After 13.5 total inches of snow, two days off and the bitter cold, we’ve finally dug ourselves out and went back to work today. The library was swamped and I worked a longer shift to make up some of the hours that I missed on the two days the library was closed.

Yesterday was a nice Valentine’s Day that was spent relaxing and digging our car out of the parking spot. That snow that was up to the bumper wasn’t just up to the bumper it was all under the car too, which made for some fun digging out. Being snowed in has it advantages but I just wish that the car would dig itself out next time, it would be a whole lot easier. Thank goodness I have Bryan, he did most of the heavy work, so I actually got off pretty easy. Yesterday he was out helping several people try to dig themselves out. It’s amazing what people were using instead of shovels because they didn’t have one - dustpans and buckets seemed to be the most popular. Today was a crazy day at the library, we were swamped with check-in and just getting caught up from being closed for two days. It was kind of fun though because we were never slow although it seemed that some of the bins never emptied.

The best part of the snow days was in my opinion the amount of knitting time that I had. I thought I’d get more reading done but I just couldn’t make myself sit and read when I could be knitting, especially when Bryan was working on collages. Two secret projects were finished yesterday, one was a scarf for Bryan for Valentine’s Day, which he loves. (Photo soon.) He was very surprised, there were a few times I had to scramble to keep him from seeing it while I was working on it when he’d walk in the room. The other secret project can’t be revealed until it’s rightful recipient receives it. I even made some significant progress on the Martha sweater, I’m about 5 rows from finishing the first front piece.

It’s been so cold lately. Tuesday, we finally got some snow. It seemed like about three inches of snow but according to the weather almanac we only received 0.17 inches (.43 cm) of precipitation. Of course around here they don’t start plowing the roads when it starts snowing, like they do in Chicago, nope they wait until the snow stops falling and the roads are quite treacherous to drive on.

Last week, my friend SK (sock-knitter because she has the sock-knitting machine) showed me a really cute pair of socks that she’d made herself on the machine. They were a bit big and I suggested they could be felted a bit to fit her better. Lo and behold on Wednesday, she comes to the knitting group with a pair of felted socks too small for her but the perfect size for my feet. (Oh, the advantages of having small feet.) I’ve been wearing them around the house since on these cold days our radiator heat just isn’t enough to make the floors warm.

Today, I’m spending several hours at the store knitting lace to promote my lace class coming up in March. I’m sure after a few hours there and several hours at home I’ll have that lace sampler scarf nearly completed.

I’m still working on socks for this month. So far, my accomplishments have been somewhat fruitful. I had planned to learn several different heels and have figured out the short-row heel with yarn-overs and the afterthought heel on practice pieces. Unfortuately, when I tried to do the afterthought heel on an actual sock I had huge gaps around the edges where I picked up the stitches, but nothing that can’t be fixed. Any advice on not getting these holes on after-thought heels? I seem to have the same problem when I’ve done short-row heels and I always just stitch up the hole and reinforce it as much as I can. The socks that I’m working on are secret socks and just can’t be revealed yet. It’s hard to be working on a project for my almanac and not be able to talk about it with photos. When lace month rolls around in March, I’ll definitely be able to talk about it. I plan on trying out several different lace patterns just to practice them.

Have a good weekend.

Thank you all for your lovely comments about the Hobo sweater, the new haircut and birthday wishes. I’ve already worn my sweater twice and after the second wearing it reinforced the idea of it being a special occasion sweater. It’s already starting to pill slightly under the arms. It’s such a luxiurious feeling sweater that I want to wear it more, so I’m sure I’ll wear it out to dinner when we go to a nice place.

My birthday was a lovely birthday, low-key which was perfect. We went to dinner at a really nice place in town and then went to see The Queen with Helen Mirren. The film was wonderful and I highly recommend it. The only thing I knew about it before seeing it was that Roger Ebert said it was one of the best films he’d seen all year. It has made me think about how we deal with celebrity deaths and people close them grieving.

It’s been a busy week, besides my birthday we went to two holiday parties last weekend. SK, the sock machine knitter, had a housewarming on Saturday and then Sunday was a party at the library. Monday evening, SK and I got together. She worked on Christmas gifts on her machine and I started a long-overdue scarf KidSilk Haze scarf in black. Yesterday, SK and FQ came over for a little knitting and chatting. The Monday night scarf has grown from a mere 6 inches at the end of the night to over 44 inches as of last night.

I’ve also been working on Bryan’s vest but it’s mostly on the armbands for Bryan’s vest (photos to come soon), which aren’t too exciting. They’re 13 stitches with a slip stitch in the middle for 20 inches on size 3 needles. The first one and the second armband is about 1/3 finished, then there is the 60-inch piece for the button band that still needs to be completed. I knew these would take me longer than knitting the vest did.
I keep thinking about starting a new sweater (the Bianca jacket) but the idea of starting another sweater before Bryan’s vest is finished is giving me the willies. That seems sort of funny to me considering that two years ago I didn’t have a problem having more than eight projects going at once. Now more than two or three makes me feel a bit overwhelmed. Yes, there are the projects that I’m modifying/reknitting to fit better, but those don’t count in the total works-in-progress count.

