Mother Nature, give us a break please!

 Mother Nature is having some sort of breakdown.   We've had wind.... so much wind.   We've had unseasonably warm weather which has melted all our snow.  Then it's turned cold and everything is white and icy again.   We've had it switch almost every other day, from green to white and back to green again!   It got so warm that the sap stopped running.  Then it got cold again, and the next day was mild and the sap started to run once again.  Yesterday there were wind warnings, but it was mild.  Today we had a windchill of -20 in the morning and snow squalls like it was the dead of winter.   This weather is tiring and it feels like the wind hasn't stopped since last December.

On one of those lovely days though, it was over 10C.  It was still windy but not quite as bad as it has been and it was sunny!   We've had so little sunshine that it was really nice.  I stuffed the shawls I'd knit over the winter into the washer and wet finished them.  I soaked them for a bit with a tiny bit of soap.  Then I spun them out, rinsed with a soak and spun them again.   I put one on the deck table to block it as best as I could.  The other two were hung on the line, knowing that I'd probably get little pointy bat wing type bits on the top edges.   They dried so quickly.  I did have to put a clothes peg on the tip of the beige one because the wind was blowing it oddly.  The little bit of extra weight held it nicely.  They dried quickly.  I realised that I was happy that I didn't put the lacy border on the last shawl because it would have then been way too long.

I was running errands yesterday and chanced across a yarn sale for 30% off.  I ended up with enough yarn to make a sweater.  It's recycled polyester, so not quite my favourite to work with but it's a great colour and cost only $24.  Because of the cost and the fact it's recycled yarn, it makes me happy.

Is it bad though that I'm thinking about starting another shawl instead of that sweater?  

Shawl finished in weird misty weather

 We've had quite a turn around in the weather.  All of a sudden, it's unseasonably mild. We've had lots of fog advisories issued with some areas being almost no visibility.  Last night the winds picked up. Today that wind has blown off the early morning fog quite nicely.  Instead though you can see the mist rising off the melting snow.  This is really eerie.  All the melting snow is starting to puddle because the ground is still frozen, making very wet, muddy walking.   The skies have been a heavy grey today, and we've had rain and drizzle just to make the day that much better.  

  On the plus side, the sap is running. We've got a few trees tapped this year.  Last year it was so wet and rainy, with miserable weather that we didn't even bother with making maple syrup because the fire pit where we boil, was underwater.  By the time we get to boil this year, it will hopefully be drying up.

The grey/blue shawl is done.  I opted not to do the lacy border.  It's big enough because my goal was to use up as much of these yarns as possible, I figured having the lacy bit wrapping around my legs wasn't horribly desirable.  Instead, just did a slightly larger brown bottom stripe and then crocheted a shell stitch border.  I even limited it to a single row of shells because with the dark brown yarn, all the pattern definition got all muddled.

It isn't exotic, with painted or even variegated yarn.  It's not got a lot of wow factor for being pretty, or with an amazing stitch pattern.  It's a hap shawl, which is a relatively simple, garment used for warmth.   I used up some leftover yarns so had limited colour choices, despite dyeing it.   Regardless, it's fits the purpose for which I made it.  It's big and warm and cuddly.  I've had the cat try to sit on it while I was working on it as it got bigger.  While I was finishing it, he was adamant that he should have rights to sleep on it.  The cat and I had a little argument while I was stitching in what felt like thousands of ends, because Kevin tussled with the drying yarn more than I realised, chewing it into more pieces than I'd have liked.   Dion believed he should snuggle the shawl and be petted, while I just wanted to get the darning thing finished.  It's done, and now Dion is ignoring it.. go figure. 

Tricky, stupid shawls

 

Shawls are tricky projects.   They start off first by giving you hope.  It tricks you because at first, the knitting goes so quickly that you're making good progress.   You can see the shawl growing in size as you are knitting.  This gives you energy to keep knitting because you want to see it in its full, finished glory! 

 And then... and then you  realise you are still knitting. You realise that shawls are liars. You're half way done and there are still yards upon yards of balled of yarn waiting for you, even a shawl like this which is made of leftover yarns.   You keep knitting, and knitting, and knitting.  Slowly, ever more slowly does the shawl grow.  Soon it's taking you 15 minutes  or a bit more to knit one lousy row.  Now, you knit and can hardly tell how much you've accomplished in the past hour and a half because you only knit an inch!   And still, you have several more balls of yarn, and the lower lacy border.  That joy that the photo and pattern of the shawl is starting to dim because yep, shawls are liars. 

