A few of my favourite things...

On New Year's Eve it was raining.  When all the snow melted some small parts of the ground started to slightly defrost... mainly in the garden area as we had piled all the fallen leaves and now some of the woodstove ashes on it as compost.   The leeks had been frozen in the ground and I had thought I wouldn't be able to get to them until spring.  However, I trudged through the garden muck and gave one a little tug.  It took a bit of work and lots of wiggling, but I was able to free 8 leeks in all, from their frozen winter bed.  Even better is that they were still just fine with no signs of frost damage.  I got the rest of them the next day when we had even more rain and the temperatures were milder yet.
The first 8 were turned into Leek Potato soup based on the recipe that Leslie posted.  It was slightly different than my normal bit of this and lots of that method but it was really good and I'll keep those ratios for future soups... mmmmm     The rest are awaiting their turn in the pot... tonight my pretties, tonight...

I set aside the grey colourwork sock.  I'd realized that what I should have done is just enlarged the pattern but instead of doing that,  I was entranced by the new Cookie A book I had.  It's full of complicated looking charts and techniques I've not done in many years.  The charts were starting to looking bogglingly difficult though I knew that most of them likely weren't.  I needed to jump in and do one to get the confidence in charting, which I'd only used for colourwork or intarsia before.    I decided on one that wasn't the easiest but definitely not the hardest and used a technique that I hadn't done a lot in the past- cabling.   I enlarged the chart and reminded myself I could mark this up at will.   I even dug out my old cable needle, although it was much fatter than the needles I was using for the sock.   Ha! I say...  my fear of forgetting how to cable or being unable to read the new fangled charts were unfounded  and  it turns out to be quite an easy but somewhat fiddly pattern.   This was taken yesterday but I've turned the heel and finished the gusset already today.  The yarn used was dyed by me and even though I'm not awfully fond of orange, I'm loving the way it looks in these socks.

Today I'm starting the homework in earnest.  I've dabbled a bit with it but between running an SCA event, holidays and family there wasn't much use in trying to push the issue.  I worried that I would rush and not put the serious effort into it, which in truth can be told by one of the samples that I may redo at a later date if I'm feeling the love.  If not, it's one of many more to come...   I'm waiting for delivery of the coloured fibres that I've needed to redo the rainbow blending exercise.  It is supposed to arrive this week with another bit ordered but since I've not received confirmation of shipping, I have my doubts.    Oh well, I shall try to be patient.

The log cabin tea towels are coming along.  No photo because it looks pretty much the same as the earlier one, except that the front beam is starting to fill up.   I'm refusing to allow myself to just let the project fly off the loom with any speed. After all it's supposed to be the fun break from homework, not the fun escape from starting the homework.  If they get done too quickly, I'll have to spend a couple of days putting another project on the loom and how much time would that set me back?  Hmmm, I wonder...