Quixotic Pixels

It snowed again. I was royally freaking out because I needed Sam to go back to school. Working hard in class and playing hard with his friends wears him out, which is a fantastic thing. When he comes home, he’s nice and calm. As much as Claire and I try to keep him busy, we can’t compete with six hours of school and 30 kids.

Apparently the People in Charge also had enough of letting the snow interfere with what should be a regular old day and/or they couldn’t stomach the thought of spending all summer in school, so school was back in session and on time today…despite all the snow.

I’m looking forward to a few hours of quiet today in which I’ll take a look at some of my favorite websites, do some laundry, figure out what to cook for dinner and play a silly game or three with Claire.

The snow has added another element of excitement to our lives. It’s breaking things.

The tree next door lost a couple of large limbs, which are blocking our neighbor’s driveway. The snow has also caused our street light to tilt over at an alarming angle. I called the Street Light People, who are supposedly sending Street Light Engineers my way, but I haven’t yet seen hide nor hair of them. I hope it won’t take them the six to eight weeks they estimate for fixing street light outages…

On the crafting front, choosing which mitten to knit has turned out to be more difficult than my former plan made it seem. I initially tried Bella’s Mittens, but the yarn I was using was variegated and too busy for the pattern. Then, I started on Bird in the Hand, but had serious gauge issues. Using size 2 needles made a mitten that was so tight it could have been used as a tourniquet. Using size 3 needles resulted in a tube of fabric that could have comfortably encased my thigh.

It’s a pretty pattern, though, and someday I intend to try it again using a DK weight yarn. (Ooh, and working those braids was loads of fun. I say this even after it caused me to break one of my beloved birch DPNs).

Currently, I’m trying to knit one of the Selbuvotter mittens, but am feeling paranoid about sizing issues despite the fact that my gauge appears to be spot on–and continues to be correct even after checking it 5,629 times. I’d post a photo, but I don’t want to jinx myself yet.

Tags: kids, school, snow

The recent snowfall inspired me to knit something to keep my fingers warm. I tried my hand at making mittens and what a fun project it turned out to be! These are the Very Cabley Mittens from kelpknits.com. To make them, I used one skein of Lamb’s Pride worsted. Not only are they very cabley, they are very quick (I knit mine in 3 days) and they are very pretty.

I enjoyed this project so much that I joined the knit-along for the National Knit Mittens Month (there’s a Ravelry Group for this) and will attempt to knit another pair by February first. My track record for finishing knit-along projects has been poor, so keep your fingers crossed for me (I’d do the same, but that would make knitting more challenging than it should be…).

True to form, I’ve already encountered a hurdle in knitting another pair of mittens. I can’t decide what knittens I want to knit first. There are 3,537 mitten patterns listed on Ravelry. Right now, I have several pairs on my personal list that I’m considering (and I’m going to stop looking at Ravelry’s pattern catalog so my list doesn’t grow even longer!). Here’s what I’ve got so far:

• Bird In Hand Mittens
• Bella’s Mittens
• Tyrolean Mittens
• Any Selbuvotter Mitten (How’s that for narrowing down my selection?)
• Thrummed Mittens
• Newfoundland Mittens
• Give a Hoot
• Ladybug Mittens
• Mittens to Order–using my own charted design

Yeah, that list is crazy…and it’s only the tip of the iceberg. I’ve decided that I will only make mittens for which I already have the yarn. I’ve also decided that I’m going to write the name of each design down on a slip of paper, put it into a hat and will get started swatching whichever one I pull from the hat. Clever huh? I should run more of my life this way, since I’m notoriously bad at making up my mind when faced with a lot of choices.

P.S. My apologies for the awful title. If you want good taste from me, you’ll have to wait until I’ve consumed another cup of coffee or three.

P.P.S. Please forgive the overabundance of parentheses above. Again, the need for coffee…

P.P.P.S. Best wishes for the new year!!!

Tags: Knitting, mittens

We had a storybook Christmas. It really couldn’t have been more perfect. Just a few days beforehand, it started snowing and it kept snowing and snowing and snowing. We hadn’t had this much snow since….oh 1996. The whole family spent lots of time outside playing in the stuff.

1. Frosty, 2. Kids in the Igloo, 3. Shoveling, 4. Sam’s Baby Blues, 5. Claire, 6. Claire

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

I tried to coax the kids into making a snowman, but they were more interested in shoveling the sidewalks…and the street. Eventually, we had a large enough snow mound to create an igloo.

What fun! Some worrywart neighbors expressed concern for letting kids play in a structure that might collapse on them, but we weren’t worried. First of all, we were always supervising them when they were playing outside, so if something happened, we’d be right there to take care of things. Secondly, Robert and I built snow forts like that throughout our childhood. My brother also used to go winter camping at 7000 feet and built similar structures to sleep in.

Know-it-alls really get my dander up.

Christmas Day was very relaxed. We opened gifts, played board games and ate an exquisite meal. I made beef bourgignon–and oh my gawd, the sauce on that dish is to die for! We sopped every bit of it up with homemade bread. Yum!!!!

As is traditional for my family, I baked Potica. It was gobbled up in no time flat. In years past, I’ve had trouble getting the sweet bread to cook thoroughly in the center without burning the outer portions. I baked it at a lower temperature this time and it was a big improvement! Wrapping the whole thing in foil for the first portion of its baking time is also something I’ve been meaning to try.

My brother and his fiancee also came to visit us for a couple of days. We don’t get to see each other all that often since they live far away in Montana. We had a splendid time playing Yahtzee (I won-woo hoo), building puzzles, eating, drinking…and clowning around in my handknits.

Will loved the hat I knit for him. It’s supposed to look like the cunning hat worn by Jayne in Firefly. I had a hard time knitting badly. It should look worse than it does, haha!

Tags: Family, holiday, snow