A slight setback

Actually, it was a rather large setback: 18 inches of fresh snow on Tuesday, March 14. We'd been enjoying patches of bare ground up until the blizzard hit. Now we're back to snow covering the ground. Although the snow has melted a little and settled a little, I'm sure there's at least a good 12" of it out there.

In the late afternoon during the storm I braved the elements to take Sage out for a potty break.

It was tough going, and crawling over the snowbank at the end of the driveway, compliments of the town's snowplows, was a real challenge.

I finished the Child's Sophisticate cardigan that I'd been working on for several days, then I added a hat to match.

With still a little yarn left over, I made a couple more hats. These I'll donate to charity.

I'm not entirely depressed by last week's snowstorm. Spring will come to Maine.

It's just that some years it's a long while getting here. Meanwhile, I have three pots of fresh basil growing on my kitchen windowsill.

Quick and painless

I think I can make this quick and painless. I was shocked, though, to realize just now that my last post was February 7, and here it is March 7 today.

Along about February 8 or 9 I came down with a flu or a bad chest cold or something. It completely drained my energy. By "completely drained," I mean I spent days on the sofa. I'd get up to fix a meal or do a little housework, but that would drain my energy, so I'd be back on the sofa again.


A bad cough was part of the deal, so I slept upstairs in a guest room so as not to keep Ken awake all night with my coughing.

Just as I was preparing to return to our "connubial bed," Ken came down with what I had had. That sent me back upstairs so his coughing wouldn't keep me awake all night.

That little circus seemed to take up most of February. Then there were a couple of doozie snowstorms, as you can see from the first photo.

Violet arrived for a visit just after Ken and I both realized we'd be living, after all. She brought with her a kit to knit a hat for a friend's expected baby.

I was a little nervous about introducing her to knitting in the round on a circular needle and, even more challenging, knitting with three or four double-point needles as she neared the crown of the hat.

I needn't have worried. She took to the task like a champ and knit not only the baby hat, but also a hat for herself.

She visited us this past Sunday and I couldn't help but notice she was wearing her hat the entire time she was here! What's more, a friend has asked Violet to knit a hat for her.

One thing I did accomplish during my malady was knitted hats. I've given eleven of these to my friend CarolAnn, who donates them to her church's missionary program. The pattern for all these hats is the Simple Sample Hat, which I mentioned in a post recently. It's a quick and enjoyable hat pattern.

Now that I've tired myself of knitting hats, I've started a "Child Sophisticate" cardigan for a cute little guy named Luke. I have no doubt but what Luke will look dashing in this sweater some day soon.

I think it's official: I've got my groove back.

Hearts

I think my 2017 Valentine hearts are done.

Unless I decide to make one or two or five more.

They are fun to make. It always takes me awhile to start them, though, because I have to reprogram myself to switch from knitting needles to small embroidery needles.

Once I've made the transition, I'm on fire with enthusiasm for the project.

I spend a year, from one January to the next, collecting heart ideas on Pinterest. I have a special folder labeled "Valentines," and into go photos of any hearts that look reasonable for recreating.

This was the winner this year, and I think it might be my prettiest yet.

I send one heart to the seven-or-eight-year-old daughter of a former student. I've been sending her a Valentine heart each year for about five years. She wouldn't know me if she met me on the street, but she's cute and I think she might enjoy getting a heart each year.

I'll send one to a friend in far southern Maine who sends me one of her photo calendars each Christmas. This is my way of thanking her.

 I'll give one to my good friend, Lynn, just because. She has the biggest heart of anyone I know.

This year I'll send one to a niece who , I suspect, needs a boost of morale. She doesn't have an easy life.

I'll save one for myself, as a record of what my 2017 hearts looked like.

That leaves one spare heart, which will find a home somewhere, I'm sure.

Now it's time to get back to my knitting.

Some knitting and an adorable photo

I love this hat pattern! (I love this dog, too, but she was not supposed to be in the photo. She photo bombed it.)

The hat is the Simple Sample Hat by Christine Roy.  It's a free download on Ravelry.

After finishing the adult ladies' cardigan for a friend's daughter, then knitting a child's cardigan and matching cardigan for her 18" doll, I was desperate to knit something quick and easy.

Voila! The Simple Sample Hat. Just what the doctor ordered.

The yarn I chose for my first Simple Sample Hat doesn't show the beautiful pattern all that well, so I decided to knit the second hat in a lighter color.

I started the light blue Simple Sample last evening and finished it this morning.

I made a few changes in the pattern for the second hat: I wanted it to be a bit larger and a bit more tightly knit, since I was using DK or worsted yarn rather than the heavier yarn called for. So I added eight stitches to the cast on, then I added an extra row or two here and there as I worked toward the crown of the hat. I also used smaller needles.

My adjustments worked out well. The pattern fits a female adult with an average-sized noggin.

And I leave you with this. Isn't this one of the cutest photos you've ever seen? It's not my photo; I found it on Facebook, but I had to share it. The dog seems to think it's perfectly normal to be sitting there, in his jammies, with the family's other two children.