Now instead of enthusiasm, you're asking yourself when will I actually finish this?  You're wondering to yourself if it will actually be big enough because surely it should look bigger than it is now after what feels like weeks of knitting every day.  As well, the knitting needles that you love in other sizes, now feel just slow, stodgy and wrong in your hands, like you chose the wrong needles.  Maybe the aluminium needles would be better, or needles with better points, or rounded tips or better joins.  And because these are convertible needles, you're also telling yourself you're thankful that they haven't broken because you just found 2 different sizes of this brand of needles broken in your needle bin, which doesn't inspire confidence when knitting down the home stretch of the stupid shawl.

Yep, shawls are tricky liars.   The photographs hook you.  They hook you into forgetting how much time it actually takes to knit a stupid shawl.   They hook you  into thinking this will be a fun and satisfying project  It will of course be so in the end, but that will be mixed with some relief as you cast off the last of the 325 stitches you end up with when you're finally finished.  Of course that is when you also realise that there are 250 stupid yarn ends to sew in before you're actually finished the shawl. But then it's done.  You sigh in relief and are happy because it's pretty close to what you wanted.   

Then, because you need a new project on the needles,  because you realised that the shawl you just made won't work with the dress you ended up buying to wear to a wedding, you look through your stash, and look through pattern books, Ravelry, your friends projects and suddenly you find the perfect pattern for those skeins of yarn that have been insulating the craft room.   It's this elegant, drapey, and quite perfect shawl!  And so it starts again, the circle of the shawl: excitement, enthusiasm, the frustration, the boredom, the hopefulness of finishing and finally, the relief and satisfaction that you're done, before you start something like that again.  

STUPID, TRICKY SHAWLS!

above photo - a simple shawl, using leftover yarns, some dyed and a brown that doesn't go with any other yarn that I have,  Some might be handspun, one isn't for sure, but they were unlabelled because I went through a very long phase of thinking that I'd remember the fibre content, yardage and brand/ or sheep breed of every single skein of yarn that I have had over some ridiculous amount of years.   I'm now labelling everything, or tucking in the ball band if it's commercial.   It sure took me long enough to get into that habit.

K update

I was playing with dyes.   I had some grey in the slightly wrong shade that I over dyed with some blue.  I wanted a pale blue grey, and ended up with a pale grey/greenish blue.  I'd been trying with the old Cushing's dyes, but ended up realising that some of the dyes are union dyes, not acid dyes, and this colour was one of those.  I wasn't impressed.   Kevin liked them though.   As I set the skeins to finish drying in front of the fire, he cozied himself up to them like they were his new best friend.   However, his track record with drying skeins hasn't been good.  Usually it has to be something I have plans for, or some sort of expensive fibre like cashmere.    We've had plenty of "conversations " about his attraction to my damp yarns, whether dyed or just wet finished.   I know he understands where I stand on this issue " don't touch it", when every other second he glanced at me, sometimes with squinty eyes, like he was. warning me off.    

I got him to move and thought my yarn was safe.  The next day though, I found that particular skein on the ground and in a bit of a tangle.  When I wound it into a ball, I found it was now in three pieces.   While I wasn't too happy with it, I wasn't surprised.   I was much happier than the cashmere skein which I'd found in a thousand tiny little pieces and was totally unusable.   I used to keep my drying yarn safe by setting a towel over the top bar of my Fanny loom and hanging it there.  I recently gave away that loom though, and didn't even think about the K issue.  Obviously a chair isn't a safe option.  

A few fibery projects

Another critter made of leftovers.  The white parts are a bit of leftover acrylic yarn.  I know that because it squeaked a bit when knitting.  Also, because it wasn't in my bin of handspun yarns but in the bag of leftover bits from a cow I made last year.

He's very cute.   The original pattern has a wreath around his neck, but I'm just going to put a nice bow on him and call him done.   The pattern was a free pattern available on-line.  It's fiddly though, really, really fiddly.  The main part of the moose is fine, and so are the arms and legs.  They were all easy to knit up.  The ears and antlers though were quite fussy, small little pieces.  Nothing difficult about it, but it did take a lot of pinning to get those bits and pieces even close to the right places. 
 

I had some fleece leftover from various projects.  This was washed fleece, and most of it had been run through a drum carder.  There was some coloured stuff that I'd used to pick up extra acid dyes when I was experimenting with the old, vintage packets of Cushing's dyes.    I hand carded the bits and pieces, wound them up and layered them into big balls to make dryer balls.  I had to stop in a a dollar store after a meeting the other day to pick up a pair of nylons so I had a pair to stuff the balls into for felting.   