As far as spinning, last Sunday morning, I woke up and decided that I had this massive bobbin of light pink yarn and I was going to ply it. The one goal I had for myself this week was to ply that yarn. I ended up with 300 yards of plied yarn just from that one bobbin. It may be another scarf in lovely merino and tencel scarf. I’ve received so many compliments on the scarves that I’ve made for myself recently that I’m thinking of many more for myself.

This coming Saturday, we’re heading to Kansas for Christmas. Our first Christmas with my parents since we’ve been married. I can’t believe I haven’t been home for Christmas in three years.

So this week has been a weird week. Weird in a good way, of course but I can’t really explain how it’s been weird, it just feels that way. I guess because Tuesday and Wednesday were busy and then Thursday and Friday were busy in a different way but everything feels a bit disjointed. Monday was a day to regroup from the weekend and run errands. Tuesday evening, my mom arrived for a short visit. She rode the train down from Chicago and stayed with us Tuesday night. Wednesday, Mom and I accomplished a lot. We went out for the obligatory breakfast and then walked around downtown Champaign. We stopped into a cute vintage shop where they also sell fun stuff. For Bryan, Mom picked up the Deluxe Librarian Action Figure, which comes complete with reference desk, book cart and computer. It’s sure to be the hit of any party or get-together we’ll have with Bryan’s library school classmates.

Then Mom and I went shopping for curtains for our living room. We currently have the standard white plastic blinds that are so lovely with the white walls and the white woodwork. We need to inject a bit of color into our living room. So we set out with a swatch of our couch fabric to find some curtains that will look nice in the room. Unfortunately, the only thing we found that looked good with the couch was fabric for curtains that were about the same color, but I felt like the curtains would be big blocks of dark blueish-green against all of the white and it wouldn’t look good. So then we went to Lowe’s and found some neat greenish bamboo shades, then we picked out a great paint color for the two walls that I plan to paint. (I’ll be using the color on the left, it’s called “Ancient Olive.”) After lunch, we picked up Bryan from school and drove around campus a bit to show Mom the library school and the library where Bryan works. Then it was time to head home for one of Bryan’s famous homemade pizzas with homemade pesto, marinara and spinach on a whole wheat crust. After dinner, I took Mom to the train station and headed to my knitting group.

Thursday and Friday were training days at work. And today was my first day on the salesfloor. I even fulfilled one of the incentives today. :)

In knitting news, I finished the pair of socks that I’ve been working on. They are a gift, so you’ll have to see them using the link. Yay, I finished a pair of socks during Lolly’s Socktober! Now to start another pair using the Lorna’s Laces yarn that I bought last week.

I’ve also been plugging away on Fleurette which is coming along beautifully. I haven’t gotten around to finishing the plying of the Lemondrop yarn. I’m sure I’ll finish it within the next few days. I’m ready to get it washed and ready to knit, not that I’ll knit anything with it for a while. I just want to get it off the bobbins. I’ve been very much in a knitting mood so my spinning has taken a bit of a break. It’s one of those things, I’m either in the mood for one or the other and sometimes I’m in the mood to do both and I have to decide - knitting has been winning lately. I think the knitting group and the gifts I’m knitting are putting me in a knitting mood.

Have a happy Halloween! I leave you with one of the many gorgeous trees around our neighborhood. A walk was in order just to snap a few photos of the leaves this afternoon.

I have some great news to share with everyone. We’re moving! Bryan was accepted to the U of Illinois for their Master’s in Library Science program. He received a graduate assistantship and will be working at a library at the university. We’re be moving in about two weeks. I gave notice yesterday at work. Now, the job of finding another job. I’m so excited to be moving, I can hardly stand it. We’ve been packing and we’re getting down to the things that can only be packed at the end, such as the kitchen.

This past weekend, we made a trip out to see Bryan’s sister, her husband and our adorable niece, Paige.
She’s so adorable and her laugh is so infectious. What a little sweetheart. She was exactly 10 months old when we saw her on Saturday, she was born two days before our wedding. It was so funny because as soon as she started to get crabby, we took her outside and put her in the swing and she was happy. At one point, Bryan picked up a ceramic dog that his sister has sitting in the house and was making it bark at Paige. She loved it and was laughing and laughing. Her laugh was so cute that we all couldn’t help but laugh with her.

I’ve been spinning quite a bit, it’s mostly been plying. I finished spinning the Concord merino/silk last week, and plied it over this past week. I only had 2.5 ounces so I spun it as finely as I could. I had no idea that I would get as much yarn out of it as I have. I ended up with 320 yards. The yarn is gorgeous. It has a bit more purple in it than it looked like it would have when it was just top and even when it was being spun. I’m so fascinated by how different the fiber can look between top, singles and plied.

