more project updates

The shawl is finished.  It was an easy pattern to remember since it was all garter stitch and increased 1 stitch at the start of every other row.   Once I had the stripe pattern done once, it was all that was needed to refer to once in a while.  Most of it was self explanatory.   I am sort of thinking I should have gone for the blue for the dark stripe like the pattern suggested but I'm happy enough with what I chose since I already had some of that dark brown/grey wool on hand.  I didn't add the fringe because it would have made the shawl less useful for warmth while doing things.  I just did a single row of double crochet along the edge to tidy up the side with all the yarn joins.   This pattern is in Peterson's, 1862, jan - June, pg 419 or so.

I was also knitting this bunny toy at the same time.  Well I'd started the bunny, set it aside while I knit the shawl and am now finishing up the bunny.   It's a large toy and it's taking a while to knit it, mainly because by setting it down for a while, I started knitting again at the wrong gauge.   Now I'm having to re-knit some of the pieces so that they match properly.   I just finished my 2nd set of arms.   I have the body done, 2 arms done properly, 1 leg.  I will start the second leg tonight hopefully and then re-knit the head which is the fussiest part.   It's the wrong tension though and looks odd with all the other pieces. 

This bunny takes a lot of knitting.  It's done on straight stitches so takes even longer.  I'm using handspun merino/cashmere/silk so it's really soft though.   It has knitted clothing as well.  I'm going to dye up the body pieces when I'm finished knitting them but before I sew and stuff them.  I'll also dye the clothing yarn at the same time.

Ashleigh got a new drum carder and want to play.  Since it's a spinning day next week, I'm washing up

some guild fleece to try out.   The guild was given 4 fleeces to play with.  The gals who picked them up were hoping we could spin them up for them to weave with.  However, they have no idea how much work that will be.   I'm not sure if they checked the fleeces when they got them, or even if they got to choose them.   The gal who was gate-keeping them finally let me have access when she was tired of storing them.  I just tossed them in my garage where they will be cold enough to not get moths all winter.   

However, in washing them up, one fleece turns out to have a significant break in a good part of the fleece.   Ashleigh has been playing with that one and with her new drum carder has gotten something useable in 5 passes - that's a fair bit of work.  The lamb fleece is so short and so much lanolin that I've test washed some and after 3 washes with soap and de-greaser, and 3 rinses there is still so much lanolin left in.   The other white fleece is meh- full of neps and lots of dirt and sand.   I couldn't card it but had to comb it with over 50% loss.   Not fun at all.   This is the last fleece, the black one.  It's really black and night time lighting doesn't show it up.  It it cards up it could be a nice enough fleece, but with the others being such as they are, I'm not holding up a lot of hope.  However, having a nice large carder to try it out with should be fun.

There are tons of second cuts that I've been picking out while washing.   I also heard a rumour that the farmer has sold off all its sheep because they couldn't get their wool processed in a timely fashion.   Some of the small mills around here have ridiculously long waiting lists, so I can understand the frustration.  It's nice having the skills to do it myself if I need to.

Winter walks, garden visitor and shawl update

Hawk, right side, middle of picture.

 Here is a photo of the hawk visiting our garden.  He sticks around for over an hour at a time and has a couple of spots he likes to hang out.   With his dedication and patience, we're now thinking it might be the hawk who got one of our chooks.   DH says he found that hen just inside the door of the chicken coop, so it's possible.   The poor girls have been stuck inside since then.   With the risk of a hawk attack so likely, I'm keeping them in the coop.   They aren't fond of the snow regardless.  They'll make a track to the feeders and sometimes to spots where they can sun themselves, and mainly they hangout in the open part of the barn, making a mess of things.

The photo was taken through a double pane window which I didn't think needed cleaning this fall.  I was wrong.  It does.  The hawk is fairly large, like a crow size or a tad larger.  His back is grey and his underside/tummy is white and brownish.  He has a greyish head, which makes it hard to see, but he scanned the area constantly from that perch and I watched him sit there for over an hour.  He's been back daily, sometimes multiple times a day.

We headed out for a walk today.  I needed my sunglasses when we left the house.   The skies were mainly white, with some patches of very pale blue.   The sunlight was reflecting on the snow so it was bright, despite the high clouds.   By the time we were halfway to the chosen trail, I no longer needed my sunglasses.  There was a light flurry as well.   Luckily, the winds and the real snow, didn't pick up until we got back home.   