I stuffed a fleece ball into the toe of a stocking, tied a knot, put in another ball and tied a knot, 3 times.   I used a slip knot so that hopefully I could reuse the nylons again.   I put them into the washer, with a load of laundry, and then into the dryer.  They felted up really nicely.  The only issue I had was they were also trying to felt themselves into the stockings.   I got the first 2 out with a little effort, but had to cut the final one out as the stocking wouldn't peel off the dryer ball.  Of course once I snipped the toe of the stocking off, it was easy to peel the little bit of nylon off.   By knotting the cut end, I'll be able to reuse the nylons for another batch if necessary or I can use them to tie garden plants to supports if necessary, like that one stem of the tomato plant which doesn't want to stay confined to the tomato cage!     

Next projects on the list include having to divide and repot my snake plant (Dracaena trifasciata ).  It's been growing and growing.  I was thinking it needed repotting over the summer, but put it off.  Now it's obviously too big.  Well the one with the striped leaves is.  The more solid green one is still a baby but I'll probably repot that one at the same time. It will be a big, ol' repotting party because the spider plant and the lemon tree are also getting too big for their pots.  I may have to wait for the spring though, because I have a feeling this will be a messy job.

Still winter here..

 

Finally the Great Lakes are frozen enough that the constant lake effect snow squalls have eased off.  Despite it still being stupidly cold, we've had a couple of sunny days and a couple of sunny-ish days, where it was bright, although there was cloud cover and those lovely white/grey wintery skies we get here.   We've also had hoar frost, and icy fog which is both beautiful and odd at the same time.  

This was first thing this morning, just a bit after sunrise.  A few minutes later, I was heading into town and had to put my lights on because that little layer of fog, became a heavy, almost engulfing fog, which lasted until about 10 minutes after I got home  an hour and a half later.   Literally 10 minutes after I'd gotten home and made some tea, I looked out to see no fog, and sunshine.   A happy surprise for sure, but a surprisingly quick switch in the weather.

At least it wasn't -23C when I left the house this morning.  It was a balmy -17C and had actually warmed up to -14C when I got home.  The local groundhog has predicted an early spring.  Realistically, even if we get 6 more weeks of winter, that's doing pretty good. 

 I remember the year we got the sheep.  They arrived in March and it was -25 during the day and much colder at night.  They were about to lamb and did so before the cold weather broke.   With the birth of the first lamb, I ended up routing through the kids cast off sweaters,  found a couple and cut the arms off to make little lamb sweaters because I worried that these tiny babies with no body fat wouldn't survive the cold.  I slipped them on after mama had finished cleaning them up and they'd dried off.   Neither the lambs nor the mamas cared and a few days later, the babies had outgrown the sweaters, had nice fluffy coats and were thriving.   I don't think they actually needed the sweaters, but it made me feel better!   

This is what I made during the past couple of evenings.  He's a free pattern from Ravelry.  The yarn is some of my early spinning, that I dyed with woad that I'd grown.   The green is leftovers from the green shawl I'd just made.   The yarn is a bit uneven with some thicker and thinner sections.  It's been in my hand spun bin for years.   I believe that beginner handspun yarn should be used, even if it's years later.   He's cute.    I use safety eyes on some of my knitted stuffies.   To make sure those eyes stay put, I cut a square of felt, cut a tiny slit or x in it.  I put the eye through the knitted fabric, then I put the square of felt over the post of the eye, and then put the safety back on the post.   It pretty much holds those eyes solidly in place.

Mrs. Rorer's Peach Pie 1886

This was a super easy and delightful treat which tasted like summer!

2 crust pie dough - home made or purchased

peaches - fresh, frozen, tinned

1/2 c sugar

1/4 c water (or reserved peach juice/liquid)

1-2 tbsp cornstarch (optional)

I made a standard 2 crust pie dough and lined a greased pie tin with it, reserving just over 1/3 for a top crust.   Since peaches are definitely not in season here, I used a tin of peaches, drained with the juice reserved.  I could have used almost 2 tins to make a really full pie, but they're expensive so I tried just one and it was still a nice amount.   

Peach prep:  fresh - scald peaches, peel off the skin, slice and remove stones.

Frozen - thaw and drain reserving juice

Tinned - (I used the no sugar kind) drain and reserve the juice

Mix the peaches with the sugar, water or juice and cornstarch if using.  Put the fruit filling into the lined pie tin.  Roll out the remaining crust dough and lay over the fruit to make a top crust.  Crimp the edges and cut vents.

Bake 400F for 20 - 25 minutes, reduce heat to 350 F and bake until the crust is nicely browned and the filling bubbles a bit.    It's likely a good idea to set the pie tin, on a cookie sheet in the oven, just in case it drips.

This was quick to whip up, tasty and very pretty on the plate.  I used a fancy pie topper template which looks way better before it's baked, but just a few vent slits cut into the pie or a little hole in the middle of the top crust would work just as well to let the steam out