I forgot totally about the fact that I also finished up 4 hats.  These are double toques, which are meant for the very cold weather.   One is small and will go into the gift bin.   One my husband claimed immediately and 2 others I kept for myself.  I wet finished and blocked them both.  The grey one took a weird turn when I got it wet and swished it slightly to even up the knitting.  It stretched out.  I tossed the two, and a shawl I knit over the summer into the washer for a few minutes.  The hand spun blue and white hat was perfect after a few minutes.  The grey shawl was perfect but the grey hat, knit with the leftovers from the grey shawl, was fulled up and required much stretching while pinning.  Totally odd.

However, here is why I dislike blocking knits in the cold weather.

Really kitties, my wet, blocked hats are not there to be convenient resting spots, despite them being set up close to the fire.

Finishing up some woolly projects

 I've been working on Christmas knitting and finishing up cranked socks.   I'm not sure what I was thinking about sizing though, because some of them are way off of what sizes my calculations suggested.   This is mainly for the socks, but I still have time to crank more if necessary.

I always knit myself  a pair of mittens or more, depending on time.  I like to leave a pair in the house to use in the barn, a pair for wearing to town, and a pair for in the car.   This allows me to misplace or lose a pair, or to wear the wrong pair in or out, and be easily able to keep my hands warm regardless.   So this fall, I couldn't find any of last year's mittens!  Since I hadn't lost a pair although one mitt had a tiny hole in it, I'd no idea where I'd stashed them in the spring.   

I knit up the black pair, which fit nicely, but were the most difficult thing I've knitted in a while, due to the colour.  I started on the grey mitts, using the same brand of yarn, the same calculations, and the same needles.  Despite the stitch counts being the same, the tension must be slightly different, because they are just a tad too big.  However, by this time, I'd found the mitts from last year, so I'm good to go.  The black and grey mitts may go as presents this year because they should fit my daughter and daughter-in-law.

The little shorty socks have been waiting to be finished since the summer.  My daughter gave the the yarn  for my birthday since she thought it was "my colours".  It's not really, but I do like the combination.   They are colours that my daughter would have adored in combination as a child.  (The socks still need to be blocks, so ignore the curling cuff)

These socks are all cranked on my Legare 400.   The vivid orange socks were cranked at a Westfield demo.  They have a cute little picot stitch hem, because it was a bit slow when I was starting off, so I had the time to try something new.   One of the blue pair is for my son-in-law, hopefully.  They should fit, but I'd adjusted the tension a bit, and while it's easier to knit now, without worrying as much about dropping stitches, the final tension, once the socks  have no weight is a little tighter.  I hadn't accounted for that, so they measure off at a size 10 mens, instead of a size 11.  It shouldn't matter as there is a lot of stretch.   Two pair should fit me, at least the red and black.  I made those for me though, so hopefully I got the count right by then.   One pair which was supposed to be a size 7, is a ladies size 5 and I think that one might just be too small for the intended recipient.  I'll hopefully find the time to redo some of them and figure out what to do with the rest of the ones which I sized wrong.   They're all finished up, so I can't rip them out and redo them now.

In all, 2 pair of mitts, 6 pair of socks and 1 pair of shortie socks finally finished, isn't too bad for a couple of weeks downtime playing.

Happy snow scene experiments!

Plus I painted a new landscape, to try out a new idea.  Husband asked why I was painting more Christmas cards, since because of the postal strike, I haven't even been able to mail out this years cards.  However, it was just playing with wet water colour paint and salt.   Very cool effect when used in the right situation.  This made me happy to just play around, and I loved the results.   Lots of drying time needed between steps though.  

It was nice to do a wintery scene without the stormy skies.   We've had non-stop snow squall warnings for the past week, with freaky amounts of wind.   Happily, we've been on the far side of all the squalls, so have missed the major snow accumulation.   My son says that the town he works in has almost half a meter, and a nearby city had dramatically more than that.  North and a little east of here got totally dumped on, so I'm not complaining.  Just the winds and drifting snow makes for unhappy driving and I've been home, tending the wood stove all week!