Living in a winter wonderland...

Seth and I woke up Friday morning to find that all of the schools in the area were closed due to the coming snowstorm. It hadn't even started snowing yet.

Now, I'll let you all in on a little secret about the people around here. They get big chuckles out of hearing how other people deal with their bouts of snow. Now all the people in New England are fine... people in Canada and places like Syracuse and Chicago are fine. But the minute it starts snowing down south, people around here start cracking the jokes. Most of them are regarding the fact that the folks down south shut whole towns down over an inch of snow. Common sense would say that an inch of snow when you're not equipped with a snowplow in town, or a gazillion sand trucks makes perfect sense, but that gets lost somewhere in translation. And what could you joke about around here? The idiots that drive SUVs and think they are snow invincible, thus drive on the interstate at 65 through a snowstorm?

But really, every single year at the talk of the first possibly major snowstorm, people around here freak. Shaws and Hannaford suddenly get filled to the brim with grocery shoppers afraid that they won't be able to leave their houses for years. People cancel plans. Schools cancel school. Now in the case of Friday's storm, the hype was justified since it was a fast moving SOB, but managed to dump about 6 inches of snow before it left. We got lucky up here. Down in southern Maine, they got crushed with more than a foot. Driving sucked. And being the oh-so-lucky state employee that I am (*sarcasm noted), I got to leave work early since they shut our offices down at 2:30PM. There have been times in the past, though, where all this hype has been built about a storm, schools and businesses are closed, and we get a dusting. So there... now I've given all of you from the south a reason to laugh at us.

Seth and I sign papers on the house tomorrow! The downside is that due to said storm, the driveway is full of snow, and we were going to spend the day moving as much little stuff as possible. You win some... you lose some.

Now on to the knitting and crocheting!

Here is the crochet skull cap I mentioned in a previous entry. I really need to make myself one... out of something soft like merino wool.



And I've finally finished the Irish Hiking Scarf of doom. It's a relatively fast knit, but when I was only working on it at lunchtime, it seemed to be taking forever. I used Caron Simply Soft in black. I changed the pattern slightly so that the center cable only crossed every 16 rows instead of every 8 like the ones along the sides do. I think it makes it look more interesting. And despite how dull the cables look in these pictures, it really does stand out. Excuse the moving box backdrop!





I had completely forgotten about my knitted flower project for work... not good since our office Christmas party is on Friday. I still have 8 more to knit, and then I have to felt them all. I'll be lucky if they are really done in time. Here are two of them with the beads.



And finally, this is my current project- the Karaoke scarf from kpixie. It's not being done in Karaoke, though, since I am trying to stashbust like mad. It's another Caron Simply Soft project. This scarf is for my family's Yankee Swap shortly after Christmas. I've ordered some merino wool for Phoebe's scarf, and once I get it, I will be using this pattern for her scarf, too. It's such a cute pattern.



This may be my last update for a little bit until the holidays and moving are all done. So in case I don't get back here until late in the month, Happy Holidays everyone... I wish you all a gorgeous season!

With only 6 days...

...until the house closing, I am a nervous wreck! So I've downloaded Madonna's "Hung Up" from itunes and am blasting my ipod as loud as I can stand while working on holiday projects.

It was a breezy 28 degrees this evening. 28 degrees, people. That's almost that cold that makes your nose stick together when you breathe in. I've been working on BIL's scarf during my lunchbreaks at work, but to be honest, I wish I was making myself a scarf. I've got a great pattern swirling around in my head using cables and some wicked cool handspun/ handpainted wool/ mohair blend. I've had this pattern working around my brain so long it will be a relief to get it out and around my neck!

As mentioned before, I started a crochet version of a moebius for my grandmother. Because she is starting to get a little forgetful, I wanted to make it large enough so she can wear it virtually all the time, like a shawl, but also have the half twist so she can comfortably pull it over her head when she leaves home without having to remember to find it and put it on before leaving the house. Here is the end result. And please excuse how crappy I look in these pictures, or the fact that my brother says I look like I am trying to play virgin Mary in the over-the-head moebius picture.









The whole time my husband is taking the pictures, Sebastian is jumping up trying to get his mug into the shot. So for amusement, here is Sebastian's best "surprise" face:



I'm currently trying to pop out a crochet skull cap. I made them for most of my friends last Christmas, and one of the women at work loved it so much she has been asking all year if I would make one. She offered to pay, but I figure it is a quick project and gives me a break from the never ending scarf for BIL.

This means I only have 3 remaining projects on my holiday list left:
*Spiralen for my brother's Buddhist shrine
*Scarf for Phoebe... I've got two different patterns in mind, so it will depend on what I get for yarn, I suppose
*A simple cabled scarf for my family's Yankee swap

After that, it is all about me for a couple of months! Now to figure how I am going to get Tempting, a top down raglan, my scarf, and a pair of socks done before I need to start working on my Grandmother's birthday gift in February.