Thursday, January 17, 2008

Snowballs!

Or, actually, yarn balls: direct from Webs! Well, I had to go, didn't I? I had a commission from a friend and fellow knitter, to pick up some yarn for her. While I was there, I overheard a conversation between a couple of the employees about the big push they've got on to ship all the orders they got during the sale. They are really working hard, and are almost caught up. However, I'm sure that having a "personal shopper" will mean she'll get her yarn sooner, even if she does have to wait till I get back to SoCal!
I had thought about going to their Thursday night knit-in, but the weather forecast was pretty dire: more snow, turning to sleet, freezing rain, and ice. It's been too long since I've driven in that stuff to want to tackle it at night, with a bum shoulder yet.

Snow:
this is the back yard. Can you see that birch over on the left, arching wayyy out across the yard?
This pine is next to the house. I loved the way it looked with a freight of snow on its branches. At one time, this house was surrounded by pine trees, but in the 52 years since my family moved in here, many of them have succumbed to disease and old age. Or my father's temper at having to rake tons of long pine needles--which leach acid into the soil and kill the grass.

Front yard, with snow piled up by the plow. That yellow spot on the grass is birdseed from the feeder.
The birds love the feeders, and so do the squirrels.

Funny how the squirrels here have much fluffier coats and much bushier tails than the squirrels in my yard. Oh, and they're grey squirrels--my SoCal squirrels are brown.
Just after the storm, the birches at the end of the driveway had the whole thing blocked off. This generally only happens with a heavy, wet snow, so I guess we know what kind this was.
That's the same bird feeder as in the plowed photo.
There is more snow coming down.

Here's a bit of a change of pace: Anne made this for the "coffee corner" at her place. Tuesday night she got it backed and pinned, and it's ready to quilt and hang. My guess is she got it quilted already--she's been amazingly prolific with her quilts!

I'll leave you with one more yarnball picture:
This is destined for my Shedir, for the KAL that started Jan 1.


I know, I know. Several people have already finished. I will cast on after I get back.

Time zone changes play havoc with the body clock, so I'm going to be trying to reset it tonight. I thought for sure that getting up at 4 am to get to the airport on time would help a lot--after all, that's 7 am EST, right? What I apparently didn't take into account is that it meant I was short of sleep, so consequently I've been a real sleepyhead here. Let's see if I can counteract that with--gasp!--real sleep!

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Progress?

I certainly hope that you won't get tired of pictures like this:

because I'm planning on posting one every time I get a truckload of goodies to take to the thrift shop! Now, granted, this isn't as big a load as some of the others, but I've been working "wounded." That's 5 bankers' boxes and a whole lotta magazines gone, outta here!

More progress: Montrose Monday yielded some incentive to bring along the CPH.


The shoulders are now sewn, and I'm about an inch into the hood. I'm planning to carry the cables from the center back right up the back of the hood; the reason they look a little wonky in this picture is because they're ready to be crossed. For some reason, one of the front cables didn't get crossed when it should have, so after I had finished the shoulder seams and picked up the stitches for the hood, I had to drop back down a few rows and re-cross the cable on the right row.
Worth the effort, though. The color on these pictures is much lighter than it is in person--it's a nice deep red with lots of tweedy dryer lint...er, flecks. Yeah, flecks, that's it.When my kids were little, they had a cute little book called "My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes."
There were rhyming couplets (with adorable sketches to illustrate each one) like, "The cat from France likes to sing and dance," always with the refrain, "but my cat likes to hide in boxes."
Simon says, what? Doesn't everyone like to get all snug in a box?



Sunday, January 13, 2008

Go. Here. Now.


Just found this via Crafting Morrighana and have to share! (One of these days I'll figure out how to make the picture into a link. Not today, too much to do! But I did want to put the link out there for you!)
Now, who's going to do this for the quilters?? Inquiring minds want to know!