2015-Week 12

In week 12 of 2015 I finish a pair of socks and start my Solar Flare Shawl while pretending that its Spring even if the weather doesn't want to let it start yet.

Packing my Bags

FYI-in case you missed it through the snow, this week saw the first days of spring. It wasn't the best start but it warmed up a bit on the weekend, enough to get out for a brisk walk and to trigger a bout of spring cleaning so I haven't been up to much knitting.

First Steps

The start of spring also signaled the start of Eco Chic's Solar Flare MKAL so earlier in the week I wound up my set of 6 gradient shades into balls and did a quick swatch of a few rows of each ball to see how the colors would blend. I am truly loving this colorway and the way it carries the tones and shades across the different balls.  I also got to cast it on but didn't get much mileage done as the weekend was too nice to do too much indoors.

Along the Path 

Still working on my Guinivere shawl and I'm planing to make time to rip out my Goddess Knits Shawl and start over, this time with stitch markers to keep the extra stitch on the end of the right side row from moving on me and messing up my pattern.

Final Destination

I finished FO#17 my basic white socks and entered them as my entry to the Solid Socks monthly challenge. These started out as socks for my BF but once I got to the instep I realized that knitting an average mens pattern as is would still be WAY too small for his foot. I decided to reclaim the sock instead of rip out and re-knit almost the entire sock.

2015-Week10

In week 10 of 2015 I get inspired by snow, get the finishing bug to knock out a few hats and re-purpose some unloved legwarmers into gloves.

Packing my Bags

I stopped off at Michael's this week to pick up some much needed 19" cables to fill a few size gaps in my collection that have made knitting hat's harder than it needed to be and while I was there I stocked up on some more of the acrylic yarn BF likes for his warm thick socks in a few more colors. I also got some cotton in fun colors for washcloths. All in all, I spent too much but now I don't have to figure out where my dpns are and swap them between projects when I want to knit hats.

First Steps

With predictions of over 8 inches of snow on the forecast I planned ahead and grabbed a variety of projects to have on hand in case work got canceled by the snow in.  As luck had it I had two days plus a stay-at-home type of weekend to make a lot of progress on projects. Even though I finished or got close to finishing a bunch of stuff I did manage to start a few things too.  It seems that snow was definitely on my mind as the two projects I started were both in white, The first, another simple top-down socks for my BF, this one was the Lion Brand, Men's Grey Socks pattern. Hopefully I can make the adjustments as I go to get this one to fit better than the last one,  The second cast on was for my hat #3 of Meagheen Ryan 12 Hats in 12 Weeks, an ear flap beanie with some basic fair isle colorwork that I'll do in grey.

Along the Path

I'm making slow progress on my first sock for Sock Madness, the Alohomora pattern in my Unplanned Peacock Purple Hydrangea sock madness special colorway. I also resumed progress on the edging for my ALS Keep Warm wrap.

Final Destination

I pulled out hat #3 of the 12 Hats in 12 Weeks MKAL form Meagheen Ryan.It was a cabled tam style that I had started in an soft grey acrylic yarn. I only had the ribbing done and I didn't have the right circular needles so I made some adjustments and just did the best I could. I made a mistake in the cable crosses on one round but since it comes at the bend in the tam its almost unnoticeable. I finished it up the next morning and now its FO #13. 

FO #14 started out as about 6 inches of a pair of legwarmers that I started for my DD in 2010. They've been sitting in a bag for the past 5 years during which time I lost interest and she stopped wearing legwarmers. In my fit of finish-itis I decided that they needed to be done one way or another. I though about re-using them for my nephew but they were sized too wide for baby legs. In fact, as I was testing them out they fit easily over my forearms. This gave me the idea to modify them into some longish ribbed cuffs for a pair of gloves. I used Ravelry pattern search to look for inspiration and decided on a Tin Can Knits Simple Collection pattern called Maize. I did a few decreases to make the stitch counts match where the cuff ended and the hand began and adjusted the patterning detail along the outside of the hand to match the existing cuff rib pattern and just followed the pattern from there. I was following the largest pattern in stitch count and overall diameter but I decided I wanted less fabric at the palm so I shortened the distance past the thumb gussets to the measurements for a smaller size. For something I really wasn't loving, these turned out better than I could have hoped for.

FO #15 is the February Mini Hat from Meagheen Ryan's 12 Months of Mini Hats. These are challenging to work in smaller needles but also fun and relatively quick. 

Back Porch

I'm missing having a garden and all the planning, gathering, and sprouting that happens at this time of year. I've also been reading back through my blog posts and remembering all the good, healthy food I used to bring into my house and the creativity that developed by participating in the local food culture and challenges like the Dark Days and One Local Summer. Now that I'm cooking again and trying to re-develop my preserving skills I've naturally started to yearn for the days past when I sourced my meals first from my CSA share and then to the farmers market stands before picking up a very few convenience items at the neighborhood grocery store. I started researching CSA options a few weeks ago and while its a good time to join up and there are more options than ever I wasn't finding something that had all the factors I was looking for. Over the years I've followed several regional bloggers who, like I did, posted about their CSA shares, experiences and the resulting meals. I started reading back through their archives and I came across a few options I hadn't already considered, one of which I've decided to try.
Lancaster Farm Fresh is offering a pro-rated option to join in on their 13 week winter share season on week 9, giving you 5 weeks of vegetables as well as the option to add-on any of the egg, meat, yogurt, bread, pantry, tofu, or cheese shares individually  or join the omnivore or vegan value shares. They are also taking signups for the summer season but I don't have the funds to join up yet so I decided to essentially sample the last 5 weeks of winter and see if the co-op, pickup location, communication, quantity and quality add up to a reasonable value for me or if I should keep looking and rely heavily on the farmers market and occasional u-pick farms for this year.  
I'll start posting more CSA stuff when I start getting my share toward the end of the month.

