The last big storm

I should have posted these pictures last week, after the storm that dumped another foot of snow on us. But I am in the throes of a play and knitting and work and meetings and simply didn't get them posted here. I did post an album to Facebook, but I know it's not the same.

This is the bush outside my front door:
And this is a picture onto my lanai, with a standard-sized screwdriver propped up to give you an idea of how deep the snow has gotten:

This picture shows the lights by the paths here - and they are two feet high. Notice how they are now pretty well buried in the snow.

I felt sorry for the neighbor whose car is under that mound.

And finally - do you remember the pictures I posted before of the bench that I can see from my windows?

Do you remember how you could still see the bench under the snow after the previous storm?

Sock Yarn Mittens

I finished these in time for the storm:

They are from an oddball of self-striping sock yarn (lost the band) knit with US#2 dpns and a basic mitten pattern that lives in my head. I knit one, then knit the other, and had enough yarn left with the right repeats to go back to the first one (on the right in the photograph) and reknit the fingers portion so that the stripes are more even. I was almost done when I realized that they look like fraternal twins, matched opposites. Pretty cool and I didn't plan it, I just started the second mitten where the yarn ended for the first one.

These are very close-fitting to my hands and I really like them. I am going to knit some more with a couple other oddballs. They are also handy as carry-around projects because they are so small.

Snow pictures from Winter Storm Benedict

You know it's a big storm when they give it a name - I've never heard of a winter storm with a name. It also had thunder and lightning, which was new to me.

Here are some photos from early morning, as soon as there was enough light to photograph:

The morning and noontime pictures were taken from inside my house. These are from the kitchen window, the landing to the second floor, and two from my home office.

The next lot is from noon, and you can see how much more snow there was. The total in my town was reported officially as 22", and we might not have had that much - a neighbor said that his measuring device had 15-16" of snow by midafternoon.

For comparison, here are two shots of a bench next to the walkway outside my home, one from morning and one from early afternoon:

I also took pictures in late afternoon, once I could walk outside safely, and will post some later.

Some more things I knit (or crocheted) recently

While writing a post to Knittalk, I realized that I have done some other knitting recently that I could post. First, a dozen hats for Bedstemor's Beanies:



There was someone on Knittalk who would knit hats every year for her daughter to give away at school. She died of cancer over the summer and the inhabitants of the list decided that we would carry on her tradition. I got a bit carried away! Some of the hats were made from yarn donated by a friend who received it for her charity, which could not use the yarn. The two red-and-white hats were actually part of that donation. The others came from my stash, various bits of yarn. The red-and-blue one at the bottom is Jared Flood's "Turn A Square" hat, slightly modified. It was hard to photograph to show the square!


Every year for Christmas I give a vest to my grandmother. This has been going on for quite some time. She gets cold in Florida in the winter and loves to wear vests (not sweaters!) over shirts or turtleneck sweaters. This year I used a yarn called "Mesa" that has long repeats, and did the vest with different front and back so my grandmother can choose which side to wear frontwise:

My grandmother said that she heard from a lady who has a sweater from a fancy designer with just the same yarn. My grandmother made a fuss that HER vest is one of a kind because I made it - not mass produced by a designer. Oh, boy! I think that my grandmother just likes to make a big deal that the vests were made for her by someone in her family. For knitters: the side with blocks was done in intarsia, three balls and the colours fell where they would.

Right now I am knitting a pair of mittens for me. Parts get reknit as I adjust where the stripes on the yarn fall, but I am nearly done with the second one. Finally, as we have had quite a lot of snow this weekend. I did find the pair of mittens I mislaid on Friday but I've been meaning to knit some mittens for myself. I'll post pictures when these get done. There are two more playoff games today and I have an adult learning class this morning - lots of knitting time!

Unless the games are as tense and exciting as the end of the Jets-Colts game was last night.......