A rare Friday list

I know you have missed these almost as much as I have missed having Fridays off from work. 😀This week was a bit unusual at work, with late meetings, and a fundraising event this Sunday. So, to keep my hours to 40, I am able to stay home today.

What will I do with myself you ask? Here goes:

I am doing a bit of spinning this morning, working on filling that third bobbin.

Have to go out and get a haircut, long over due. While I’m out, I’ll go to the PO, and maybe, if I am feeling adventurous, the dump. We’ll see about that last one.

Back at home, there is always laundry to get started, a few dishes and some general tidying to do.

Then knitting. There are some photos I need to take for you, if the weather cooperates. And I dug some yarn out of the stash for a sweater, so I will be working on a swatch and a plan for that. And winding lots of yarn.  The yarn is Briggs and Little Heritage, picked up many years ago in New Brunswick. The color labels say “dark gray heather” “medium gray” and “light gray.”

I get the latter two, but the first looks very green to me. It looks nice with the grays, though, which is all that counts.

I even found the pattern I was going to make originally – a simple yoked sweater with colorwork in the yoke and at the bottom of the sweater. It is pretty, but I think I want a cardigan, and I don’t want a round yoke.  I dove down the Ravelry rabbit hole for a while, and when I was done with that, I decided I want to make my standard raglan top down sweater, with stripes. I toyed with the idea of making a turtleneck sweater I have made before, but I realized that the one I have is almost the same color. Oops! So, I dug out the old pattern, an ancient Candide one. This is my second copy, pretty worn out, and it cost a dollar. I wonder if it is still available, and how much it costs these days? It might be time for a new one.

Anyway… I also will work on the blue sock, which is getting closer to done – working on the leg. My goal is to get it done by Wednesday, then cast on the next pair, which will be knit with the Garden Center yarn I spun with an opposing ply, can’t wait to try that! Which reminds me, i might cake that today.

That’s really all I have planned for the day – not a lot but that leaves me loads of time for that knitting and spinning. And thinking about yet another sweater…that turtleneck still seems like a good idea, I wonder what other yarn I have in my stash? Add that to the list – more stash diving!

 

 

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I’ve been here, really.

Just been too lazy to power up the computer or to try to write a post on the phone (WHY is that such a tedious chore?  Work on it, WordPress, please?)

 

Loads of knitting has happened and some spinning, and a day away from shoveling, and a long weekend.

Here’s the spinning:

Filled a bobbin with the second color of my planned three ply.  Now the two filled bobbins await the third, which I started yesterday.  This is going to be some crazy yarn!  Or really awful, time will tell.

I worked on socks – plan to finish this one up before March 1, according to my 6 pairs a year plan.

I finished the Corrugated Hat to match the Corrugated Cowl, these will go on Etsy sometime soon. I still had yarn left, so I am doing a striped hat in the same colors.  Not sure if this will be an Etsy listing or a donated item.  Time will tell.

I finished knitting the Gloria del Sol shawl in Purple Fleece’s Aquamarine Radiant gradient – OMG , I love this thing.  Wait until you see it blocked.  It was a challenging knit, and I didn’t bead it, but if I ever do it again (and I am thinking I will when I forget how challenging it was) I will add beads, if only to help me count the crazy long endless repeats.

I have to dig around in yarn and queue to see what I will cast on next – or maybe dig out an unfinished something to finish it.  I have a couple of things that could use some attention, I know.

Saturday I travelled down to  Mom’s so I could hop in the car with her and B, and drive over to western Maine, Bridgton, to be exact, to have lunch with my two cousins who live there.  Brother N and SIL D joined us as well, and it was a very nice time.  So good to sit down with the cousins we usually only see at funerals.  Afterwards, we went to visit a friend of Mom’s for an hour or so, then drove all the way back.  A 13 hour day for lunch?  Yup.  But it was a nice change of pace, and of course, I knit the whole way there and back, as B drove.  And let me tell you – I thought we had snow – they have literally two or three times as much on the ground as we do.  Truthfully, mom and I both found it really depressing, even though the sun was shining and the sky was a beautiful bright blue.  It took us both back to the years we lived there, and how endless the winters felt.  Mom said “This is why I moved to the coast” which I had never known, I knew she loved the ocean, but not how much she hated deep snow that never stops and there is no where to put it. So naturally, she moved to the part of the coast that regularly gets slammed by the coastal storms.  But at least she has a bigger yard and some place to put the snow.

Sunday we finished cleaning up around the driveway and paths and decks, which was great, to let everything melt in the warm spring sunshine – amazing weather! Hard to believe this is one week ago: (That’s my car to A’s left.)

We were both glad to be done with it – A even has shoveling blisters – ugh. So yesterday we enjoyed our holiday by having me work on our taxes and clean the pellet stove while she worked on clearing out files and folders.  Fun, fun!

As you can tell, it has been the same old low key life around here the past few weeks – and I like it that way – no drama, no unexpected surprises, and loads of fun with fiber.

