Well, we wound up with a total of about 19 inches of snow out of the storm. The bird bath was nearly swamped and there were no birds in sight for about 24 hours.

The pear tree is hidden by the mounds of snow on that side of the driveway.



Fortunately, the sun has come out today and things are a little brighter.

2.26 Weather reports

Shall we review the bidding for those playing along at home?

1. NWS yesterday claimed an inch for yesterday, 8-12 inches last night, an inch or two today.

2. The radio this morning stated we'd had 8-12 inches, depending on where you were and an inch or so more today, tapering off mid-morning.

3. The paper this morning stated we'd probably get about 15 inches out of this storm.

4. NWS this morning said another inch or two today, tapering off mid morning.

And, our final results a-a-a-re!

I scraped 2 inches off the drive yesterday evening.

There were 8 inches on the drive this morning. J&I shoveled half of it; K&S&I shoveled the other half of it.

I shoveled another inch late morning.

K shoveled another inch early afternoon.

K&S shoveled another 2 inches mid afternoon.

K&S&I shoveled another inch late afternoon.

It's still snowing.

That's 15 inches and counting...

2.18 Second up on the wips smackdown

The next item on the WIPs list is a cat favorite*. They've loved it since it first came in the house as a part of a fleece:

A Corriedale fleece split between three of us, purchased from Whitefish Bay Farm, I wound up with about 2.5 pounds. It was one of the fleeces that shaded from white through grey to a very dark grey. Using the dog comb shown above, I opened the tips of the locks before washing. It made a nice spring project, sitting out on the deck in the back of our rental house in between trips looking for a permanent one when we moved to Rochester in 2004.

Once flicked, I washed it.

After combing the locks again with the dog comb, I spun from the opened up lock, grabbing locks at random to get a nice mix of color:

Once it was all spun up, the spinning project was over, and there the skeins sat. I was in th middle of knitting other things and not ready for a new knitting project. It marinated for quite a while and I couldn't decide what I wanted to knit in a variegated grey. In May of 2006, I gave up on grey and decided maybe a trip into the dyepot would be useful:

It is at this point that one can see the deep interest the cats have taken in the project - skeins covered in cat hair.

Having dyed the skeins, it didn't take too long to decide on a project (only until February, eight months later, ): Wool Peddler's Shawl from Folk Shawls. I've never cared for the flat red the project is shown in, but a variegated red seemed to me to be a possibility. I knit it up and once again it sat. And sat. I was not in the mood for the zillion ends that the small chain plied skeins left me.

When I started looking for WIPs needing finishing, this one leapt to hand. I took it out of the drawer and set it on the counter, where the cats immediately discovered it:

I persevered (this time) and we finally have a completely finished object:

*Actually, it was Bitsy and Snowball, rather than Snowball and Tiger, since this fleece is older than our junior cat, but he moved right into loving this project too. They climb up on it, immediately get that giddy look and start in with the purring and kneading before they fall over and snooze for a while.

2.17 Working on wips

I may have mentioned that I don't ordinarily do -alongs or -swaps. I hate dropping what I'm in the middle of in order to do something to someone else's schedule. Exceptions do occasionally get made, particularly when it's something I was going to do anyway. Ravelympics came along and I thought about how and whether I wanted to do that.

The category for WIPs seems tailormade for where I am right now. I may have also mentioned before that I hate finishing with a passion. Once in a while, I make myself finish things immediately, but often, they get tucked in a drawer to wait until I feel like it.

I haven't felt like it for quite a while.

The stack has been reaching critical nagging mass.

My personal goal for Ravelympics is to reduce the mass, if not to zero, at least to the point where they don't nag me any more (which will be pretty darn close to zero).

And in that spirit, I offer up the first of the items on the finishing line:

One Triangle Scarf.

This is a pattern that I came up with from a description of the technique a few years ago. There was somewhat of a hoohah online about this as I recall, as Person A published a pattern for it, and then got upset when Person B gave a two sentence description of the technique. Person A claimed that Person B had violated copyright (with all of the attendant copyright nonsense that followed). I would probably have ignored the whole thing because I dislike the yarn the scarf was intended for except that the nonsense made me decide to figure out if I could come up with the scarf from the two sentence description.

Obviously, I did come up with a scarf. I've never looked to see if what I did matched the original pattern, because I didn't care whether I did or not. I now have a mindless knitting scarf pattern that I've repeated several times; it's a good pattern for long repeats of color.

This scarf, now finished and blocked, is headed out for my nephew. It should be just the perfect size for an eight year old.

2.16 finally...

I don't know what it is about this shawl. I have taken more awful pictures of this than any other shawl in the history of blogging. This one is about as good as it gets.

It is a comfortable shawl to wear and the pattern was well done. Leaf Lace Shawl by Evelyn Clark, knit as written for smallest size in Jaggerspun Zephyr.

2.11 Little miracles

I have three amaryllis bulbs that I acquired three years ago. I ignore them. I don't do any of the things one is supposed to do in order to encourage them to bloom again. They don't care, they just keep on going.



And yes, that is yarn framed by the blooms, sitting on the shelf above their heads.

2.9 The magic of blocking

It doesn't matter how many times you've seen the magic trick - it's always a show stopper.

Unblocked:

and blocked:

2.3 Teenagers!

We had two inches of snow today, give or take a bit. Fluffy snow, for the most part. Since K has her license now, I'm not having to pick her up after school every day. I went out and shoveled the drive after I got home, and once I was back inside, the snow plow promptly came by and dumped a 2 foot by 3 inch pile at the end of the drive.

I did have to go pick up S at 5. He came out from track (indoor) practice in his t-shirt and shorts, not even bothering with his hoodie this time. I dropped him at the end of the drive with instructions to put his hoodie and long pants on and then clear the end of the drive before I got back from the grocery store.

When I got back, the end of the drive was duly cleared off.

J helped me with the groceries, and by way of idle conversation said "guess what I found at the end of the drive when I got home?" Me: "What?" (thinking I might have to get on someone's case after all.) J: "Our son shoveling the drive in short pants and a t-shirt." Me: ::headdesk::