Hat Season

The snow a couple of weeks ago clued us all in that it is getting to be hat weather here in Wyoming. Here are two of my latest projects:

This is the Four-Square hat designed by Jared Flood, aka Brooklyn Tweed. You use two different yarns and change color every 2 - 6 rows. The greyish color is an organic wool from New Zealand. The brown is from Knit Picks - their Peruivan wool. A very southern hemisphere hat. I knit this for the accountant for work - he has spent a lot of time with me recently helping me understand our accounting system and this was to thank him for his time and trouble.

This hat is from the recent Vogue Knitting magazine and it knit up soooo cute. This is for Autumn, the 3-year old daughter of a friend. How is this for a perfect birthday present? The inside yarn is wool/alpaca mix (and since we recently visited an Alpaca farm it is very appropriate) and the outside is a 100% wool. It looks very cute on Autumn.

Literate Knitter

I bought two books last night and finished one and am half-way through the other. Yeah, I know absoutly nothing about delayed gratification. I blame my mother and grandmother for not knowing when to close a book and go to bed. It's a curse, but it is better than some other curses I can think of.

The book I finished:

"Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair" by Crazy Aunt Purl. What a great book! Now, I consider myself to be a drunk knitter covered in dog hair (Aunt Purl goes for wine, I love my beer and vodka tonics) but I can identify with her. This funny woman can go thru a very trying time in her life and eventually take the time to laugh and find the humor in her situation. There are also some knitting patterns in the book - if you want to knit a cat tunnel that is. Actually, there are some great patterns in the book and I would love to knit the bracelet purse for someone.

The book I am halfway thru:
"Free-Range Knitter: The Yarn Harlot Writes Again" by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, aka the Yarn Harlot. This woman is a very funny writer and I have read all of her books. Take the time to read her essays - there are some great knitting ideas and concepts in them. My favorite thus far - sock yarn is the knitters equivalent to methadone - when you need a yarn "hit" then sock yarn fits the bill.

I love both of the blogs that these two woman write. Take the time to check them out.

Coming the mail soon.....
"It Itches" by Franklin Habit. It has been released and I have it pre-ordered so it should be on my door any day now. I love Franklin's cartoons about knitting and I love his sense of humor. Also out now is a "beef cake" calendar he did called "Men with Yarn". Oh la la.

Just a Little Snow

It started snowing overnight Thursday into Friday and by Sunday morning this is what it all looked like.

Here is Ron brushing off the car so we can go take the dogs to the park and go out to breakfast.






Here is a view of our backyard. I figure we have at least a foot of snow, it not more, on the railing of the deck.








This is Lucie at the dog park having a most wonderful time. I don't have a speed racer setting on my camera so getting photos of her is rather hard, but I think I was able to capture her joyfulness. She and Pershing had a great time at the park.

This was a wet, slushy snow, so by the time we finished at the park I had wet socks as the snow was deeper than my boots were high.

Saturday I held a Fiber to Fabric Festival for the Girl Scouts of Casper - the event went off quite well and everyone had a most excellent time. The 42 girls and adults that participated were able to learn spinning, weaving, wet and needle felting, knitting and crochet, Kool Aid dyeing, and they worked on Quilts for Newborns in need. My volunteers were wonderful and they had as much fun as the girl scouts did. I was one tired puppy Saturday night. Planning these events are a lot of work but they are very rewarding. However, Mother Nature sees fit to have it snow every time I plan one of these. Last year in October I held a Scouts Tee Off golf event and it snowed that morning. But, Wyoming scouts are tough and we golfed anyway. It is pretty much a crap shoot tho with any event held in October. But with my luck, even if I hold an event in July it will still snow.

I am starting to knit Christmas presents. I have ideas of what I want to knit for people, I just have to find the time to work on them. I knit myself a pair of fingerless gloves out of a llama/silk yarn I bought the last time I was in Boulder. Very warm yarn - in fact, I am wearing them as I type this out. My office gets kind of cold and my heater unit is behind me so the back of my chair gets warm but the front of me stays cold.

Ok, I thought that all of this snow and cold and such like was supposed to kill off the flies!! No such luck. I have a really pesky one in my office right now and I'm ready to go postal on the guy.