A Little Yarn On The Side

We have managed to not lose power, but other parts of the state haven't been so lucky.  Now we've had 3 days of heavy rain here, which melted off much of our snow but has led to flooding, rock slides, and avalanches.  In one of the weirdest twists of fate, one of the nearby ski resorts is closing tomorrow because of TOO MUCH snow .  I've never seen that.  With everything going on with our crazy winter, I was a bit unenthusiastic about putting these up and my hip/back was even less so as I did something and threw it out, landing myself in bed for the last day and a half.  I'm better today, and I keep trying to remind myself that winter justifies knitting lots and lots of sweaters.  To emphasize this, for Me Made Monday I wore the first wearable sweater I ever knit: Sure, it was supposed to be in cotton and I made it in some bizarre acrylic that Red Heart no longer even makes, but compared to my earlier sweater attempts, that was only a mildly wrong...

The second Santa stripe table runner is done, and aside from not realizing the lines wouldn't line up once I stitched the seams, I'm pleased with them.  And I've started two MORE table runners with fabric strips cut from my college fabric prints: and now that we can take a break from Snowmageddon, I'm hoping to clear off my craft table enough to maybe cut out this, which is one of my "allowed" purchases which just arrived.  It's a nicer flannel in a very dark hunter green.  Andy has been wearing the flannel shirt I made him so much that I wanted one for myself.  And this, is a Polartec fleece that I'll be using to make Andy a shirt for Valentine's Day.  I found this fabric in 2015, I think, so not deep stash, but stash all the same.  And they're both Warm Things.  Honestly, my hometown has at least twice as much snow as we do right now, so it's not like I didn't grow up with bad winters, but potential power outages with no n...

This morning our "togetherness" activity was to remove the snow from the roof of the patio, because while we're pretty confident about the rest of the roof holding, the patio was questionable since freezing rain is predicted for today.  This is our backyard today: That's easily 2 feet of snow on the ground, and heavy rain just started.  The storm drains have been dug out, but so many of them are frozen over that when the rain melts this snow, there is going to be trouble.  We live at the top of a hill, so aside from the voles who built their tunnels at the bottom of the slope in our backyard about to be drown, we won't see much flooding, but things could get very ugly for the people at the bottom of the hill and in the valley.  Now they're saying this storm will be with us through Wednesday and we're still in a state of emergency. Ugh. We cleared off as much ice as we could earlier, and with the rain now, we can finally take a break from storm ...

Theoretically, this would make for a great sewing day.  However, our county is now in a state of emergency, so we had a few things to do.  We received another 3-5 inches of snow this afternoon, but this particular storm system is projected to bring more snow, freezing rain, and rain this weekend, leaving us at risk for downed trees and power lines, flooding, and power outages with temperatures below freezing.  So we have spent the day shoveling snow, shoveling snow for neighbors, prepping for potential power outages, filling water containers, Andy did a grocery run, and I baked bread--more because I wanted bread than as a survival technique, but it is sourdough-oatmeal.  It's a bit unnerving as I have never seen a winter like this in Boise, but the good news is, I am wearing hand-knitted wool socks every day, and everything I've made for us out of fleece is FABULOUS.  If it stays like this, I am making fleece underwear.

It has finally stopped snowing here, and since Andy handled the 8-inches on Wednesday, I did the remaining 2 yesterday: I grew up with much more snow, but since Boise doesn't really get much snow, the county doesn't own many snowplows, and never, ever, EVER plow roads like ours.  This has been record-breaking snowfall for us, with 15-inches on the ground, but that also means 15-inches on the ROADS.  Schools have been closed for two days, and one of our local pizza companies earned HUGE points for closing for the safety of their drivers.  Emergency services were asking people to stay off the roads unless it was absolutely necessary, so I'm disappointed more businesses DIDN'T close.  Luckily, Andy telecommutes and I haven't found a new job yet, so we're good.  We're getting a break from snow as it's -7 right now, and while there's debate about whether or not it can be too cold to snow,  -7 makes it extremely unlikely to snow.  Since ...

Okay--100 finished projects.  I can do this--and have done it many times. But it is a bit daunting when one is at zero. For the first Me Made Monday of 2017, I wore what I call my "clown" socks.  They're so loud that I put a bobble pattern on the leg: which didn't go as badly when we went snowshoeing as I had thought.  It's been too cold here to do more than a mile, but since we're in the middle of yet ANOTHER snowstorm, it's nice to have snowshoes to be able to negotiate the local streets.  Subdivisions never get plowed here--they barely do the main streets--so my little Toyota Corolla is going to be safe in the garage for a bit.  Thank heavens I haven't found a job yet! I took down Christmas decorations yesterday, but I did take a break to start the stippling on the second runner,  and am working on it again this morning over morning coffee: (Note to self:  make sure at least SOME coffee has kicked in before trying to sew.) While I...

......and I'm not going to make it to 100.  There is a level of insanity which exceeds even MY limits.  I did finish one more table runner: and here's a little tip for you: stippling is really, really SLOW.  Even if you're not doing it very well.  The second one is pinned and ready for quilting as well, but even if I get a chance to start it today, that would only put me at slightly over 95 yards for the year, and I've got a lot of things I need to get done today.  What I am happy about is using up one of the fabrics that was my "last hurrah" purchases from December 201 5. Not most of them, but one more.  I wish I had realized the border would shift a bit when stitched together, and perhaps that one of the table runners would end up sporting an inordinate amount of mutilated Santa Clauses.  I think these won't be going to homes with really small children.  And, I'm back on the fabric wagon.  I waited two more days, made my planned ...