Good grief, there is a blizzard outside! This has been a crazy week with lots of trips out of the house, but it looks like I’m going to spend the next few days dealing with snow. There is already 15 inches on the ground and more is on the way as the storm is expected to last until sometime tomorrow.
Knitting
I have been making progress on my Goldwing!! Check it out…
I am really happy with how the colorwork looks and now that I’m going down the body I should take the sweater off the needles to try it on for fit and to see what the length is on me. I laughed to see that there is now a Goldwing KAL being launched by Jennifer Steingass in her Knit.Love.Wool Ravelry group as the pattern just turned 1 year old. Talk about bad timing! If I had only waited a couple of months to cast on this sweater! I struggle with the Ravelry format for groups, but maybe I will check out the group and make a better effort to figure out how it all works. It’s okay to join with other patterns from Knit.Love.Wool, and I have two more of her patterns that I plan to knit this year so I could jump in with one of those. I have to add that I am discovering this pattern to be extremely well written with lots of meticulous detail.
A new KAL launched today from Casapika (and Sharon from Security) that has sent me back into the yarn stash to poke around to see what I can put together for a cute little shawlette (Raspberry Cordial) with two contrast colors. This is the Anne of Green Gables KAL that I am talking about, and it is a short little one that will only last two weeks. I need one skein of tonal or speckled yarn with a couple of mini-skeins as accents to the main color. Of course Hannah helped me as I did this…
I finally settled on three different yarn combos for the shawlette:
Now I have three options. The one on the left will have the raspberry colored yarn for the main color and the purple and gold would be the accents. Cute, huh! However this is not something that I would probably end up wearing a lot… I have had the Backyard Chicken combo for years and it would made a shawlette that I will wear, but it is kind of… not exciting. The third combo, plums and grays, will made something that I would wear a lot and is the more safe option. To be honest, I have lots of knitting already and probably won’t cast on right away, but a knit-along is so much fun, and I love being part of the Sharon Show community on Facebook, and how long would it take to make a little shawlette… I’m pretty sure I can find needles in the size that I need…
Garden
Books
I’m hooked. I finished the 5th book in this series last night and the 6th book is already downloaded onto my Kindle. To my joy there are several more books in the series. 🙂
That’s it. The snow is still coming down and my area is currently experiencing white out conditions. It’s hard to be certain but I’m pretty sure I have more than 2 feet of snow outside right now so this is going to be a huge storm. It is a mess and there is lots of shoveling ahead when this finally stops. Good times!!
It’s nice to have something to break up the knitting…
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
Yarn, Books & Roses 
You have some really pretty options for the KAL! And your sweater and the new orchid are both just lovely. Hannah – I can tell you are an excellent helper 🙂 Stay safe and warm in all of your snow!
I changed around some colors today and am getting ready to cast on for the KAL. Hannah was so much help shoveling the snow… NOT!!
Hi, on my phone on dim and the blue filter off I struggled to see 3 colours in your first bundle. I adjusted my settings, took a screenshot and changed to black and white and the gorgeous pink and gorgeous purple have the same tone so aren’t contrasting with each other. This perhaps doesn’t matter if you are always having the pale colour between them. It’s of course my favourite of the colours but thought I’d flag in case contrast is important. 2 foot of snow sounds a lot. Even for a snow lover like me. Your orchid leaves look plum and healthy, if mine look more on the wrinkly side should I water or spray it? Your my go to orchid expert now mine has shown signs of life. Still no progress on the flower bud that’s been there a few weeks now.
I thought that I was okay with the purple since I don’t like the little stripes to stand out too much, but after reading what you wrote I rethought things and headed back into the stash (Hannah was thrilled!) to see if I could make it all work in a new direction. I found a pink for one of the contracts and a white with colored speckles for the second. It should work better and now that I have the yarn caked I can see that the purple would have been a big disappointment. Thank you!! It ended up being 27 inches of snow and the drifts are pretty darn impressive! I got the front walk cleared today and neighbors come out and helped me get everything else shoveled off. Tomorrow we get… another snowstorm! It should be really minor compared to the one that we just went through.
One of my orchids was pretty wrinkly and I took a chance that it needed water. I gave it water and misted it really well and I just took a good look at it today… the leaves are smooth and the wrinkles are gone. I think that this is tricky as you don’t want to overwater. I have the plant in bark pieces with moss mixed in that will hold the moisture without being too wet. If you have a saucer under the plant you can add water to that to get the moisture up around the plant (I have pebbles under the pot so that the water can’t wick up into the moss around the roots.). Tell the flower bud that I am pulling for it!
Thanks for the tips. I shall have a hunt for my mist spray and give it some stones to sit of.
Good luck with that weather
It was a blizzard! Today it is gone, the sun is back out, and my neighbors and I have the snow cleared.
🙂
15 inches of snow! Wow!! Hopefully this is the last snow of the year.
I like the second combo of colors for the MKAL, i think it has the most contrast.
It ended up as 27 inches! We have two more snow storms coming in the next week but they will be much more well behaved I think. Must knit faster!!
I like the second combo best, but I’ll be thrilled with anything you pick if you join in the KAL.
I love the colors of your Goldwing! I had some lovely orchids. I miss them. Hi Hanna!!
I check out the orchids each time I go to the nursery and the grocery store. Every now and then there is one that I just can’t go home without! Having said that, I just found that I killed an orchid this month with overwatering…
Hannah: Bad orchid mom!!
Hannah, go easy on mama. Orchids can be a little sensitive.