To reassure you that I haven’t completely abandoned knitting, I have been working on my Clapotis. I knit on it on Saturday on the way out to visit Bryan’s sister’s family. I also knit on it for a while tonight. The big news on the Clapotis is that I started the decreasing rows! It should be finished within the next few months. :) Okay, probably in the next month depending on how much knitting I get done with the move coming up.

I have another exciting weekend in store. This one is fiber related! I will be taking a dyeing class with Sandy from Sandy’s Palette at Wool, Warp & Wheel in Richmond, Illinois. I can’t wait. I’ve wanted to learn how to dye yarn but haven’t had the space to do it. I’ll tell you all about it next week.

Of course, some kitty-kat news is in order. Chloe is enjoying her newest toy. This photo is an action shot, even though it doesn’t look like it. She had tossed the mouse up onto one of the boxes and then hopped up on the chair to grab it, then ran off with it after I got this photo. This was a mouse on an elastic string that hung over the door but she and George managed to stretch out the string so much that we just cut the string. Now it’s been severely beaten up by Chloe playing with it, which is really funny because I bought it to replace a mouse that George used to play with that was just ripped apart.

If you need another good book to read, I have two recommendations. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I read this a year and a half ago and have been recommending it to my co-workers. One of them read it two days and another one is currently reading it. I love this book so much that I’m currently listening to the audio book in my car. I’ve fallen in love with it all over again. The other recommendation is really a book that was recommended to me by my sister, it’s called The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I bought it since I needed a new book to read and can’t check books out from the library because we’re moving. I started it on Monday night and am already almost 50 pages into it. I can tell it’s going to be a great book.

And finally, how about having a spinning wheel on your nation’s flag? Sounds good to me.

Happy New Year to you! I don’t think I wished everyone a new year yesterday.

Today, reality struck. I had to go back to work. With 4 1/2 glorious days off, it was very hard to get out of bed this morning. I was getting too used to being lazy and knitting through the afternoon. Fortunately for the knitting projects, I made some progress on a few of them. Over the holiday weekend, I finished two afghan squares - Barbara Selesnick and Vicki Sever. I am more than 60% of the way through Michael’s scarf. I have almost 37 inches (94.5 cm) of the scarf done and it needs to be 59 inches (150 cm). I really, really want to start another afghan square but am holding back until I finish Michael’s scarf. Yesterday, I also managed to knit about 8 rows of the Hobo sweater (and I just realized how out of date the Hobo sweater page is, I will update that tonight) and four rows while I was home at lunch today.

Yesterday, I also worked on my Aran Afghan web page - I took new photos of all of the completed squares. Unfortunately, didn’t load it up yet, see what I mean about being lazy. I plan on loading it tonight, I wanted to finish the page before I loaded it up. I also took photos of some of the other projects in progress - Michael’s scarf, Petula, Pagan and Hobo sweaters, I didn’t get any of them posted because the batteries in my camera went dead and I had to recharge them. I will try to get those posted tonight too.

What I really need to work on tonight is the Giraffe blanket. I need to sew the leg seams and start attaching the legs to the bodies. I decided I wasn’t going to finish it in time for Christmas so I figured, I could wait until the kid’s first birthday. Now the kid’s first birthday is coming up quickly. So I better get working! I’ll let you know if I get anything done tonight.

It’s cold outside!! It was a lovely 13 (Fahrenheit) degrees outside yesterday! Not exactly weather where you want to be outside. Bryan and I decided to stay inside all day. It was a great day to stay inside and just be. Bryan worked on some collages for cards and I worked on my holiday cards. We also watched Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind for the fifth time. We were going to watch 21 Grams, there was a preview for Eternal Sunshine and Bryan said, “Let’s watch that instead.” I think we both were in more of an Eternal Sunshine mood than a 21 Grams mood. We needed a good laugh. :D

Saturday, we had another leisurely day. We went Bryan’s dad’s house to see his sister Alison, her husband Curt and their new daughter Paige. I gave Alison the Daydream sweater. I added buttons and a ribbon through the waist on Saturday morning. I have photos to post soon.

Today, at lunch, I managed to get about 6 rows of the hat to match the Daydream sweater worked. I still have about 3 1/2″ (9 cm) to do before the knitting is finished. I was hoping that I would have it finished in time to give it to Alison with the sweater, but I obviously didn’t leave myself enough time. It’s my priority at the moment.

On the Giraffe blanket, all of the giraffes now have spots! One of them has two legs and now the other three need legs. It took me about 1/2 an hour to sew on one leg, so it’s a project that will take a few nights to finish. I’m giving myself a deadline of January 5, since I want to get the baby hat finished soon.

In planning, I have a scarf for my nephew to do. I’m going to use some left over yarn that I have from a class and hopefully, get a scarf to him before it gets any colder. It’s going to be in Plymouth’s Encore Chunky, so it should go quickly. If I have enough yarn, I’ll make him a matching hat.

Stay warm everyone!