Winter Blast

I dug my old quilt rack out of storage just in time to hang a Christmas quilt!  Both are projects from long ago.....

Yes, the freeze has hit us hard.  Tonight should be our last freeze for a while again.  I am ready to have it move on!

We kept the sprinklers on all night to give the plants a little insulation.  Our temperature hit the 22F mark again, which is pretty cold for us!

What do you do when it is so cold outside?  Play on the computer.......

.........knit,

...and wrap packages for Christmas.

This is a gift from a friend.......made by a knitter for a knitter!  Isn't it clever?!  Thanks, Sandy!

The needles have been busy.  We had to go to Daytona yesterday and have the car's oil changed and so I had plenty of knitting time on the way and back.  This is for Marsel; she mails the yarn, I knit it and we are both happy with the results!

I also have some Christmas knitting going on, this has been blacked and whited to hide the colors of the yarn but it looks good in this color, too!  More on this project later........

Suffolk Yarn

Last week I dyed the last of my suffolk wool,

blended and carded the fibers into batts,

Next, I rolled up the batts to ready them for spinning.

The yarn spun up sport weight size and into two skeins of yarn.

I used the last little bit of natural roving from the suffolk fleece and ventured into the world of thrumming!

These are so luxurious to wear because they are light weight, soft and yet so warm!  I have enough to make another pair which I will be casting on today!  It is amazing how warm your whole body becomes because of heating up your wrists.  (If you linger over the physics of warming your wrists, it makes perfect sense but to know this by experience is how the light bulb goes off for me! :')

Spinning Friends

I have found a friend, Elayne, that lives just over a mile from me and she is a spinner!  Not only is that is a wonder but she is also a master knitter.  I see quite a bit of time spent together for fiber adventures  in our future!  Today, we went to the Pioneer Settlement in Barberville for their Florida Christmas Remembered. 

It was very cold this morning but did warm up a bit by lunch time!  I was bundled and layered and just waiting for the sunshine to bring us some heat!

I brought the roving I dyed yesterday and started spinning; it was wonderful to meet so many nice people and share what we do with wool.

 I did add a bit more of color to the roving but not too much.  It spun up very nicely and the colors are the colors of the mountains/sky or even the ocean...a very nice combination. 

In the early afternoon, I met  a  fellow blogger, Loree.  We had corresponded through emails and I had hoped she could make it here and she did! She is looking to move to our area of Florida and we were thrilled to think she could be close enough to join in on a regular basis, too. 
(See the poncho Elayne is wearing?  It is done in the style of a South American mola design.  I hope to get a lesson on how to knit one , too!)

I finished my skein when I got home, 250 yards of fingering weight superwash.  A perfect momento for a great day together.

Knittin' Honey

 I finished the Quant (a free pattern on Ravelry if you want to try it) and used the last of the yarn to make some wrist warmers to match. 

 I have dyed some roving (superwash from KnitPicks) but I think it will need to go into the pot again because there is more white showing than I wanted.  Nice to be able to do a re-do with this.

 I put another entrelac dishcloth on the needles last night and will make the other today!  Very pleasing knit if you are at all tempted, give it a try!

Yeah, I finished the mile long socks for Bill-I even had several yards of yarn left so I can use it for heel repairs if needed!

Icy Not Warm

 It stayed freezing at 28F from 10 on last night!  We ran our sprinkler to try and protect some plants.  I am afraid this queen palm  is in serious jeopardy; it barely survived last winter's freezes.

 The LIve Oak caught the edge of the sprinkler and was quite frozen until late this afternoon.  Our high temps wa only 53F so not the usual bounce back.

 This is the ornamental bamboo in the front yard; we are hoping that being frozen at 32F is protection from the twenties that persisted all night.

 Can you see the thermometer at 8am?  At least the garden was well protected in its little 'house' if not beautiful to behold!

