Calvin's New Hat

With the cold weather now truly upon us (for good this time) Calvin and I made a fire yesterday afternoon that we kept going until I went to bed after midnight. The wood was wet from a few straight days of cold rain, but we managed. And as Calvin played in the living room and watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (yawnsville) on my laptop, I started crocheting him a new winter hat. It's just a rectangle made from half-double crochet stitches. You fold it in half, stitch up one long side and one short side, then tack the corners together inside the hat. Make a pom-pom for the top and you're done.

I think he likes it. Now to make a matching scarf and some mittens.

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Nubby Crochet Throw

Another project done! This throw is riddled with errors, but from a safe distance they are unnoticeable.

This will go in the bedroom with the new quilt (once we get the energy and time needed to move all the furniture and paint the walls and ceiling). It really only serves as a lap quilt because when I ran out of the cream yarn (two of the those big 1 lb skeins!) I decided that meant I was done, mentally, with the project.

On to bigger and better things! My next crochet project will be my first foray into making a sweater. Eek!

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April (Snow) Showers

Yep, it's snowing today. I sit at home with a sick child and watch the snow come down outside. I'm thankful that I had just enough time yesterday to get the old leaves and sticks off most of the backyard gardens. Daffodil foliage is pushing up and the pulmonaria is starting to get tiny, intrepid leaves checking out the world above the surface. Will they push on despite the cold and snow? I hope so.

A couple weeks ago I cut out the pieces for my Easter dress but I haven't been in the mood to sew when I've had the time and I haven't had the time when I've been in the mood. That's just how it goes sometimes, I guess.

Instead, I fiddled around with some of these using the leftovers from my tea cozy project.

And now that I have my pattern back, I'm going to make another beret, this time in three colors. I had started it last week, but only got as far as you see here before my pattern made an impromptu trip to the Detroit airport with my sister's family after they dropped off their dog for us to dogsit. They printed their tickets off our printer and the pattern was accidentally mixed in. Now it is safe and sound and I'm ready to do a bit more work on it.

I'll probably make some more wristers to go with it as well.

I had hoped to go to the Antiquarian Book and Paper Show this afternoon, but circumstances being what they are (sick boy, husband at church all day because he's preaching at the Chin service too) I guess I'll have to wait until it comes back in September. I'm a bit bummed as I was hoping to find another book or two of children's verse to add to my growing collection. I think I'll share what I have with you in a blog post soon.

In the meantime, we've been watching Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, finger-painting, and leaving stuffed animals on the floor (just because we can now that the dog that eats them has gone home). And now that the boy is in his crib for a nap, I just may start sewing that Easter dress. Yes. Even though the snow has turned to hail.

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Springy Tea Cozy

Okay, I have no idea if a tea cozy has any effect whatsoever on the temperature level inside a tea pot, but isn't this cute?

I found the pattern through Ravelry.com, but here's the direct link. Alice at Crochet with Raymond has a lot of fun tutorials and patterns on her site, and they are so colorful. I will definitely be visiting her blog regularly now.

The pattern was easy, even though I had to make some adjustments because my tea pot was a slightly different shape. It's a very adaptable pattern.

It only took a few hours to complete, so it was a welcome but short distraction from quilting. It's nice to start a finish a project so fast once in a while. Keeps you from getting discouraged by your bigger projects that take days, weeks, months . . . or years.

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Dog Math

1/2 + 1/2 = 1  Right?

So why doesn't one half-wit dog plus a second half-wit dog equal out to one moderately intelligent dog?

One of the mysteries of the universe.

This weekend I'm giving myself a diversion from hand quilting and making one of these. I don't know if tea cozies are functional, but I've been wanting to try one for a while. The colors I've chosen match the sunroom. I hoping someday I will be able to have tea in there again. Once I finish the quilt I'm avoiding by making this tea cozy, that is!

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The First Song

Sunday morning when I went out to start the car to let it warm up before heading to church, I heard the first spring birdsong of the year. I'm fairly certain it was a tufted titmouse. To hear it, click here and play the little sound track below the photo. I stopped in my tracks and watched the little singer way up in the old sugar maple flit from branch to branch as he called out for a mate. This pause may have been part of the reason I was late to Sunday school that morning. But what northerner could tear herself away from such a beautiful sound?

I stared up at the sky with a dumb smile on my face, thinking of all the little springy signs that would follow this song. Soon we will have our February thaw, which will in turn cause otherwise sensible people to go around in shorts and no coats, despite the fact that it will probably not even get past 36 degrees. This won't last, as we will get snow again in March and likely in April (as always). But it will trick us into bizarre behavior, like trying to sneak the seeds of tender vegetables into the ground, thinking that maybe, just maybe we'll get a jump on our very short growing season. They'll all perish in the ensuing frosts, but I guarantee some overeager gardeners will do it just the same.

But I am a realist. It will be cold and fairly miserable during February and March. So let's just embrace it. Make some "transitional" garments and accessories.

This weekend I crocheted these wristers to go with my blue beret. They're alpaca, so they're warm, but the pattern is full of holes, so they're cool. They're perfect to wear while I'm out tromping around in the woods in March, searching for signs of spring to photograph.

Here's the pattern, if you're interested.

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Odds and Ends

These odds and ends are begging to be a striped scarf to coordinate with my blue beret. Don't you think?

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Blue Beret

Have you noticed that I like blue? It has long been my favorite color, supplanting hot pink (can you imagine?) when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I like most shades of blue, but this deep, rich, jewel-toned one is way up there at the top of the list. When I decided I wanted to crochet a hat, I went to Jo-Ann's and quickly zeroed in on this beautiful blue alpaca yarn and bought it—before I even looked through patterns. Luckily in my friend Kristin's humonguous stash of Crochet Today magazine I found the pattern for this beret and it worked with the weight of yarn I'd chosen:

By the way, how do you like the new specs?

I didn't finish it in an afternoon, as the pattern suggested I might, but I did finish it after just a couple nights' work (and that was with ripping out three rounds where I had messed up). It was nice to start and finish something within that short timeframe since my other projects keep lingering on and on and on. I really do need to make the most of what's left of winter and get my hand quilting done. But I'm so very tempted to just keep making hats. *sigh*

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