staff located to the south from getting to their schools.  So our kids had Tuesday off, then they tried to have them in on Wednesday.  My high schooler said that very few of the teachers were there, so Thursday and Friday were also Snow days.

Here's a picture of an unbelievable amount of snow.


Also this picture is a favorite.  Having snow completely blocking you in the house has got to be a frightening experience.  Good some people made the best of it.

  

So I had nothing much to do but get ready for Thanksgiving.  All my veggies got done along with my two pumpkin pies that are in the freezer.  Today I made an apple and a blueberry pie.  I need more pie plates, since I still need to make chocolate pie.
Also, I was able to get Christmas knitting done.  Or almost done.  And the Buffalo Bills rolled over the Jets 38-3.  A really nice present for all the snow bound and the water logged, now that the snow has melted.

Before the Polar Vortex

Today is Veteran's Day and it is a beautiful, sunny warm day with a gentle breeze.  The perfect day to hang laundry outside!

I lost my dryer in September, I think, and have been trying to see how long I can do without.  So let's say the 1st of September was first day of this little experiment.  It is never a good time to have to  make a major investment in an appliance, but this came at a very inopportune time indeed. September is usually warm and sunny here and I have a clothes line that I use all summer to dry my sheets and the bathing suits and towels from swimming (love the smell of sheets hung out in the sunshine) so I decided to see if I could put off the new purchase for a few weeks.  I figured my grandmother had seven children and no dryer and she managed quite well, how hard would it be for me with just two adults, who mainly don't get terribly dirty.  Hubby takes his dress shirts and pants to the cleaner anyway, so I wouldn't have the problem of ironing them.

So the game was on!  How long could I go without having to buy a dryer!

September and even October, when it got a bit rainy was not a problem.  I washed clothes around the weather forecast instead of when the hamper was full.  I hung indoors on my wooden drying rack in front of the fireplace, all t-shirts get hung on hangers to dry and the system's been working fine.

My kids got into the spirit of my contest with myself, and have been cheering me on.  I thought I was going to have to give in this week, as I had a load of towels, sheets and sweats and jeans and the weather has been really too cold and rainy for hanging outdoors.  But because of the hurricane that is pushing frigid air into the US, we have a day today that is going to be sunny and breezy with a high in the 60's.  We get the cold air tomorrow.

So this is the scene in my backyard:

It actually makes me feel very clever and strangely empowered to try to "beat" the system.
I always feel betrayed when my appliances die on me.  My toaster oven has been broken for several years, it has to be manually started and stopped but as long as we are willing to keep an eye on the toast, it still does the job.  When it stops doing that, I may get a new one or try to jury rig a solution.

More about the Lace

I finished the Fiori Di Sole, washed and blocked it and it looks wonderful.  Not an error that I can see! (Doesn't mean there aren't any, just that I can't see them.)

I need to make an amendment to my statement of the last post about this being used for weddings.  It can be used for any occasion - if there is a wedding, if there is no wedding, for using when accepting a Nobel prize or Pulitzer or whatever the very special occasion is.  There is absolutely no pressure on anyone to get married.  If they want Nana and Papa to be present for a special occasion and we can't be, then I hope the shawl will hug them in our love!

This was a very satisfying knit, beautifully written with beautiful results.  I had never done a crochet castoff and initially found this a bit daunting as it felt fiddly to me, even though I have crocheted quite a bit, and there were a lot of stitches to cast off.  However, once I got into a rhythm and didn't try to rush in an effort to be done with it already, things went very smoothly.

Done but scrunched up.

   Having a good soak

 All Rung Out

Using the blocking wires 

 Pinned out

This is a little blurry, so you can't see all the pins I used.  Three boxes full!  Each crocheted chain needed to be pinned to fully open up the design.  It took about an hour plus to get it all done, but well worth the effort.

Now to figure out how to store this so that it stays beautiful, clean, safe from creatures and dust.

Persuing Perfection

"When you aim for perfection, you discover it's a moving target. "~George Fisher

I love knitting lace.  I don't have many opportunities to wear my lace shawls, but I do love the process.  I had a great idea!  I would make a box full of knitted heirloom lace as a gift to my granddaughters and grandsons.  My intention is to make several different white and off white shawls that would be appropriate for brides to use on their wedding day.  

The first of the shawls is on my needles now.  I am making Rosemary Hill's gorgeous Fiori di Sole out of a silk and wool lace yarn.  It is perfect, in my opinion, for a wedding shawl.  