 The pool has been in the 70's lately but 56 is a bit too cold but not freezing, and the plants that we left in the pool area were just fine this morning-that is a relief!

On the knitting front, I am still bitten by the entrelac bug and am working on a Quant, featured on Ravelry and in SpinOff magazine last year, but I am just getting on the band wagon.  I am using the rest of the Christmas ribbon candy yarn for this!

 The cats have been fighting for napping rights in my wool basket, these two will share but

Nyki keeps it all to herself!  (Now that is a surprise.....!)

I have been spinning up all the wool in the basket, more on that tomorrow!

(The temperature is already down to 30F; we are in for another too cold one!)

Preparing for the Big Freeze Week

 Temps hit only 32F this morning but not until 6:30  which means that the cold was only for an hour before the sun came up. 

But tonight the freeze  will hit sooner and last longer and then we will have lower temps all week! 

This means that as many plants as we can, get moved into the house!  Most of the pool area plants are inside.

Bill and I have rigged up a little house (it was too dark to get a pic of it with the sides, but it completely encloses the garden and all its precious produce (snow peas and green beans )!  The sprinkler is also in here so the water will be running to try and help the freeze from ruinging the garden.

The afternoons are going to rise to the high 50's if only we can protect the yard through the week, we will not keep these cold temperatures for long!  I have been hearing about Syracuse, NY, on our news and prefer my cold weather to be news bites on the television only!

Entrelac in Garter Stitch

Oh, yeah!  It is very easy to do the knitting but getting your mind around where you are keeps those grey cells jumping!  Great mental exercise!  One dishcloth finished and many more to follow!

Geronimo!

What do you do to celebrate your birthday............?

 Well, this has never been on my list but...........jumping from an airplane @ Kennedy  Space Center has been on my Matthew and Caleb's list for a long time.
                             
Now that I know they are safely on the ground, I can acknowledge the beauty of it all!  Happy 24th Caleb!

 I will stick with my extreme knitting..........finished the hat and mitt set.

And really living it up, I learned a new-to-me technique, entrelac knitting!  Very exciting!  (I will post links for the directions later when I post the finished picture!  Mom, we are going to do this together when you are down for the winter!)

(Look up the story of Geronimo being yelled when you jump from a plane, very interesting read!)

Just Fluff

 The day started with a crash.........

 Someone got up the nerve to climb all the way up!  She was quite proud of herself.

 PuffDaddy was looking for an online deal to replace the ornament!

 What does a spinner do if she runs out of yarn?  Dye and spin some more!

 See how lovely the roving looks after you draft it out?  The process of soaking and dyeing makes the roving a bit matted when it dries and this just puts the luster back into the fiber, much easier to spin, too!

 Here are the singles on the two bobbins.

 All plied and ready to be wound into a skein.

KnitPicks superwash, 100g;   now sportweight yarn, 206 yards-on to the knitting!

Repurposed and Appreciated

 Many years ago, Bill and I bought this bench for Bruce and Marsel for a house warming gift.  It has come to reside with us for a spell since I have been looking for just such a bench for a few months!  It is nice to be able to share. 

 I needed to cover the seat cushions to have it match my space and voila!  it is perfect!  Thank you for sharing, Bruce and Marsel!

 One sock down for Bill; one foot of sock knitting sure eats up yardage to cover one foot-literally!

 This is the Christmas colored yarn I spun last month; it is now a hat and almost a pair of fingerless mitts!  This pattern is from Classic Elite Yarns, their Moorland Berries & Twigs Cap (the cable doesn't show up well in the pic, but it does in real life.)

 It matches my in-bloom Christmas cactus , don't you agree!

Temperatures opped to freezing last night, even though it warmed up to 65F during the day, the damage of the 32F at night is a done deal.  We have moved many of the pool plants indoors for the night again tonight for the repeat performance.....The dogwood tree appreciates the Jack Frost visit but not too many in the yard were pleased by the visit.