Green ...

Even those who don't know me might have figured out that I adore the colour green, particularly the yellower shades. Those who do know me are rolling their eyes, 'cuz they know that I love green to an absurd degree.

Anailese, who is not quite three, puts on a green shirt when she knows I'm coming to visit and tells her mom stories about how I buy green babies at the store and hands me things that are "... zat green zat you yuv so much."

Today, she and her mom were having a conversation about hair colour, because Pippi has red hair and Anailese has blonde hair and so does Barbara and Daddy has brown hair and Anailese's Auntie Neen has black hair with a magenta streak and Lynn-Lynn has reddish hair.

Says Anailese, "Yinn-Yinn doesn't have red hair, Mummy!"
Says Barbara, "Well, reddish blonde"
Says Anailese, "I told you before, Mummy. Yinn-Yinn has greenish blonde hair."
Says Barbara, "Oh really. What colour do you see when you look at Lynn-Lynn?"
Says Anailese with a sigh, looking at her mother like she has a tomato plant growing from her forehead, "Green."

What a dear child!

Poor Neglected Blog ...

Mom and Dad and I went to see the fabulous Back Porch Swing at the lovely Blue Chair Café. It was a great evening! I saw this on the way and went back the next day to take a picture:



More bloody hats (you may be sick of hats, but I'm still having fun knitting them), three more wee socks for Anailese's advent calendar, and a bag I knit for myself from recycled sari silk yarn.



Linda was here this past weekend, for her birthday sleepover. Here she is, ordering a lasagna as big as her head from a menu bigger than she is.



Not colourful pasta ... it's a gorgeous Noboru Kubo bowl full of lurvly yarn, being reborn. I've undone and wound four (different) skeins worth, given them a nice bath, and hung them to dry. I've only to wind them into balls again and they can become (surprise) hats! This is a cathartic experience, unknitting all of these things (Oh, I remember when I bought this yarn, we had such a nice trip. Oh. *sniffle*), changing the energy and turning them into nice warm hats for folx who can use them.



And this is a picture taken with my phone. That's my office at the university, about 45 seconds after it became my office. I don't know how anyone gets anything done in that office ... those trees are full of squirrels and magpies doing squirrelly and magpie-y things all day.



This is an unplanned short-term stint in this department. I wasn't planning on working at the University until after going to Mary and Robin's for the first week of March. There isn't a lot of work to do, but what there is of it is just too much for the Director to do on top of her other duties. I'm not there much, but it sure is a sweet office! And it's nice to be on campus.

Stuff and Nonsense ...

Daylight:

Length of day: 8:52
Hours of dark: 13:00ish
Sunrise: 8:22 am
End of twilight: 5:52 pm

Current weather: Mostly Cloudy. -4°C (24°F), -12°C (10°F) with wind chill, wind N 28.8 km/h (18 mph), gusting to 38.4 km/h (24 mph), relative humidity 60%, pressure 30.4 in Hg.

Forecast:

Today.. Cloudy with sunny periods, 30% chance of flurries. Wind N 30 km/h, gusting to 50 km/h. High -2°C.
Tonight.. A few clouds. Low -13°C.
Wednesday.. Cloudy, 40% chance of flurries in the afternoon. Periods of light snow beginning late in the day. Wind becoming NW 20 km/h late in the morning, increasing to 40 km/h, gusting to 60 km/h late in the day. High -14°C.
Thursday.. Sunny. High -13°C.
Friday.. Sunny. Low -20°C. High -11°C.
Saturday.. Sunny. Low -16°C. High -8°C.
Normals for the period.. Low -17°C. High -5°C.

Baby It's Cold Outside ...

After the blizzard, it's cold and bright and still and beautiful. Cold enough that there are sun dogs! And the air is doing that thing it does for me ... it's full of ice crystals, dancing around. And the snow makes a sound like walking on thin styrofoam with wet feet.

The luxury of knowing I don't have to go out in it and knowing it's going to be short-lived make it enjoying this kind of weather much easier.

Pretty little fort near the APs house, built igloo-style with shaped snow blocks.

Stuff and Nonsense ...

Daylight:

Length of day: 7:55
Hours of dark: 14:35ish
Sunrise: 8:45 am
Sunset: 4:40 pm
Start of twilight: 8:04 am
End of twilight: 5:21 pm

Current weather: Mostly Clear. -35°C (-31°F), -44°C (-47°F) with wind chill, wind S 8 km/h (5 mph), relative humidity 60%, pressure 30.4 in Hg.

Forecast:

Today.. Sunny. Winds up to 15 km/h. High -23°C, -34°C with wind chill.
Tonight.. A few clouds. Wind up to 15 km/h. Temperature rising to -16°C by morning. Wind chill -33°C.
Friday.. Sunny. Wind up to 15 km/h. High -12°C. Wind chill -25°C.
Saturday.. Cloudy with 60% chance of flurries. Low -18°C. High -15°C.
Sunday.. Sunny. Low -21°C. High -11°C.
Monday.. Sunny. Low -12°C. High -3°C.
Normals for the period.. Low -18°C. High -7°C.

Makings ...

The finished Poppet Project, but without the Poppets in 'em:



Using two strands of some reclaimed wool (various lengths and colours, knotted together) and one strand of some fine mohair, I cast on the waist of a sweater, figuring I'd find a pattern by the time I got to the underarms ... nice mindless tube-knitting.
Then I figured I'd just chuck half the stitches onto a spare needle to hold them, cast on for sleeves and do the top part in garter stitch. Lalalala, more mostly mindless knitting with a few short rows to fatten up the upper sleeves and give the shoulders some depth, cast-off and back on again for the neck, like a big button hole, and the short row stuff again in reverse for the other sides of the sleeves ... graft it onto the held stitches, seam up the sleeves, pick up the neck stitches and knit a little collar. Easy! And I was clever about it and sewed in all those ends (from the colour changes) as I went. The sleeves were a little long, but they can be rolled up.

Final step, brag to Mom about knitting a whole sweater without a pattern.



Uh huh. Oops ... I didn't notice the sleeves were different lengths 'til I was two rows from finished the collar.

Now that I look at it, it could have used a bit more depth in the shoulders anyway, and I don't much like the seed stitch bottom with the garter stitch top. Well, Rip, rip, rip, stop and pick out ends, rip, rip, stop and pick out ends, rip, more ends, rip, still more ends, rip, rip, rip, rip, yup, more ends ... it was kinda fun, though, so I did the whole thing and started over from the beginning.

This time, I cast on the sleeves first, did more short rows and made the neck a bit narrower (but still plenty wide for a kid head), seamed the sleeves, knit the body in the round (k4, p1 for the bottom edge), picked up the neck stitches and knit the collar ... then wove in all the ends.



Taa-daa! The two hats on the right and the top left one are from the same yarn. With the ones done before Christmas:



there are ten (recount ... okie, must knit one more) for Old Strathcona area homeless folk (some of which Mom and I dropped off at B's Diner when we went in for their Christmas party ... these folx are great, offering free lunch once a week, as well as collecting and distributing much needed items for the area's homeless) and ten to be sent off for The Dulaan Project, along with the sweater and another that Barbara gave me ... a very nice little Shetland wool sweater she got as a hand-me-down. It's a bit felted, so it'll be nice and warm.

Constructing ...

Christmas happened and I wandered away from the 'puter for weeks! I'm back(ish) now and playing with Blogger's new layout stuff. It's more like building with legos than sticks, though I'll have to do a few bits with sticks, too.