How have you been keeping busy lately?

 

 

 

 

KABOOM!

Up until this point we have had a fairly quiet winter. Our storms were of the warmer variety, which I don’t like- more icy nonsense than snow.

All of that changed this week. No more warm days between storms melting everything.

Starting Thursday I had three days of taxes scheduled. Volunteers lined up. Appointments filled.

Thursday the weather prediction was for a big snow, more snow the farther east we were. But not starting until 11 or so.

Sure enough, at 11 the first flakes fell, and the boss gave us an early dismissal, which was great, but meant canceling a slew of appointments and rescheduling them for next month.

We got about 6 inches at our house, but the location of the Friday tax clinic got 18 inches! So, we cancelled all the morning appointments and got there at noon. It was a crazy day, the schedule got all out of whack as people came late or early depending on their drivway situation. Instead of getting out at 4 as planned, it was closer to 5, followed by a long drive home.

Saturday was predicted to be light snow, 1 – 3 inches. I trucked up to Bangor for Super Saturday tax clinic. It’s held in an empty storefront in a small mall, and we worked hard all day, but did notice our numbers were down. Found out why when we left at 4. Way more than 3 inches – it had been snowing steadily all day! I went to the grocery store right there and headed home through some heavy snow on messy roads, so it took forever. Got home to find the driveway unplowed, and that’s when I realized how much snow we had. My mighty Prius plowed up the hill no problem, shooting snow everywhere! A had cleared out my parking space, which made me so happy as I just had sneakers on. 😀 We had 8 -9 inches and it kept snowing a few more hours.

So I got through the busy week, in the end made far less busy but no shorter by the snow.

Today is a combo day – pajamas and snow pants. We have to get out and clear vents and decks and driveways (plow guy came last night, yea!) this morning, then we will totally chill. Because this afternoon, guess what?

BLIZZARD

We are forecast to get 18-26 inches (depending which channel one watches) in 24 hours, starting late this afternoon. Strong, sustained winds as well.  I fully expect to get the call canceling work tomorrow – that will be my napping spinning knitting day. Of course there will be intermittent shoveling as well to keep ahead of it.

And I hold out the tiniest bit of hope for at least a delay on Tuesday morning. 😝

So I should have finishes to share soon, and pretty snow pictures.

Oh, and our forecast after Tuesday? Storm expected on Thursday which they won’t talk about yet. But significant something.

Guess winter is hitting us full force this month!

Early Release! Due to Snow…

You know what I did this afternoon!

I filled the first bobbin of the big combo spin, Mountain’s Edge and started the next bobbin, Muted Reflection. Both are from Three Waters Farm.

 

We are supposed to get a lot of snow tonight, 9 – 16 inches at last forecast update. Normally I would think we have a chance of a day off, but it is supposed to stop tonight, so I won’t count on it. Pretty sure it will mess up tax day tomorrow, though. Supposed to be in Milbridge with three volunteers and I am thinking they won’t want to be on the road at 6 am.

More snow Sunday – Monday. They say that storm will be bigger.

Maybe I will be able to fill that other bobbin?

Snapshot

 

This was taken one cold October morning on Isle au Haut, Maine.  A piece of heaven.

Scanned from a  photo years ago, converted from an old bitmap file, it still is such a lovely shot, isn’t it?  This photo is one of my background wallpaper photos on my computer, and I just love when it pops up, it makes me feel serene.

Have a happy Monday!

 

A calm weekend ahead

At least here in my part of the world.  I don’t want to think about what will happen in this country – every weekend a new and horrible event…

I make my phone calls and emails, then pull my head back inside and work on my knitting and spinning.

This weekend, A has to work Saturday morning, and I have Whorls and Purls in the afternoon, so not sure if I will see her before supper time.

I’ll be demonstrating how I make toe-up socks to the gang at the Purple Fleece on Saturday.  It started out as a cast on lesson, but then it grew, because of course, you have to work the sock backwards from a  traditional one after you cast on, so how to do that?  It will be interesting, to say the least.  🙂 I am not a teacher, and I knit completely backwards, lol.

Sunday is THE BIG GAME, of course.  And the Patriots are playing, so there is a lot of hype about it in this neck of the woods.  Here’s what I know about football:  the ball is a strange shape. The object is for one team to make goals and the other to stop them.  Other than that, it looks like complete chaos to me.  But they have great ads, so we watch, and I knit and spin.  We also have a bet on the game, $25 stash cash.  Last year, A got to pick a team first, so this year I did, and took the Pats.  Hope they do what they have done all year and WIN.  I am saving for a spinning wheel, after all.  But other than that, I could not care less about the game.

Next week is the first week of tax prep, and it promises to be crazy – software kinks still to be worked out, new procedures on dealing with new software and said kinks.  Hope the taxpayers are patient… I will be working on those a bit on Monday, then all day Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  So it is good I can rest up this week!

 

I’ll share progress photos of my fiber-y activities later, when I get some!  Should be a few finishes coming along.  🙂