Snow Day

It snowed all day yesterday. The day before that it was so warm that I ran errands wearing a hoodie and nothing more. I spent most of yesterday sitting by my window watching flurries blow around in the sky, but never hit the ground. When I left for work, I didn't even bother donning my boots, those big yellow rubber golashes that I wear whenever there's a little moisture in the air. Mistake.

By 20:45 when we walked out of work, my ballet flats and I found ourselves traipsing about in a winter wonderland, the likes of which had me hearing Christmas carols off the in the distant corners of my mind. By the time I got off the bus, shoes filled with snow from walking through the two inches that had already settled comfortably on the ground, I sat in bed and finished up Fetching.

I had attempted to make these little mitts about 2 years ago. I'd bought a ball of the Debbie Bliss, and just didn't have enough to complete the second glove. It's been cold this winter, and I've had this extra ball of Merino Style from Knit Picks. The yarn is a bit thinner than the Cashmerino Aran, but I knit them on size 5 Crystal Palace double points, and they are just as squishy and wonderful as I'd hoped they'd be. In fact, I stayed up a little late last night finishing the second one, just so I'd be able to wear them in our chilly stock room at work today. It's been freezing back there all winter, and my knucks are looking mighty haggard these days.

Then this morning, I was woken up by a phone call informing me of an unexpected snow day. So instead of wearing my mitts at work, I can wear them at home while I finish up Foliage, another project I started a over a year ago, and had met with disastrous results. I think I first attempted this hat before I realized that I am a loose knitter, and before I really understood how to read a lace chart. Halfway through, the hat was hopelessly large and wonky. I abandoned it until a week ago.

This year I'm trying to get through as much of my stash as I can before I buy any more yarn. This was something I started to do last year, but I can honestly say I've made more progress in the past month than I did in the previous 12, including several sweaters that will appear sometime next week.

This time around I went with size 10 crystal palace DPNs for the body, and size 9 DPNs for the ribbing. The fantastic Malabrigo Chunky was purchased at Loop, though I have long forgotten the name of the colorway. As you can see, I'm all dolled up with no place to go, so I think I'll just hunker down, finish off some projects, and listen to the scrape of shovels against the sidewalk.

Oh Baby

So after several months of taking an extended holiday, winter has decided to grace the east coast with it's frigid but welcome presence. Lemme tell you, it's a little chilly out there. Not like "Oh Gosh, how did we get transported to the artic?" chilly, but enough to finally wear all those hats and scarfs that I seem to make year round just to occupy the time and all those odds and ends leftover from other FOs. Anyways, I bought this yarn at Loop months ago with the intention of making a cowl out of it. So I cast on and made a really small one that was a pain to get over my head and a pain to knit because I thought it was a good idea to use size 11 dpns. This was not a good idea. Then...it got warm, and I abandoned the poor thing until Friday when I picked up a size 11 circ. Now I have my cold weather, my cowl, and heck even a nice brown coat to wear with it. Now if only we'd get a little snow...

The yarn is Blue Sky Alpaca's Brushed Suri. I used two strands in brown and orange (I'm sure they have more exotic names) together with the aforementioned circ. I cast on about 64 and worked in 1x1 rib until I felt that it was long and cozy enough. I've still got some yarn leftover, who knows what kind of concoction that will end up on.