(I'm adding to my header a photo of my freshly-baked Vermont Whole Wheat Oatmeal Honey Bread, a recipe from King Arthur Flour. I figure it might lure you into this post.)

It's stahmin'

Yes, it's storming. If you're an honest-to-goodness Downeaster, having been born in Downeast Maine and having lived there all your life, you'd probably say it's stahmin'.

Whatever, it's a rather lousy day. Snow, sleet, rain, you name it. The snow is as coarse as a really coarse salt. Icicles hang everywhere.

I took this photo of a bluejay who wasn't enjoying the weather any more than I. He perched in the lilac bush outside the kitchen window this morning and stayed there a long while.

He couldn't even muster up the enthusiasm to visit the bird feeder nearby. Can't say that I blame him.

According to the forecast, the ice build-up on tree limbs could cause them to snap and fall on power lines later today. Power outages are likely. Not fun. I'd better go do some knitting while the power is still on....

Bread in a bag

...except I don't put the dough ingredients into a bag.

I've made this bread three or four times recently because it's so darned easy and it doesn't make a baking mess in my kitchen.

I found the link for the recipe on Facebook. I decided to give it a test run, to see if it might be something Violet and I could do together during her next visit. I thought mixing up bread dough in a plastic bag sounded like a terrific idea.

Once I went to the actual recipe site, though, and read some reviews, I liked the idea of mixing it in a bowl even more.

While mixing the ingredients, I have a two-cup measure of water heating in the microwave.

Once all the ingredients have been mixed together and stirred well, I set aside the two-cup measure of hot water in a corner of the microwave, place the bowl of dough in the microwave, and let it sit there to rise.

(I do NOT turn on the microwave while the dough is rising.)

I remove the risen dough from the microwave, stir it down, and put it back into the microwave. I repeat this step 3-4-5 times, depending on how much time I have, what time I need to have the bread baked, etc.

After letting the dough rise several times, I take it from the bowl, knead it a few times on my flour-dusted bread board, put it into a greased loaf pan, and place it in the microwave one final time to rise before baking.

I bake it at 350-375 ° for about 30 minutes. Done. Delicious bread.

The last two times I've made this bread, I substituted one scant cup of whole wheat flour for the third cup of white flour. I use a scant cup because whole wheat flour is heavier than regular flour, and I don't want the dough to be too heavy.

So that's how I make Bread-in-a-bag (but not in a bag).

Some snow and some knitting

We received a beautiful snowstorm on Thursday, December 29. The timing couldn't have been better, because that was also the day Violet arrived to spend two nights with us.

We woke up to 18-22" of the light, fluffy stuff on Friday morning.

Violet and I were eager to get out into the snow, she to go sledding, I to go snowshoeing.

We found the snow was too light for good sledding and snowshoeing, though. Violet's flying saucer simply sank down into the deep snow, and my snowshoes did the same.

Undaunted, we got up Saturday morning for another attempt. By this time the snow had sunk down a little and was easier to pack.

Here's Violet's favorite sledding hill. As you can see, she made several runs down the hill in her flying saucer.

Snowshoeing was much easier for me on Saturday, largely because of the more-packed snow, but also because I decided to use my cross-country ski poles as walking sticks. What a difference!

It wasn't long before Sage decided to join the fun. She's usually on a leash when outside, but this time I unhooked her leash and let her run free.

I managed to capture this photo as Violet and Sage came up the hill after a wild ride down.

Sage sometimes stopped during a wild run and began digging furiously in the snow. That's what she's doing here. I wondered if maybe she could sniff out mice living beneath the snow for the winter.

It's safe to say Violet, Sage, and I got our money's worth out of that snowstorm. Now I'm ready for another one. So is Sage. Violet, of course, is back at school.

On the knitting front, this is a sweater (Sirdar 1401) that I knit for my friend's grand daughter, Phoebe, for Christmas.

Except it's too small.

I valiantly offered to knit the sweater again, this time in a larger size.

I'd forgotten, apparently, how much I'd hated knitting this pattern the first time.

I've been knitting attempt #2 for several days now. Yesterday I grew so tired of it and its crazy design that I came this close to raveling out the darned thing and selecting an easier pattern.

Then I got myself under control, pointed out to myself that I was more than half done with the project, and told myself to forge ahead.

So that's what I'm doing now.

What causes me to get discouraged with Sirdar #1401 is, first of all, the stupid line just above the top garter stitch edge on the back. With both the pale aqua version, and now with the pink version, I do a really, really, really awful job of picking up stitches along that edge to begin the garter rows. I thought I might do a better job of it the second time around, but I was definitely mistaken. I've been pondering this problem and wondering if perhaps I can add a little hand-embroidered bit along that top garter edge to hide my messiness.

Then there's that ugly seam halfway down the middle of the back. On Ravelry, others who've knit this cardigan and who've hated that ugly seam as much as I do have said, casually, that they avoided the seam altogether by "knitting the entire sweater body as one piece." I wish I were that accomplished as a knitter!

Oh, well. The sweater will get done, and Phoebe probably won't notice my amateur knitting. The pattern will be going into the paper recycling bin as soon as the project is DONE.