And that is the problem -"perfect".  I want this to have absolutely no errors, not even those wonky stitches that sometimes appear, and that is a high bar.  

I am at the midsection which is 5 repeats of 20 rows of a leaf pattern, that I find easy to intuit as I'm knitting.  Ah, such conceit.  I figured I could watch TV while I'm knitting this, no problem.  Life lines?  I don't need no stinking life lines!

So for the past two days I have been like Penelope, knitting by day and unraveling by night.  All the rows I knit  yesterday have to be re-knit because I found a large hole in the 5 stitch edge (the edge for Pete's sake, so easy!) that I couldn't fudge and I couldn't ignore.  

Fortunately, I had  put in life lines, as the day before I had to unknit 8 rows, one stitch at a time.

Glad to report the lifeline worked like it was suppose to and made the ripping out quicker with no fear of dropping stitches.

If I get through this, I also want to make a really pretty white heirloom lace baby blanket to add to the box.  Kind of a hug from Nana, even if she isn't there.

Normal Time

The start of school, cool beautiful sunny days, a hint of color in the trees -   the best season, fall!
Everyone returning to a "normal" routine including us.  No more early morning kid pick ups, swimming lessons, a craft table instead of a dining room table, reading time and knitting time and sewing time, once I clean up the house!

Now is the perfect time to review what went right and what to improve in the garden next year.  The best part of gardening is the surprises.  We cleaned out the garden area to the right of the shed.  The butterfly bushes did not survive the winter, but because they were not competing with them, the three $1.99 rose bushes that I planted probably 4 years or more ago in the same area, had the opportunity to thrive and bloom.  They are beautifully unusual colors, orange, mauve and a pretty red and they have produced lovely flowers all summer and are still going strong.

I forgot, again, to purchase gladiola bulbs in the spring (I need to set some kind of a reminder).  I love having them flower in the late summer because most of the intense flowering of the lilies is over and the fall flowers haven't come in yet.  I always plant zinnias, sunflowers and glads to continue the color.  Because I don't dig out the spent bulbs after flowering, they sometimes survive winter and re-boom and this year I did get about a dozen surprise glads.  Makes me happy!

We planted a very few vegetable plants and got a small harvest.  We are not going to plant a veggie garden next year.  We would like to put a grape arbor with some seating in that area, but maybe will just replant grass and use it for games for the kids.  Croquet and badminton need a little more room than we have available right now.  We had great luck with tomatoes in pots, so that may be a way to get some fresh vegetables.  There are just so many inexpensive farmers markets where everything is available.  Sometimes the cost is not worth it.  This summer has been cool and not very sunny, everything seems to be a bit late, including the sunflowers. Food for thought over the winter.

So for now it is clean up and planning for next year in the garden.

Beautiful Monday

After a very cool and windy weekend, today feels just so Spring.  Warm and sunny and perfect for.....the first grass cutting of the season.  Mowed the front lawn this morning as my hubby spent the weekend getting the lawnmower ready for the season. The grass was so long, it just couldn't wait another day or I never would be able to push the mower through.  Looks good and it really gives me a good workout.

The Churchmouse Easy Folded Poncho is on its way to West Virginia.  I purchased 8 skeins of yarn which was more than enough according to the pattern to finish the poncho and get a matching Wurm hat out of.  As I was knitting, it seemed like I was going through a lot more yarn and I panicked.  I ordered 2 more skeins from KnitPicks and requested the same dye lot.  They were able to send it in 3 days, which was great. However it only took a little less than 7 skeins after all.  Not to worry, I might get two hats out of the remaining balls of yarn, plus it is a neutral color that will work well with making a scarf from all the rest of the scraps of City Tweed I have left over from other projects.

I modified this a bit by adding 5 knit stitches to the edging and six knitted rows to the beginning and end.  I wanted to avoid the curling from just stockinette stitch but it did have to be blocked to get it to lay straight.

Media Monday.

