Snowed In Collection

It’s cold out there! Have you been snowed in yet? Need a quick project or three to get you through until you can go outside again? Do I ever have the collection for you!

My Snowed In Collection is an e-book of 3 patterns each designed to be knit in the stretch of time you might be stuck inside during or after a storm. The neckwear patterns come in a range of estimated times and difficulties:

Snowzilla is the fastest and easiest of the patterns. Very beginner-friendly, it requires only knits and purls with no shaping or fancy pattern stitches. It’s also a great way to use up some handspun or that unpredictable art yarn you bought at a show.

 

Storm Cloud is the next easiest pattern in the collection, and due to its chunky-weight yarn likely to take about as long as Snowzilla. It does introduce a new-to-may technique, fishermen’s rib, with a photo tutorial. This extra stretchy, extra warm stitch is surprisingly easy to learn, and a good precursor to learning brioche.

 

Cabin Fever is likely to take a bit longer than a weekend – you may want to save this one for a monster storm! When the cabin fever has set in, and you’re about to lose it, learning a new technique can be a great distraction! This beautiful two-color scarf pattern serves as a great introduction either to two-color brioche, or to brioche overall. The written instruction are accompanied by both a photo and video tutorial, if either technique is new to you. If you’ve already learned the stitches needed for fishermen’s rib with my Storm Cloud, you’ll have a head start!

All 3 patterns are available for purchase separately on Ravelry, but now through December 31 you can get the whole collection for the price of one pattern when you buy my e-book!

Snowed In!

Well, we definitely got walloped.

It’s hard to know for sure with the drifts, but it seems like we got about 2.5 feet. There were low points that “only” came to my knees, and high points closer to shoulder height. Of course, the plow-made mountains are a whole different story.

I worked obsessively on the Project of Doom while it was actively snowing, and got a good couple blocks done. Maybe I’ll finish it this year after all. If we have like 3 more blizzards.

After the snow finally stopped it was time to dig out ourselves and a few neighbors. This took most of a day. Athena was hemmed in by the new “fence” while we were digging out our own driveway, but when we trudged through the (for me) nearly-hip deep snow to the next driveway, she wasn’t about to be left behind. She and the other dogs on the street had a blast while we were all digging. Of course, it turned out to be a rather futile effort because even though we had clear driveways, nobody showed up to remove snow from our street until last night.

Instead, Athena had great fun ignoring the clear spot Hubby created in the backyard and making her own path for a few days. We ate lots of baked goods and soup, worked off all those baked goods in our tiny home gym, binged on Netflix, and slept embarrassingly late. I knit about a mile with the green handspun.

Monday it was above freezing, and yesterday it hit 50, believe it or not, so that’s done a good bit to melt down the massive piles of snow. By Monday a few of the most adventurous truck and SUV owners were venturing out, only to return and tell us nothing was open and there was no place to go. Yesterday Hubby ventured back to work, and said that while the main roads were fine, if only one-lane, getting out of the neighborhood took nearly half the time he spent commuting. My tiny car and I stayed home. Instead, I took advantage of the much-warmed weather and put the olive tree out to sun itself in the blinding snow glare, because nature is weird.

Then last night someone from the county showed up to haul snow off the road! Finally! It had melted quite a bit and all the trucks had compacted it plenty too, but it was still too much for an ordinary plow. This guy spent more than an hour on our short, residential street and there are absolute mountains of snow on all of our lawns today. The kid across the street had a blast climbing the one in his yard today, and planted a U.S. flag on the top of it. It was pretty stinkin’ cute.

Thanks to the county’s efforts, today I was actually able to LEAVE THE HOUSE!! I only went to the grocery store, and they were still pretty picked-over from before the storm, but it was exciting anyway. The roads are definitely not back to normal, but they are reasonably safe as long as you go slow and there aren’t too many people out at once. This whole storm has been such a weird experience for all of us native to the area. Schools are still closed through the end of the week, because buses can NOT get down many of the neighborhood roads right now, and things are even worse up in the mountains. Looks like I’ve got a lot of knitting time left ahead of me.

