A stormy week of projects

 We've had 3 major snow storms in the past week.  While I know other areas of the province have loads more snow, we've had more snow than we've had in years.   We've had so much wind this year, which keeps the Great Lakes from freezing.  This in turn causes lake effect snow, on top of whatever system works its way up or across to us.   Then with the wind, even when we don't have snow, we get blowing snow, like today with blowing snow warnings because it's affecting  roads and visibility.   I'm really looking forward to spring and getting back to some sort of routine that includes something other than staying home because hubby took my car to work since it's better on the icky roads.

But while stuck at home, I've started spinning the merino/cashmere/silk rovings.   It's easier to spin the rovings processed and dizzed off the drum card thicker than the commercially processed rovings which are much easier to spin very thin.   

It' been interesting because I'd been spinning cotton for demos and to finish up my stash for ages now, and have had to rethink my spinning technique to slow down and be more mindful of not over-spinning the wool blends and wools.    I have one bobbin full and started on the second one.  I plied a sample, and didn't like the results.  I think instead I'll spin it all as singles.  I'll dye it as singles and then weave a scarf with it.   Otherwise I'll end up making mittens and it's almost spring and unless I manage to lose all 3 pairs that I still haven't lost yet, I won't need another pair of mittens this year, no matter how soft and yummy they'd be.

I've been busy using up some scrap sock and fingering weight yarn on the CSM.   There is a spring
crank-in which gathers up requested items for donations.  Last year it was comfort dolls that went to the Provincial Police to give out to children in trauma situations.   The group donated 80 of them and they had given almost all of them out during the next 6 months and have asked for more.   So I started making a couple for my donation.   I'm running out of sock yarn scraps though.  I thought I had more, because I'd saved up a bunch from many of the years when I'd knit socks by hand, but having used a lot last year, there aren't many left.   I'll make what I can even if it's not as many as last year.  

 Last year I had a skein of  generic browny fleshtone which worked well for people dolls of no specific race.  This year, I've not found any skin tones, and only had a bit of leftover greys.  I've used the greys to make a couple of bears or cats, because I can't tell what they actually are.  I had a couple of leftovers in a bit larger amount so have made some very colourful bunnies.  They seem to work better in crazy colours than the bear/cats.

I made a bear snake today which had 3 bears in it.   It's called a snake because it's a long tube of projects.  You can make sock snakes too, which are socks knit one after another and not separated until you are finishing them.  There are 3 bear project in between a double section of waster yarn, with a ravel cord in between each bear, so it's waste yarn, ravel cord, waste yarn, bear legs, shirt, head, waste yarn ravel cord - and so on..  It means you only have to set up the CSM once for multiple projects.

 That is the last of the grey in my stash, which I'd been using for fur colours.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do next.  There is no cheap yarn locally, and what yarn there is, if it's remotely affordable for charity work, it's in vivid, bright colour mixtures, which I don't think I can turn into bears.

Please note- that ginormous bag of stuffing I bought last year, is almost empty.  There is a good chance I'll need to buy more!  Yikes!