Still catching up with all the same series.  I did add another PBS or BBC series to my viewing pile.  "Larkrise to Candleford" which is a charming 18th century tale of two cities, one poor, the other more middle and upper class. I was going through the DVD's at the library and picked it up there.  Another free entertainment. I so want to get rid of cable.
I finished "The Shining" and it was quite a bit different than I remembered.  I think I remembered the movie plot more than the book, so I'm glad I reread it before going on to Dr. Sleep.
I needed a break from Stephen King, so I loaded Diana Galbaldone's "Outlander" on my MP3 player.  I have had this audiobook for a couple of years but hesitated to listen because for one thing, it is 33 hours long and for another I had attempted to read it a few years ago and gave up halfway through.  The only reason I had it in my Audible library was because it was a sale item.  The Knitmore Girls podcast and Ravelry group is having a read-a-long and I was encouraged to pick this up again from all the enthusiastic comments about the series.  The reader is Davina Porter and although I didn't enjoy her reading on another series I listened to, she is just perfect for this one.  So far I am enjoying this very much. I am about 10 hours into the story with about 23 to go.

Some Finished Projects

It's been a rainy week, not too cool.  In the 50's so things are getting greener and the grass has started to grow alarmingly!  It definitely needs a cutting, but we haven't even got the lawnmower out of the shed and ready for the season.  Plus, it is just too wet.  By the time I get to it, it is going to be knee high.

The past few weeks have been busy with the kids vacation, half-days, sleepovers etc.  We have been looking forward to this weekend with two kid-free days.

I am going to take everything out of my clothes closet and organize it for the warmer weather.  That means looking over t-shirts and shorts, putting wool away for the summer and taking out the lighter weight sweaters.

Tonight it is homemade pea soup and hamburgers for dinner, so the soup is now simmering and smells great. Since it is raining and overcast, this seems like the perfect meal.

I finished just four knitting projects in March and April, which makes me feel like I'm slacking off since I had ten finished projects in January and six in February.  Since those were hats and cowls and socks, it is understandable.  The finished projects in March included a top down sweater and a pair of Fair Isle socks and the projects for April were Angel's birthday present and another pair of socks so I think I did okay. There was also a pair of curtains that I made for the spare bedroom in the mix in March and April.  All three of these projects will be subjects for another day.

While it is great to finish up any project, it doesn't compare to finishing something you have been working on for what seems like forever.  As you get to the point where you can actually see the finish line, your mind is suddenly filled with the thought "I can start something new!!" and you find yourself searching through your Ravelry queue and the stack of patterns you have printed out and that are on your nightstand (or your craft room, or the table next to your knitting chair).  Or is that just me?

This year I vowed to be more diligent in knitting through my stash and I have sort of been following that promise.  Of January and February's 16 items,  I had to buy yarn for five.  These were all special request items, the hats and cowl because they were needed by the men since they lost hats in mid-winter and the special holiday socks for hubby because I can't refuse him anything! March and April's yarn purchases were big ones  The yarn for Angel's birthday presents and a special request poncho for Jen which will be a birthday present.

So 21 items made and eight of them had to have new yarns purchased.  Not too bad, less than 50%.  Some of my projects used left over bits and some were very deep stash.  The Flax sweater and the white cowl were made from yarn I had since the 1980's.  I do have a bit more ancient yarn and it really feels good to use it up.

I purchased nothing new, no patterns, no yarn in April.  Is it difficult?  More than I thought it would be.  I have so much yarn and so many projects to get through, I really want to keep to this.  We'll see how I do.

While I was finishing up the Churchmouse Yarn's "Easy Folded Poncho"  for daughter #1, I knew I wanted to start anther large project, preferably a sweater for me.  I have four of them all kitted up in my craft room. I had checked out the "Metropolitan Knits" book from the library after hearing the review on the "Knitmore Girls" podcast.  The Atrium cardigan seemed perfect for the Serena yarn I had made the Dahlia Cardigan out of and then ripped out because it looked awful on me.  The yarn pools and flashes something awful but I am hoping the stitch used will eliminate that effect.  Also, the sweater is much more my style, a good thing to keep in mind when looking for a new project.  I have to keep reminding myself that no sweater is going to make me look like the models that wear them.

So that's on my needles and is hopefully an easy enough pattern to do while TV watching or going to knitting group. I am still working on the Catkin which needs total concentration.  I tried taking it to knitting group and it just didn't work.  I  have another pair of "homework" socks on my needles.  All of these projects, stash busters!

The poncho (did I ever think I would make another one of these, so 1980's) is spread out on blocking wires.  Actually this "poncho" is very up to date and will look great on my daughter. This morning I walked past my craft room where it is drying and Frankie is laying on top of it! Bad dog!  But the yarn is so warm and comfy. I had it draped over my legs as I was knitting, keeping me warm.