Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This is Sheldon.

Look how the clever use of shaping creates a nose and mouth for the little guy!

Sheldon was made using leftover bits of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. His body (except for the legs) is knit in one piece and then you knit him a shell that can be taken on and off. I guess you could call it a "turtle neck sweater?"

His legs and body stick out through the holes.

The stitch for making the top of his shell is one I've never tried before. Often my mind gets in the way of doing something new and different when I incorrectly anticipate what might come next - so I followed the directions line by line without thinking about what I was doing or looking at the results until I was well into it and just for some insurance did this while watching a movie. In 20 or 30 minutes, like magic, I had this amazingly appropriate piece for the back of an adorable little turtle with no sense of how it was accomplished!

I did opt to make Sheldon's head a bit smaller than the pattern called for. The recipient of the finished Sheldon is two and a half years old and I wanted the head to easily slide through the shell when taking it on and off.

I love making stuffed animals like Sheldon. You don't have to worry about gauge or fit and using up left over yarn is very satisfying. In fact I'm told the only time I look relaxed while I'm knitting is when I'm making little stuffed creatures like this!

Ignoring Henry

I was so hoping to have a finished pair of black socks by now. Despite working on them exclusively over the oh so snowy weekend that goal still eludes me . Shovelling and skiing and movie watching ate into my time and those socks need full light and fully rested attention. They are not the stuff of knitting on the road either. If they deteriorate into ripping back it is into blinding blackness where I almost instantly loose my bearings and things seem to quickly get worse than the original problem I was trying to fix.



In the mean time there is basket full of red alpaca that's screaming at me but I must hold firm and remain faithful and just be satisfied and motivated by the possibility of it later in the week. Look at the halo around that skinny little line of cast on stitches! Look at the prospect of that little swatch of herringbone stitches. Henry is calling me but I am determined to make him wait his turn!

Black and White

There's an awful lot of "white" around here. So far this winter we've received 177cm (about 70") in large sometimes biweekly dumps of snow. As I write this a storm is approaching that could be the biggest this year - one that may put our total accumulations into the record book at over 200 cm.

Now I love the winter months for many things, not the least of which is knitting away by the fire, watching movies and if its going to be cold I really do prefer the landscape to be snowy. The garden is a huge beneficiary of consistent snow cover so I am also grateful for that. We enjoy downhill skiing and this has been a great ski season for sure but three months of uninterrupted whiteness is really starting to get to me.

To be honest, one thing that's pushing me over the edge is my current knitting project - a pair of men's knee high socks, size large in what I am trying to think of as a "dark charcoal grey" but lets face it, they're effectively black.

Back in the riotous colour of autumn I figured out the pattern by copying from a pair of socks made many years ago for my beloved by a maiden Aunt . The Aunt has long since passed away but her beautiful hand knitting continues to live on in the sock drawers and on the feet of several of my in laws. At 76 stitches around, 18 " in length and repeating columns of single rib alternating with sections of moss stitch the knitting doesn't exactly skip along. The "charcoal grey" Regia errors are hard to recognize until they are a significant way back in the pattern and corrections are even more difficult to make out without the aid of full sunlight.

Nonetheless I started and finished one sock while watching the World Series.

As the orange red and yellow leaves fell from the trees and the bright orange pumpkins came and went from porches up and down the street sock number two got bumped off the priority list by urgent Christmas knitting. By mid December holiday lights dotted the landscape that had otherwise turned white and once the lights came down at New Year's the short, dark days made working on them fully depressing and almost impossible because the stitches were so hard to see in anything but the best light. So I set them aside until the light improved late in January - when we usually also enjoy a brief thaw and melt and get to see at least a glimpse of wintry grass.

In the meantime I made the rounds of several of the excellent yarn stores in the city here at home and even made a visit to Purl while in NYC. After that, a few fun and colourful projects jumped onto and off of my needles as the second black sock was pushed to the bottom of the knitting basket and right out of my knitting cue.

It was out of sight but never out of mind. As I entertained myself with colourful projects through weeks of white my beloved made comments about how much he was looking forward to someday wearing his hand knit socks...if they were ever finished. These accumulated comments are now similar in proportion to the piles of snow covering the city; blocking movement and generally stalling progress on other tasks until cleared away. I can't enjoy starting anything else until they are out of the way, off my mind and onto his feet!

So just as the city has added snow moving and melting crews in the 48 hour windows we are having between storms, I am throwing extra effort at wrestling these socks onto the FO pile.

As the white snow falls ever faster outside today, tonight, tomorrow and through the weekend I am going to force my way onward with this black beast. Once its out of the way my aim will be to post about some of the vibrant, colourful projects I've enjoyed while the neglected toes of my beloved have suffered so throughout this snowy white winter!

Gotta love that colour!...



Wish me luck!...