Sooo…what should I make with the awesome chunky alpaca?

What Is It About Snow?

The first real snowstorm of the year here in this part of VA is forecasted to hit on Friday. Both the kids and the staff at work have been discussing the possibility of a snow day/3 day weekend pretty much since we got back. On Tuesday. That’s right, we just had a 3 day weekend and everyone is still dying for another.

In the last 2 days they’ve begun to talk not just “snow”, but “historic storm”. People are starting to get nervous and silly about it, so when an end of day meeting let out early today, I decided to go to the grocery store a day early rather than waiting til my normal day. I figured all the pre-storm shoppers would be there flipping out if I waited til Thursday.

I was wrong.

As I somehow didn’t need eggs, milk, or bread this week I actually managed to get everything on the shopping list in about 20 minutes, although I got the last one of several things. Then I stood in line, for 35 minutes. All registers were open, but there were just that many people. Because you know, a foot of snow might fall in 2 days and we’ll never be able to go outside again. Must buy all the French toast supplies now. All of them.

Of course, there are other preparations to be made too. A blizzard means there’s a chance of losing power. I made sure to pick up some foods that don’t require electricity to prepare  today (hello peanut butter and apple wraps), and we have a fireplace and a massive stack of wood for warmth. Also? I’m a knitter. There is plenty on hand to keep us warm and cozy if the power goes out. Worst case we’ll sleep in my stash. 😉 Candles are on hand and there are good batteries in the flashlights. Which leads me to the fun stuff.

Making sure I have enough knitting to see me through an extended period indoors. You guys told me in last week’s poll to cast on with the green handspun, which I have. I also wound the blue-green alpaca, just in case. The handspun is practically flying off the needles, especially after the sweater. I think it’s going to be a cowl, but it may become a scarf, depending on just how much of it there really is.

That leaves the question of what to make from the alpaca. I kind of want another cowl, although I certainly don’t need one. It’s a thick, bulky solid and I think it would look great in a basic fisherman’s rib. I mentioned this to Hubby and he announced that cowls are entirely too trendy for me to possibly be happy with and I should make something else. He had no ideas for what that “something else” should be. I’m not actually opposed to trendy; I’m just not often swayed by it. Sometimes the trend is good (read:cowls), but “good” is the deciding factor for me. What do you guys think? If not a(nother) cowl, what else would 2 skeins of Cascade Baby Alpaca Chunky want to be?

Snow Day!

So for the last two days, this has been happening:

Which, as I live in a state that shuts down when it snows, means a lot of this has been happening as well:

and this:

and finally, finally this:

I could get used to this snow day business.

Contrast

So, it’s March. The robins came back weeks ago, my little garden is greening up nicely, and the daffodils and cherry trees are all full of fat little buds starting to open. It was in the mid-50’s yesterday.

The potential for yummy is growing!

Unfortunately, Mother Nature gets a little schizophrenic this time of year. It’s a good thing all of my plants are in movable containers, because I’m home for a Snow Day today. I woke up to this:

Why yes, this is the closest to measurable snow we’ve had this year.

I know Spring tends to be indecisive and full of extremes around here, but the 2nd Snow Day of the year? In March? Really? Oh who am I kidding? I’ll take a day to sit at home and knit anytime.

More Travel Adventures

Now that I am safely home, let me see if I can briefly sum up the rest of the long weekend:

First and most exciting, THE RED WINGS STAYED AT OUR HOTEL!!! We saw them slowly drifting in to their pre-game dinner while we were doing pre-wedding photos, and amusingly they did just as many double takes towards us as we did towards them. Sadly the bride was not as big a hockey fan as I am, and I couldn’t convince her to ask any of them to join us. 😉

Then there was the wedding, and while she did go very elegant and urban-chic, this is still my family (by marriage) and there was still plenty of fun to be had. Much of it happened in the photo booth.

Then we drove home through the snow that had not let up since arriving, and was not forecast to let up until Tuesday. Luckily Ohio is much better at clearing roads during/after snow than Virginia is. We made it home just in time to watch my best friend’s favorite team win the Super Bowl. Hooray!