When is Spring going to get here already? I'm not one to complain, (insert snort of disbelief here) and I know being Canadian I'm supposedly expected to be used to mountains of snow and freezing cold temperatures, but come on already! My aging brain cannot recall such a snowy year in all my days. Not that I don't adore shovelling snow mind you, and I wouldn't dream of letting Cee do it all himself, we're neither of us spring chickens anymore. I mean who doesn't love huffing and puffing away in the freezing cold, trying to lift huge shovel-fuls of snow (and then finding places to put said snow--I'm not kidding, the piles along our driveway were topping out at 8 feet!) hoping you don't have a massive heart attack and drop dead on the sidewalk, only to be found--and ultimately ignored--by your passing neighbours, cursing the
pricks smart people on your block who had the foresight to buy a kickass snowblower last Spring or Summer and are out there practically gloating over their superior intelligence, even lowering themselves to doing their adjoining neighbour's sidewalks, before jauntily waving at you from across the street and flouncing back inside where it's warm, while you continue struggling to lift the damn shovel and wait for the snow plow to come down the street--again!!--and kick up all the ice into the bottom of your driveway....now come on, doesn't that sound like just too much fun?
Oh, and dear neighbour across the street: if you hire the kid down the block to use his 4-wheeler with the shovel on the front to plow all the snow out of your driveway across the road and into the bottom of my driveway one more stinkin' time, I'll have to come over there and get medieval on your old crazy ass!
Anyway, enough of that, did I lose you with my whining? If not, here's some of the things I've been doing lately....
I have another friend who is due this April, so I thought I'd get the needles out and make a little something or two, or more, you know what it's like. She's having a boy, so I went traditional.
Above is a raglan cardigan made from a pattern in a vintage book Cee's mum gave me from the UK. Nothing too challenging about this one, the interesting thing about it was you make the button and buttonhole bands seperately and sew them on--pain in the ass, but I think it's cute.
Then I wanted to make a hat, so I searched high and low and finally settled on a little cabled one, which I found in the Knitting Pattern-a-day Calendar:
This made up in only a couple hours, so what's not to love about that? Wanna know something really freaky? These two patterns were made with the exact same yarn, yet see how different they look in the pictures....does that seem right to you?
Then for giggles I made up another pair of the ubiquitous sneaker booties:
Everybody seems to like those.
Then I took the pattern book (which is appropriately called, Baby Bootie Boutique) and was bored, so I tried out another pattern--that's what I do sometimes when I've got a spare minute (read: not very often)...I sit there and think "Hey, I wonder if I could make this pattern?" and then I try it, just because. So I did this:
Cue Rick James singing "....do you love me, Maryjane?"...I really liked this little one, but only made one just to see how it would come out....and as soon as Cee's mum saw it, she snagged it for her miniature shoe collection--what can I say, the woman loves shoes.
I tried a couple more, so I shall post the pictures next time (read: I forgot my camera). Mean time I shall be looking skyward for any signs of the big melt, and out my window in case I've got to go across the street and have a "friendly chat" with Old Crazy.