The trail was white.   Enough people had been on the trails by the time we got there, that the fluffy snow we had over the past 2 days was partially packed and easy to walk on.  No slippery spots and no ice.  Just light fluffy snow and lots of foot prints.

The lake or pond is mainly frozen over.  I don't think the ice is really strong enough to walk on yet, but there were foot prints on it.  They were likely animal prints, but we didn't go close enough to the shore to find out.   We were on top of the hill when we took this photo.   There are some houses and a train track on the other side of the lake.   You can't see them once the trees are leafed out.  This time of year though, they are able to be seen, and I'm betting they have great views as well.

The sun came out briefly (sort of) just as we were near the end of the trail , which runs beside the river.   It's not actually as steep as the photo suggests, but a weird angle to capture that tiny bright spot, the sun and trying to get a bit of the river in as well.  I don't think I was horribly successful.

The winds only picked up after we got home, which was nice and now it's snowing the kind of big flakes which tend to suggest we'll get some accumulation.  

Shawl update:   I'm getting about 4 -6 rows a day done if I put some effort into knitting right now, due to the length of the shawl.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to make this the last repeat.   It's certainly big enough to be a useful shawl, and maybe useful enough to be worn like a sonntag or tied shawl.  It's small enough though that I could also use it as an under-shawl and wear my larger one over top of it for warmth.   I'm also trying to decide whether I'll put the suggested fringe on it or just crochet a simple edging around the sides of it.    I fear the fringe might get in the way of wearing it for warmth while doing things like baking at Westfield, although the fringe in the sample picture was very pretty.

A New Knitting Project

Today I filled my buckets up with birdseed and peanuts, to head out and fill the feeders.  It's been pretty cold and blustery so the birds empty them fairly quickly in this weather.   Because I did this sort of by rote, I didn't look up in time to get a photo of the Coooper's hawk sitting on the garden gate, right beside the feeders.  It was really pretty.  I scared him off when I noisily shut the garage door.  If I'd looked up and seen the hawk there, I'd have been far more careful and tried to get a photo. 

I'm knitting a new shawl from a Victorian pattern.   The pattern is from Petersons which was a ladies magazine.  The pattern is in the 1842 edition.  The picture of the shawl and the pattern are separated, which made it a little more difficult to begin.   However, it's an easy pattern and is far more modern than expected.  It's a shawl knit from the corner up and there is nothing symmetrical, lacy or other things we might expect from a pattern from that era.   The original was done in blue, grey and white.  I used the darker grey instead of the blue, because I had some at home and had to purchase less.

Shortly after I photographed the shawl, I found Kevin had settled on it for a nap.   What is it about cats always sitting on the projects I'm working on?   After Kevin had his fill, Dion spent a few minutes on it.  Dion though is far happier sleeping on finished projects or puzzles.  Our Christmas activity is usually jigsaw puzzles.  As soon as we take a puzzle out, Dion is right there either playing with the pieces or sitting on it.   If we don't cover the puzzle at night, we find that he's played with it and have to redo parts of it.

This is the pattern and the picture from the magazine, which is actually a hard bound book.   The book is full of stories, recipes, patterns, music, colour plates and drawings of the most up to date fashions.  

From what I can tell, zephyr yarn from the time, was the weight of fingering or sock yarn.   I've chosen a worsted weight wool yarn, which is larger and faster to knit up.  It's a bit warmer as well.  So far the main downside I've found is that with all those colour changes, there are a bazillion ends to sew in.  Also, the pattern as written has the pattern flip every other repeat so that the colour change shows on both sides.  I added an extra row of the second white section so that there is a clear front and back.  This is mainly because I didn't want to sew in ends at the neck edge, which also has the increases. 

 

 I forgot totally about the fact that I also finished up 4 hats.  These are double toques, which are meant for the very cold weather.   One is small and will go into the gift bin.   One my husband claimed immediately and 2 others I kept for myself.  I wet finished and blocked them both.  The grey one took a weird turn when I got it wet and swished it slightly to even up the knitting.  It stretched out.  I tossed the two, and a shawl I knit over the summer into the washer for a few minutes.  The hand spun blue and white hat was perfect after a few minutes.  The grey shawl was perfect but the grey hat, knit with the leftovers from the grey shawl, was fulled up and required much stretching while pinning.  Totally odd.

However, here is why I dislike blocking knits in the cold weather.

Really kitties, my wet, blocked hats are not there to be convenient resting spots, despite them being set up close to the fire.

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!

