Black Ice

In my ongoing pursuit of ways to stay warm while walking across the windy parking lot at work, I finally made a pattern that I've had my eyes on for years.

May I present "Black Ice", my version of the Ice Queen pattern from Knitty.com



When Knitty Couture was having their closing sale, I bought a single skein of 100% cashmere laceweight, with this specific project in mind. I ended up also experimenting with beads, though I decided to add fewer than the pattern calls for. I did not want to be feeling beads against my cheek when I brought the it up to block the wind.



I hadn't counted on the fact that when it's worn up, it covers everything but my recently appearing "natural highlights." I swear my hair doesn't normally look quite that stark white!

When wearing it down, I end up with the lovely effect of an extra thick warm cowl.

Let It Snow!

We had a major snowstorm here a week ago. Not completely unexpected for January. No snow days for me, though. It's nice to be able to work from home when a personal emergency arises, but that also means working from home when a weather emergency arises. Lack of commute time did give me a smidge of extra knitting time, though.

My daughter wrote "Let It Snow!!!" on our back deck on the 21st.





What is unusual for around here is that there is STILL a bunch of snow on the ground over a week later. Normally the weather warms up & the snow is gone within a few days. Yesterday's warmth did finally get the back deck message melted into un-readable, more than a week later. We still have shaded drifts that are over an inch deep next to the house or sheltered by the bushes, though.



Now the weather forecasters are saying we are due for more. This looks to be the snowiest January in recent memory.

Saturday Sky, January 29th 2011

The temperature felt positively balmy out today, compared with the past fortnight or so.

2010 Review, Finished Objects Part 1

It hardly seems possible, but I only finished 14 projects in all of 2010, plus a bit of charity knitting. Only one of those projects was even all all big or complicated, so I can't even use difficulty of the knitting as an excuse for my poor volume of output.

I finished:

6 pairs of socks
3 cowls
3 small shawls
2 sets of cuffs/mitts



These were my favorite socks of the year, finished last Spring. I love the colors. They are made with Pagewood Farms Yukon sock yarn. My previous experience with this yarn is that it does relax & pill more than some other yarns, due probably to the bamboo content. So I have gone down a needle size on my more recent sets of bamboo blend socks, which seems to help.






In the Fall, I managed to finish 3 pairs of socks in one day. Sounds impressive until I confess to the real reason behind it. I find it much easier to kitchener in bright sunlight, so the knitting was actually finished at various earlier times.


October 23rd, 2010 was a gorgeous & warm Saturday, so Lucy sat out on the porch with me & kept me company throughout the kitchenering.

Saturday Sky, January 8th, 2011

Sunrise this morning

I obviously was not yet awake when I uploaded this picture to my computer, as I put "Jan 2010" as the title. Yep, it's time for more coffee.

11 for 2011

I started 2011 with 11 sweaters in WIP status. (I know, I know, I'm completely crazy.) Most of them were started during NaKniSweMoDo 2009. I did manage to finish a record number of sweaters in 2009, but I didn't finish ANY in 2010.

It's time to rectify that. I have decided to finish all 11 of those UFO/WIP sweaters this year. NaKniSweMoAlmostDo 2011 here I come!

One of the things I DID manage to do in 2010 was to keep my yarn purchases down to very little. At least my stash was not expanding exponentially while I wasn't knitting much!

As a carrot/reward this year, I have decided to allow myself 1 yarn crawl or major purchase for every 3 sweaters I finish.

This one is the closest to being done. The knitting was actually completed in 2010, but it still needs finishing work.




It's the matching cardigan to a vest I completed in 2008.
The yarn is Louet KidLin Laceweight that I bought on sale when Knit & Hook in Kirkwood decided to have only the rug hooking side of their business.






Finishing work includes doing a 3 needle bind-off on the second shoulder, sewing in both sleeves, & crocheting around the front opening & neckline. I decided not to do a regular buttonband because of how loose this cardigan is. I've lost weight since casting it on, so it flows loose even more than designed. I'll just close it with a shawl pin if I ever decide to wear it closed.

2011 Already?!?!?

Where did 2010 go? It almost seems like we skipped it. There are still knitting projects from 2010 that never made it into Ravelry, so I am behind there too. Even taking that into consideration, though, my knitting output for 2010 was rather pitiful.

For today, though, I am going to look ahead to 2011. Resolutions are such an all-or-nothing proposal. (i.e. "Well, I messed once, so now I'll just abandon the whole thing!") So I am making plans instead of resolutions.

For 2011, my plans are:

• Do more knitting
• Finish adding 2010 projects into Ravelry
• Take pictures of all knitting projects that are currently lacking photos
• Get back in the habit of photographing my knitting progress
• Update this blog more often
• Add new projects to Ravelry as they are started
• Don't buy any random yarn just because it's a "good deal"
• Did I mention DO MORE KNITTING?