Uncle Leona's Day Camp

1978. Never thought I'd see it worse.

I lived through the infamous Blizzard of '78. Heavy snow, six foot drifts, cars stuck on the Turnpike for days. Great memories. Now, the weather pundits are saying if we get another 2.5 inches of snow in the next three days, this January will be the snowiest on record. For comparison's sake, the snow totals of January, 1978 were 10 INCHES more than the next highest on record until this year.

History can really suck.

Especially when one's snowblower dies halfway through plowing out the last foot of white stuff in one's driveway. And there are no snowblowers anywhere to be found in the Greater Cleveland area. And one is on call and has no time to go dragging one's broken blower to Sears in hopes of a repair that doesn't cost more than the stinkin' blower.

Yep. Bitter. That's life in the big city.

So, what does one do when one's arms, legs, and lungs are burning from shoveling out several hundred pounds of snow? One crafts. I managed to finish this today:

No, I didn't drink all that wine. One of the guys on my golf board donated about half of the corks (it pays to have multiple interests sometimes). I was going to add grapes and leaves and ribbon, but it doesn't need it. Surprisingly, though, the thing weighs a ton. OK, not a ton, but a lot more than you'd think a straw wreath with corks on it would weigh. I'm guessing the hot glue is the culprit.

I have managed to get some knitting done between episodes of snow removal. The Red Rocks pullover is almost to the arm decreases:

I'm watching this one closely. I think the width is OK--my gauge is spot-on, but all the cabling has scrunched things a bit. I'm thinking a little blocking should cure that. Or maybe more exercise on my part. Whatever.

I also started up a seed stitch jacket to give the fingers a cabling break:

I did this pattern a few years ago as a Christmas present for my sister-in-law. The yarn has been sitting in Ikealand for that long. So, for those of you keeping score, that's two projects in progress from stash yarn. That may be a record.

Of course, the tax refund is on the horizon. As is a trip out to Arizona in March. They have knitting stores out there, right??

It's about time...I know, I know....

Happy New Year! As you may have figured out, I didn't resolve to blog every day this year. For what it's worth, I didn't resolve to do anything. No point in setting myself up to fail. I mean, think about it...

Can I resolve not to complain about the weather?

Who said the afro was dead? This past week has been brutal around here. Just plain brutal. I hadn't used the snow blower this winter until last weekend, when I used it four times in three days. There's about two new inches on the driveway, but with the wind chill at -30 last week, I felt it was smarter to just let the car plunge through it. No need to freeze my face. There's hope in sight, though. Right now, it's 16, which is the highest temperature we have seen since Wednesday.

I think I'll polish up the 5 iron.

OK, back to resolutions. I guess right now I have a resolution of some sort to work through the stash. That's primarily because my property taxes are due next week, which pretty much knocks out the next paycheck. Ugh. So, I'm in the process of finishing up a couple of projects. First, the Fiesta Vest knitting is done:

Just blocking out the last facing. Once that's sewn, all that's left are buttons, then it's put away until our temperature gets back in the 40's.

I'm guessing that will be sometime in June.

I also have a pullover in progress using the Fiesta Vest patterning as a trim.

This was an accidental project. When I took my variegated yarn class from Lucy Neatby last year, she requested that we bring one variegated and one solid color yarn for experimentation. I grabbed some black Lamb's Pride, some cheap Paton's merino and some leftover Manos del Uruguay. Didn't really think much about the colors at the time--just figured that there was enough contrast to see how the class concepts worked. In class, the sample swatch using the Paton's and the Manos really looked amazing (even Lucy was impressed, and she said she didn't think the yarns would work together). So, after class, I got more cheap Paton's. Using Anne Budd's sweater pattern book as a guideline, I dug in.

So far, so good. The trim on the sleeves looks like this:

I'm going to do a similar thing for the neckline. The greatest thing about this stitch is that is really makes good use of a smallish amount of variegated yarn. I probably started out with a little less than a quarter skein of Manos, and I think there will be some left over when the neckline is done. All told, the sweater will have cost me less than $30.

I feel so fiscally responsible.

I also reached into Ikealand for some wool to start on the Red Rocks pullover. For the life of me, I can't recall where I got the stuff from (no labels), but it's really nice. One repeat of the pattern is done:

Despite looking like a pretty "busy" pattern, it's really not too bad. I'm guessing that it'll be memorizable once I really get going on it. And I do like the yarn--it seems like one that will fluff up nicely once it's blocked.

Now if I could only remember where I got it.

Don't panic!

I'm still here. Just a bit busy with the holidays and the impending Ice Age. I'll post more tomorrow when I'm a bit more awake.