Ski Break

Woolly days

Still feeling cold around here, but thank goodness for wool socks!
Love how they keep me warm and perk up my day. :D

Here's a standard pair of day brighteners.



The yarn was milled and dyed in Granby, Colorado, from our holidays last summer. So pretty!



The other woolly warmer just finished is the Sugar Maple Shawl, this is the ravelry link.

Here's how it started out:


And here we are all done!


This pattern is simple lace, I memorized the pattern after a few repeats. A very long rectangle is knit over twenty-nine 12 row repeats, then hundreds of stitches are picked up along three sides. Increases are made every other row to make a wide, gentle ruffle. It's very cosy, and long enough to wrap around and sit comfortably on my shoulders without falling off.



Suh-weet! Soft and squishy Malabrigo worsted, what is not to love?
(Let's not bring up the single-ply pilling factor, shall we? la la la la la....)



Ruffles close-up!

Warhol-inspired school art project!

Trapper Hat, In Style

Missy saw this hat in the yarn store.
With big eyes and a big smile, she asked me to make it for her:



This pattern is knit in two pieces (the inner and the outer), each top down, then crocheted together:



It has a bit of rib at the back to keep it snug:



Here's a view of the top:



Fleece Artist's Peter Rabbit (natural) on the inside (angora), Rowan's purelife British Sheep Breeds on the outside. Perfect to take the edge off all the coldness. She loves it!

Knitty good stuff

These sun-filled days have inspired me to surround myself with colour.
This means projects, of course! (seeing as the ground is rock solid, no can do out there)

I started working madly on a sock made with Crazy Zauberball. I know I've said it before, but really, these colour changes make me crazy for more! Is that how they got the name? Anyway, I'm almost done sock number one.



Then I thought I would cast on for this shawl, one that I've been thinking about for almost two years. I chose the perfect yarn (in my mind) for it, sweet georgia's merino silk lace in the colourway botanical. For Photosynthesis, how fitting, indeed. The colour is best depicted in the first picture below.





I made my way through the little leaf section, then thought, "I am cold sitting here, knitting this lace."
So I bagged it up, put it hold until the weather warms up a bit. Really, it is zero degrees out there, I think the sun got to me.

Next, I pulled out this little bit of heaven:



Malabrigo worsted in Amoroso, to be made into the Sugar Maple Shawl. Sigh....more cosyness to look forward to.
To the ball winder we go!

I have more to show you, lots of good sewing stuff is going on! Coming soon.

Charmed

Newest creation inspired by a visit to Michael's.
After many happy minutes perusing the aisles for chains, beads, findings, and pendants, Miss M was intrigued by this collection of charms, and added her own beaded touch to give the set a little more colour.
Leather cord with a lobster clasp finishes off this quick project.
I just love a new necklace!

Recipes re-organised!

And it keeps on going!

Okay....the recipes were in the same situation as the patterns.



I still wanted to use the same binder, but the dividers needed to be upgraded.
All for the desire to beautify everyday living, I bought some William Morris file folders.



I sorted and thinned out many, many recipes, and magazines.
It's funny how I thought I would make something over 10 years ago, and still have not made it to this day.
Figure I probably still won't have made it in another 10 years. Onto recycling.
Sorting in progress (this is not all of it):



I took four pretty file folders and cut them in half along the fold.

On the bigger half, I used my three hole punch, trimmed the sides a bit to clear the binder easily, and popped them in the binder.

On the smaller half, I had to figure out how I could still hole punch them and have them sticking out a bit so I could actually see the divider tabs.



As I took out the old dividers, I thought I could still make use of their reinforced holes. Using double sided tape, I attached the functional part of the divider (ie. the three hole strip) to the pretty folder half, and voila, it works perfectly. So I got eight divider tabs out of four file folders. I love this!



Another functional system (that's easy on the eyes), another good night's sleep...