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Dear Ellen,

I’m sure you’ve heard about our big snow down here in the mid-atlantic.  We thought our big snow day was last month when we got the 14 inches and got a day off.  As it turns out, that was just the warm up act.  Mother Nature definitely upped the ante the last few days.  Right in our neighborhood we got about 18-20 inches, but they got up to 30 inches not very far from here.  Today is a beautiful sunny day, but I think we are literally in so deep that the city may still be closed down on Monday.   I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for the extra day.  As the Metro Rail system has not yet announced when it will reopen, my hopes do have some basis.

Dale and I spent a goodly amount of time shoveling to the point where I’m confident I can make it out if I need to.Remember the deck photos from last storm?  You can see how much more we got this time with this side-by-side comparison.  I am very glad that unlike the owner of this car, we are able to park both cars in the garage.  He’s not going anywhere fast.

 This little guy found a hiding place in a sheltered bush on our patio. 

I have been hard at work trying to finish course assignments so I can declare my work on a Ph.D. complete.  No, I haven’t completed the Ph.D., I just reached the point where I was very confident that my future plans do not include options that would be enhanced by having a Ph.D. so I am not going to finish it.  Every examination of pros and cons tells me that after I hang up my uniform (2-5 years from now), I want to shift focus to family and the creative process so I’ve decided to recapture time that has been expended on keeping other doors open.  Once I finish the current course, you may find I actually meet my commitments to things like correspondence and Twin Set Designs.

Speaking of designs, I did take your Handed Yes, Fingered No mitt pattern (have you seen how many folks have already made these?) and adapted it to make my first ever pair of mittens.  Dale was rather convinced that as a sock knitter I should not be so pleased with myself for making mittens.  (He’s certain socks are more challenging.)  Nonetheless, I love my mittens and am rather surprised it took me this long to get around to them.  I made them with 2 of the 5 balls of Mini Mochi  that I had picked up a few months ago.  Of course I had to do something with the remaining and decided to make up a beret pattern.  No, I didn’t take notes, but might go back and recreate it as I’m pleased with the head band.  It’s 2X1 ribbing with a row of eyelet and folded back on itself which gives it a nice semi-scalloped edge.  Then on the inside I picked up and crocheted an inner band to keep it from getting stretched out of shape.  The colors are very happy.

I’ve made progress on Sea Glass too.  I’m at 6 and 1/2 repeats of the basketweave and think I’ll do an extra repeat for some added length.  I love the Alpaca Lace yarn, such nice color play and it slips along the needle so smoothly.  I’ll probably take a break on it during the Olympics though.  I have lots of WIPs to wrestle and a shrug to frog and maybe a mini-shawl to finish up.  As for WIPs, the Cinnamon Tee is on the list as are A Stitch Away from Genius and Not So Naive.  Here’s the current state of Not So Naive.  Lots to go there, but it knits very quickly, so I’m optimistic.  A Stitch Away from Genius only needs buttons and some embroidery embellishment.  Cinnamon Tee is just as I left it last summer.  Quite a lot to do.

Hope your weekend has been a fun one.

Love, Jan

Dear Jan,

I had a brief sojourn to the Toronto airport the last couple of days.  Yes, literally the airport and not Toronto - it was one of those business meetings, held in an airport hotel (I never even left the terminal, for heavens sake!), with tight schedules that don’t allow adventures into the city that is 20 miles or so away.

For those of you wondering about the security measures for flights from Canada to the U.S. - yes, you can bring your knitting (neither my metal circular needles nor my bamboo needles caused any concern once they were inspected), and yes, you will be inspected.  My bag was inspected twice (once every single item was removed and patted down), my bag was also swabbed twice, and even I was swabbed once.  All told - with short lines - security took about 40 minutes.  With long lines, I can see why you’d want to allow up to a couple of hours.

But, I made it back into the country, knitting intact.  My trip knitting was further progress on Norwegian Hugs.  Here are the beginnings of some sleeves.  Erica reminds me that I might be happier if I’d change to the proper needles - the circulars I’m using just don’t have the right flex for the magic loop method and I think I should change to dpns while I’m thinking of it.  Magic loop is slower for me than double points - just too fiddly.  And I put less stress on the fabric, especially in colorwork, with dpns.

Before I left on the trip, I frogged and reknit much of Springtime Sugarplums.  I am very happy, indeed, with the new gusset and thumb.  No bunching, the decreases up the pad of the thumb pull everything into place so nicely, and the mini-gusset that eases over the webbing between the thumb and hand seems just the trick.

Perhaps even more delightful - look what greeted me upon my return home.  My weeping pussy willow, bought for a lark at Trader Joe’s, must have remembered its Canadian providence, greeting me on my return from the Great White North with  catkins to remind us that it is Imbolc, halfway from the solstice to the equinox.

From close up they look like little candles, adding their light to the returning sun.  But from a distance they look like snowflakes, reminding me that we still have more of that to come.

I’ll do my best to take joy in whichever presents itself next, snow or sun.  I hope you are finding joys where you travel, too.

Love,

Ellen

Hi, Jan,

I have about a billion pictures of birds from our brief trip to Sanibel Island.  I’ll spare you most of them, but it will take another day or so before I sort through and find the best to share, along with a travel journal of that lovely escape.

In the meantime,  on the knitting front…

Body done of Norwegian hugs.  I’m on to the sleeves, doing both at once, and only slightly regretting the tangle it makes to have both ends on two balls of yarn going at once.  This is the body pre-steeking, hence the funny bunching at the neck and lack of armholes.  Once I cut it open, it will look like a sweater.

My Springtime Sugarplums are really fun.  I’m designing them on the fly.  I believe I have a perfectly fit thumbtip, but have just decided the gusset is too wide at the base of the thumb and also that it is too tight around the hand, so I guess that means a reknit of most of what you see here.  First I’ll take notes on that thumbtip!

And finally, because yet another baby is on the way amongst friends at work (and also I needed something to knit on our trip that was totally mindless for those moments when pulling out charts and multiple balls of yarn would not do) - Bambinoo, my bamboo blanket for that nascent bambino.   This will be a simple garter square, edged in a deeper teal in some sort of lace pattern, TBD.

I hope you are getting some knitting in on your travels, too.

Love,

Ellen

Dear Jan,

The picture says it all.

I’ll check in when we return next week.

Love,

Ellen

Dear Jan,

I’m making steady progress on Norwegian Hugs.  Have I mentioned how much I love stranded colorwork?  It is equally asentertaining as is gansey pattern knitting, now with more color!  And the extra yarn makes everything squishy - just like a grandma hug.

The Springtime Sugarplums are getting a very tiny amount of work - they are my on-the-go project and I guess I have been somewhat stationery.  Still, I can tell that frogging was correct.  (It would have been difficult to convince myself otherwise, as pre-frogging it was impossible to draw the cuff over my hand.  Not a good feature in a glove.)

On the wildlife front - Wilson got a new waffle maker for his birthday (his wife gave it to him).  The first waffle was a sacrifice to the squirrel gods, but it seems they have rejected it.  This makes me quake in fear - the apocalypse must be near.

And yet hope springs eternal.  Trader Joe’s was selling these adorable weeping pussy willows.  The price was excellent, and they were grown in Canada.  What’s not to love?  I will do my best to protect it from the squirrels, even after it is planted outside this spring.

Love,

Ellen