A few days of this gets pretty tedious:
but it does motivate you to make these:
I did make two mittens but one is covering the hand taking this picture. This is a basic mitten pattern using some Briggs & Little wool and some Patons wool from my stash.
The thing about cold weather is that it is inconvenient. And even though you may be inconvenienced by things that are related to the cold, this does not mean that inconveniences unrelated to the cold will stop plaguing you. For instance, even though you may have to spend time with a hair dryer in a crawl space thawing frozen water pipes while wondering whether the weight of the house will fall on you, this does not mean your washing machine will not also break. Or the slip joint in the pipe under your kitchen sink will not slip out of place and cause a minor flood. I know for a fact these things can happen at the same time.
An article in the newspaper yesterday said that snowshoeing is the fastest growing winter sport. This is good to know. Personally, I use snowshoes less as a sport and more as an effective way to get around the woods in the snow. I checked Mountain Equipment Co-op and found that technical snowshoes sell for about $150 to $314!! Yikes! I’m perfectly happy with these vintage snowshoes that I got at an auction down the road for $10.
I am not a winter sport person, unless sitting by the fire reading is considered a sport, but I do force myself outside for fresh air and exercise. Yesterday was mild and snowy but some pretty cold temperatures were forecast for the rest of the week so I thought I would take advantage of the mild weather to head into the woods.
Everything looks very stark against the white backdrop and not a lot of vibrant colours are to be found but the subtlety of the beiges and browns are really very nice.The thing I like best about walking in the woods in the winter is that when I get lost, which seems inevitable, I can easily follow my footprints back:
Today is ridiculously cold but clear and this morning I saw this:
What you see here is the rising sun shining on the trees beneath the moon. It was taken at about 8:00 am. It was very beautiful. It would have been just as beautiful if seen from inside a warm house.
I have been trying to get in touch with my inner-Rumpelstiltskin. I was very fortunate to come into possession of this fleece:
I have no idea what kind of sheep it came from but the fleece is a very nice chocolate brown colour. I have washed it and was thinking it would be nice to sit by the fire and spin just like they do in old stories. This is the problem:
Hand carders. Beside the fact that hand carders have got to be the longest and most tedious way of preparing fiber for spinning, they also aggravate an old wood stacking injury I have. I won’t go into the details but suffice it to say that after I use hand carders for half an hour my right arm is very sore and I am very cranky. However, since I don’t see a drum carder in my future they’ll have to do. I’ve made some progress:
I’ll be making a two ply out of this since my spinning tends to be uneven and tight. I’m hoping to have the whole fleece spun by the end of March which, I’m also hoping, will coincide with the end of winter. I’m thinking I will get about 1500 metres of two ply from the fleece. That’s just a guess, I really have no idea.