Daybook For Today- January 29th, 2015

Outside my window...it's been dark and gloomy. Thought I heard some hail on my window at work but it was gone by the time I ventured outside.

I am:
Thinking...of all the wonderful things I can create with the yarn I've ordered.

Thankful...for all the wonderful people, from my mother and grandmother to my 4-H leaders, who helped teach me how to knit, sew, craft and create.

Wearing...Favorite purple tank and a stretch knit  skirt with black tights, 3/4 sleeve cardigan and flats with my puffy warm jacket and a wool scarf. Changed into comfy sweats, fuzzy socks, a loose tee and big zip up sweater as soon as I got home.
Creating...Socks and big warm knitted things.
Going...to sit on the couch with a heat pad on my back to knit while watching tv.
Wondering...how much yarn and how many project are too much
Reading...Knitting to Stay Sane Blog.
Watching...Justice League Unlimited Season 2 on Netflix.
Listening...2 Knit Lit Chicks Podcast Episode 84.
Hoping...for money to fall out of the sky and pay for my bills and hobbies.
Learning...to do a short row heel and pick up gusset stitches.
Pondering...why I like lists so much.

In my kitchen: Not cooking tonight, probably going to reheat spaghetti with mushroom meat sauce.

A favorite thing: Soft silky yarn and fluffy soft cats

Quote: From Myke Cole's article on Five Books About Deeply-Flawed, Despicable People from Tor.com
"Stories are about people...And here's the thing about people: they aren't perfect. People make mistakes, frequent and horrendous mistakes. We screw up early and often and horribly. The best protagonists in all genres, fantasy included, are equally flawed, not so horribly that we want to see them burn, but enough so that we see our own errors reflected in theirs. Because if our favorite fantasy characters can fall so far and find redemption, the maybe we can too."

Week 7/8 CSA

I took advantage of my farms vacation hold to take a much need break from all the driving and excess of vegetables on week 7. That means I can double my share on a future week, which I did for week 8. As my fridge was indeed very full for week 7, I went easy on the Farmers Market purchases, grabbing a new bag of organic, fair trade, locally roasted coffee from the Thursday Reston Farmers Market run by Smart Market, Inc. at Reston Town Center and stocked up on onions to dice and freeze from Potomac Vegetable Farm at the Saturday Reston Farmers Market in the Lake Anne Plaza. From there we enjoyed lunch al fresco at the little latin eatery that overlooks the edge of the lake before taking a long afternoon hike along the trails that circle around that part of Reston. We had a great casual Saturday that I hope to repeat more often as the temperatures return to a reasonable level in the fall.

For week 8 we returned to the farm and picked up double our usual share. Pictured below is only one of the two boxes (my usual half)
Also as this weeks u-pick bonus, we picked 2 pints from the very last few blackberries on the over-picked first field during the blackberry festival at the farm and managed to find 4 semi-ripe peaches.

CSA Week 3

A welcome variety of flavors, textures, colors and uses came in this weeks CSA share from Great Country Farm. It had been a steady downpour on our drive west and was threatening rain when we arrived in Bluemont but it looked like a significant break between fronts awaited us. Silly humans. No sooner had we checked in at the front desk, returned our boxes, got our instructions for what was available as a u-pick bonus and walked outside, just missing the hayride, when suddenly the skies opened up and buckets of water pelted the valley. I don't just mean a regular heavy drenching but a solid, unrelenting 15 minutes of pure dumpage (thats a word right). I now know what it feels like to be a tiny seedling under the onslaught of a water hose. Luckily we were able to duck onto the porch of the country store to wait it out and debate what we wanted to do. We quickly drove across the street and picked our half pint of black raspberries as the rain lighted and returned as the hayride of drenched strawberry pickers returned.

K was so excited for strawberries that despite my cautions she convinced me to go, even if it continued to rain. So we braved it and after the big dump of rain the fits and starts of summer showers didn't seem so bad. We both wore big hats and the rain mostly stayed off our face. We emerged completely soaked with our 2 pints of strawberries in hand. One nice thing about the rain is that it drove off the bugs and kept us cool on an otherwise hot and muggy day. Those berries were well earned.

Before we got to the farm we stopped at the market This week I made it back to the Leesburg Farmers Market and was lucky to find some lovely garlic scapes for 5 for $1. I picked up my customary breads, stocked up on ground beef and found some lovely red new potatoes. What isn't show here are the muffins, cookies and chocolate chip chibatta samples that were consumed in the car and never had a chance in the world to make it to photo time.

Weather Report

Last week we came off of the warmer, spring-like break in the winter weather and were hit with snow and ice all Thursday 4-6in. Friday morning things were still frozen and the intersections difficult but by afternoon the roads had cleared and were fine. Saturday was up to the 40s and but cloudy and just felt dreary. Last night temperatures dropped and it has remained in the teens though with the winds it feels like 0. It should warm up overnight and for the rest of the week we are expecting sunshine and little precipitation with high temperatures in the 30s.