Finished Socks

Mainly I have been knitting away on a sweater (I think it will make a nice spring jacket, and spring here lasts about 20 minutes, so I want to make sure I will be able to wear it when that happens). Sleeves are knit and I am about half way down the body.

I did finish a pair of socks made from handspun. This was my take-along/waiting room knitting - so simple, two-at-a-time, 64 stitches, top-down socks.

Now for the photos of our surroundings-

A fox was captured on the trail cam!

And fox prints in the fresh, hard packed snow.

This past weekend we had some snow on Saturday, then blue skies and 50km/hr winds on Sunday, which made for some interesting changes in the landscape-

windy and clear skies

In the above photo you can see the blowing snow, and to the left the top of a 6' high shed, the drift on the left must be 7-8' high!

4' drift across the driveway

drifts in the trees

The cat still likes to come for a walk -

 All the best!♥︎

Working on One Project!

Usually I work on a variety of projects at a time, but this past week I have just been knitting on a sweater I am making with some yarn that I spun.

I love how it is knitting up and I can't wait to see how this sweater turns out.

We have also been spending lots of time outside, mainly shovelling snow.

There doesn't seem to be snow in the forecast, and the weather is getting better, so we finally cleaned off the pond to skate.

The cat joined us on the rink today, but she was mainly stalking the hockey puck and bits of hard snow.

There has been lots of walks in the sunshine!

We see so many different animal tracks in the snow lately, mainly jack rabbits, but some that we can't figure out.

 The snow is so sparkly-

The wind packs the snow so hard, with lovely patterns.

All the best!♥︎

Another Chair Pad

Since I loved the first punch needle chair pad that I had made with handspun yarn, and I had enough leftover yarn, I had to make another.

To finish this one I again traced around the outer edge with a compass (it is about an inch)-

as a guide where to serge the edge to finish it.

For this one I added a layer of wool batting for a bit of extra padding.

I whipped stitch the hem in place through the batting and in to the back of the punch needle.

After I stitched a backing on to the piece.

I also added a couple to ties just to hold the batting in place (again through the batting and in to the back of the punch needle).

I made it a circle that was the inside diameter of my hoop for hand quilting just to make it easier to work the punch needle, and it turned out just the right size for this chair.

A bit of a windy day

Ice crystals in the air created this rainbow around the sun.
The snow covered fields look like the ocean.

 All the best!♥︎

Start of a Sweater

I finished spinning the fibre that I had drum carded a couple of weeks ago.

I ended up with about 457g, 1640m of a DK weight yarn.

I am really pleased with how this came out - it is well blended but you can still see individual colours and fibres (local wool mixed with silk and yak).

I started knitting a cardigan with the yarn. The pattern is Storm Mountain by Heidi Kirrmaier.

It is a top down, seamless cardigan (the above photo is a good representation of the colour).

I also machine quilted a little lap quilt that my Mom had made for a friend - it is a log cabin with appliqués cut with the Rose of Sharon die on the GO! fabric cutter.

We have had very cold weather recently but today my oldest son and I couldn't resist the fresh snow and went snowmobiling (that's me coming out of where the pond is - our skating rink is filled in with snow now).

All the best!♥︎