It's Maple Time Again !

 With the weird weather that we've had, we had some concerns that we might not have enough maple sap to make syrup this year.   While we have a fair bit of syrup stored, it would have meant 2 years in a row without fresh syrup.  Since we gift a fair bit of it, I like to have fresh stuff for pressies.   The weather settled down however, and we suddenly had enough sap to boil.  Last week was pretty lucky for timing because hubby took holidays and had half a week to boil.  I finished the syrup inside on Sunday, but had to redo a few jars which didn't seal on Monday.    The syrup is really dark this year.  It's darker than usual I think.  Also, one of my filters kept clogging up and I used one of the new ones, which is different and it didn't do nearly as well, so some of this year's syrup may well have a lot of nitre in it.  It's just mineral buildup which drops out of the syrup.  It's harmless and apparently some people like it to eat or to put in their coffee.  We'll do our second boil this weekend and then we'll pull the spiles and end our season because we'll have enough syrup.   This first boil was quite productive with almost 5 litres, so yay for that!

I finished twisting the fringes on that pastel scarf.   I then tossed the rest of the yarn out.  I'd bundled it up and I could see why I bought it, with the pale blues shining through.  The grey dismal bits were less obvious.  It was obviously a yarn with subversive tendencies and I don't like being tricked by yarn colours, so to remove any future issues, I tossed the half skein away.   Take that ugly yarn!

I did however put a new warp on the loom.   This is using a worsted wight (#4) yarn so it took almost no time at all to put on a scarf.  It was yarn I'd used on the flat bed knitting machine to make a shawl.  I took the shawl off and not only did the yarn not work in knitting, but it shrunk up to this tiny, little shawl.   I immediately ripped it out, caked it up and set it aside for a future scarf.   I was going to use the pink and black, but last minute grabbed this because it was ready to go.  I'm happ[y I did because the serendipitous plaid is lovely.  I'm having fun weaving it and I'm just about halfway already.  Better than the months with the ugly pastel yarn.    I'll admit that I usually use much finer yarn for scarves, but this is soft, fast and pretty.  Now to figure out where I put the ball band, so I can actually figure out what yarn it is so I can get some more, in a different colour way.

Finishing up some projects.

 Grey Corriedale -  I got 1 lb of it for a present and am just finishing up plying it.   I loved it until the last bit of spinning.   It just didn't feel quite so nice to spin then because it was a bit compacted.  The bag looked like wads of sliver, but in the middle was the end part of the roving bump, still wound up.  The inside part just was too squished to be as fun as I'd have liked.  Plying is fine though and going fairly quickly.    I'm trying to decide if I want to make something out of it or use it as  the second yarn for a colour work sweater project.  Decisions, decisions.

A scarf off the loom, finally.  I put this one on the loom in the fall.   I chose this yarn because hubby was with me and he noticed that I tend to gravitate towards certain colours and thought I should maybe try something different.   So I did and I obviously chose wrong.   That black is actually a pale grey and there is also a pale blue.   I disliked every minute of weaving this scarf.   To make it worse, I put two scarves on the loom thinking it was worth the experiment of making a slightly narrower scarf and getting two of them.   I only have one scarf to show for the months of avoiding the project because I realized I'd never get anything else done if I tried for the two of them.  Instead I finished the one today - a whole 1 inch to weave  and then cut the darn thing off the loom.   I didn't heave enough weft anyway, so I know I under estimated my yardage math!  It's done and I have a pink, purple and black to put on the loom which looks like it might be fun!

Then because I was given some old acrylic lace and sock weight yarns, I oiled up the Legare 400 and cranked out a tube for making trauma teddies to donate to a local police force at a crank in event in May.   I won't make as many as last year because there was a competition component which was a bit sketchy.  The gal who won all the prizes also ran the contest.  I'm not saying that she manipulated things, but the optics were not good for this and I don't want to go out of my way to be disappointed by the way things are run just in case it happens this year too.  Plus it's a whole lot of work to finish up those little bears, cats and bunnies.   I stopped making people dollies because finding suitable flesh coloured yarns is difficult and expensive around here.  I can make animals in any colours I want!

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.