Treasure Hunting Success

 Yesterday I woke up to everything covered with snow.  Not a lot of snow, but just enough to make it known that Mother Nature was 1 up on the weather forecasters.  It was enough that we had to scrape it off our cars and windshields though.   Today, I headed into a nearby town to go to the thrift store there.   There were off lake snow squalls, but they looked light enough, so I didn't worry.   It wasn't bad to start with.  About half way there, the roads started getting wet and slushy.  Then there were blown over and drifted areas on the roads, in areas with few trees or hedge rows by the sides of the road.   The snow got heavier  and then poof, I turned onto the highway, and it was suddenly sunny.   All the rest of the way there was lovely.   I got out of the store with my few treasures, and the snow was coming down heavily, with more than a little wind.  It got worse on the highway.  Thankfully it was a short drive to my turn off.   The next turn I needed to take, I thought I might miss because there was near zero visibility.  It eased off just before I needed to turn.   The roads were snow covered and sloppy.  Then halfway home, the roads dried up, the snow stopped and it was sunny.   What a weird weather day!

I did get a few treasures though.  I was sent out to get whatever "junk" I wanted.  I disagreed with that description, but none the less, I continued.   These are treasures for sure!  The melon mould is almost a replacement for the damaged one I lost.   It's longer than the one I really liked.  This one has a small dent in it, but it was $1.50.   I can live with the dent for that price.   The cup and saucer was $4, which was a reasonable price for it.  The little lustreware pickle dish though, was $1.   I couldn't leave it there for that price!  It's a weird purple, though it shows up as blue in the photo.  It's simply labelled Japan.  I don't know how old it is, but it's pretty and the price was a bargain.

I also found this old canning jar.  I've been looking for one of these for quite a while but they are always out of my price range.   I've seen them in the $30 to $65 range and I've only seen 2, maybe 3 over the years.   This one was sitting on the shelf, waiting for me and priced at a grand total of $3! 

 In all, I spent $17.50, which included $8 for an older apple peeler.   I have a modern one, but the suction clamp is broken and the slicing blade rusted and became dangerous.   Now it only peels and you have to hold it down.  The new to me one, has a screw clamp for the table and all the parts are clean and not rusty.  It's quite heavy too, compared to the modern one, despite the modern one being metal.   I'll have to get some apples to see if it works.  It's pretty though, and I love the red colour!

There were a few other things I would have liked to get, like a set of old ceramic mixing bowls, some enamel pots and even an old Foley type food mill.   However I didn't really have space for any of those items, except maybe the food mill, which I have been looking for, mainly to strain seedy berries for jam.  However, it was a bit wobbly and had some black discolouration, so I left it there for the moment.

A Sunday hike

 

trail beside the river

We went for a walk yesterday.  It was relatively mild, although breezy and grey out.   The temperature topped out at 9C or 10 C, but the breeze made it feel a bit cooler.  We bundled up and went for a lovely walk in an area where there is a lake, a river, and it feels like you're walking from one type of terrain to another.   The trail meandered along a river, through some fir forest, up through an aspen and poplar grove, up through an open field and then through a large stand of cedars before we ended up near the start of the trail.  We traversed a small piece of preserved railroad track, by the 2nd lookout point for the lake, not the one I usually take pictures from, and saw a lot of browns, with occasional splashes of colour.  

This is the side view from the lake.  Usually I take photos from the right, where the shore line curves around and the lake ends, or begins I guess.   There used to be a lovely picnic table here and we used to pack a lunch and eat looking over this view.  It was lovely.  Then they moved the table.   It's now in the middle of the V where the trail breaks off into 2 different routes.   Nobody eats there lunch there because there is no privacy from all the people and all the dogs.   They did replace it with a very large, long metal girder or beam.   If you don't mind sitting on the metal, hot in the summer and cold the rest of the time, then you can still sit and view the lake.   It's not quite as easy to share a lunch there now though.

There was this single vine of bittersweet, with red, almost fuchsia husks, with the little orange berries.  It was almost the only bright colour outside of some very limey greens from very young pine trees.    

All of this scenery would have still been stunning if we had blue sky, but we really get a lot of pale, grey and almost white skies during the late autumn and the winter.  A few years back, one horribly grey January, it was recorded that we got a whole 14 hours of sunshine in the month.  

Gah, we have another wasp in the house.   There is some type of wasp that is wintering over in our stacked winter wood.   It's larger than a yellow jacket and at least it's fairly calm.  We're getting several a week, maybe every other day or so.  It's both frustrating and irritating.  As a bonus, this weird, unseasonably mild spell, has brought houseflies back inside.   There should definitely be no flies and wasps in November!