A good start to May

We've had a very slow time easing into spring.  We've had snow storms, ice storms, wind, rain and cool weather.  We're even still loading up the wood stoves because the evenings are cool or uncomfortably damp.  However, that doesn't seem to stop Mother Nature from keeping things from happening.    There is a green haze on most of the trees.  We have baby leaves!   The oak trees and a few other very late  leafing deciduous trees aren't quite there yet, but they never are this early.   Some of the flowering trees are in bloom.   We always have leaves on most of the trees by Mother's Day, and despite people's worries about the trees leafing out late this year, it's happening just like it should.

I got my little tray of watercolour paints out and played around with some new techniques to make non-wintery scenes.   I've played with flowers, winter scenes obviously because I paint my Xmas cards, and have started experimenting with summery scenes.   These 2 worked out well enough that I'm happy with them, but I'll practice some more. While I've seen a few sunsets like this one, with pale colours, many of ours tend to be a bit more dramatic with deep oranges and purples.  Sunrises though, often have pale pinks and lilacs, if you catch the right time.  They are fast and the colours don't last all that long.   I decided to send out a few birthday cards though, so I figured I should practice about bit for summer cards.

I've been spinning up some of the leftover bits and pieces from my "stash" of leftovers from over the years.   This is some green ramie.  I had purchased 1/2 lb of it, and spun up maybe 3/4 of it and left the rest.    I remember it being quite slippery and an effort to spin.   Obviously my skills have developed because instead, it's just effortlessly sliding off my fingers into lovely, fine singles.    I should have divided it into two equalise pieces of roving before I started though, so I could have spun two bobbins for plying.  Instead I'm going to have to much around with either guessing or plying from a centre pull ball.   While that is how I first learned to ply, I've found over the years, that you have to be very careful when plying fine yarns from centre pull balls, so that they don't collapse in on themselves and tangle before you finish plying.  It's been fun to spin though, because I don't seem to have to really think a lot about it while spinning.  It means I can chat or "egads" watch the hockey game at the same time.

This is my friend A's dog Teddy.   While he's getting older and a bit greyer, with thinning fur, he still blends remarkably with the rug.  He's exactly the same colour as the rug and in the right light, and angle, the parts of him that are his original colour really could be the rug.   He's a sweety and a very cuddly dog with his kids.   Today though was funny as he was sleeping when I arrived for spinning day and he didn't notice for about a 1/2 hour.  Then of course, as the good watch dog he is, he made sure to let everyone know that I was visiting.. too funny.

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!