Although we've continued to get snow up here, it is starting to feel a bit more like spring. I'm really ready for it! We got over 3 feet of snow last week: 1 foot early in the week and another 2+ feet on Thursday. It was really heavy snow, but I got it shoveled. Here is what it looked like in the middle of the second storm:
I try to keep the little deck at the front door shoveled since Lance likes to sit out there, but it's not easy in these big spring storms. And, yes, he does sit out there in the snow and then come into the house completely covered! It's too funny for me to be bothered by it! We've had warm weather this week with just light snow showers every once in a while so about 80-90% of the snow has melted. Hopefully, this is the last big storm! My hammock is just begging to get some use!!
I've also been doing some knitting. My main project is the Pacificus DK sweater designed by Laura Nelkin. Laura is having a knit-along for this sweater right now so that's keeping me on track. For her knit-alongs, Laura defines goals with deadlines and everyone who meets the goal by the deadline gets put into a hat for a nice prize. I haven't won any prizes, but I've kept up and should have a completed summer sweater by the end of May. Before knitting a sweater, you always want to knit a swatch with the yarn and needles you plan to use. You then measure the swatch and compare it with what the designer got. If your swatch isn't the right size, you change needles until you get close to what the designer got. If you don't do this, your sweater won't be the right size. Here is my swatch being protected by Buttercup:
Since I grew up with a thrifty German mother and I don't have any use for a bunch of squares of knitted fabric of different sizes, I leave my swatch attached to the ball of yarn and unravel the swatch to use in the project once I get gauge. For this sweater, I knit 4 different swatches before getting the right size so I would have wasted a lot of yarn if I hadn't done that!
The Pacificus DK sweater has an interesting side-to-side construction. You start knitting at the edge of the right sleeve and continue across the sweater until finishing at the edge of the left sleeve. Then you knit a narrow panel from the bottom edge of the sweater up to the underarm edge of the sleeve to attach the front of the sweater to the back. You can see that in this picture which shows my current progress:
The right sleeve is at the bottom of the picture, the neck opening is in the middle, and the bottom edges of the sweater are on the left and right in the picture. Here is a picture of it folded to what it will look like when finished:
In this picture, the right sleeve is pointing to the lower-left corner of the picture, the bottom edge of the sweater is on the right side of the picture, and the neck opening is pointing to the upper-left corner of the picture. I've just gotten to the left edge of the neck opening, so the next section will be the left side of the sweater and the left sleeve. When that's done, I'll just need to knit the side panels and then fold up the hem on the bottom. Those parts shouldn't take too long. Here is a close-up of the lace section at the top of the sweater:
I really love how this lace looks! And here is a picture of one of the cute kitty stitch markers I'm using:
Isn't that adorable??? For my non-knitter friends, the stitch markers sit on the cable between my knitting needles to show me where the plain knitting ends and the lace knitting begins so I don't have to keep counting stitches. The cable connects my two knitting needles and holds the stitches that I am currently knitting, effectively giving me one long, double-ended knitting needle.
I've also made some progress on my other big project -- my Creek sweater designed by the Berroco (a yarn company) Design team. This sweater is knit from the bottom up, so it's easier to see how it goes together:
I've got the bottom of this sweater done and have split for the sleeve and started up the front. This is a slow stitch to do, but will hopefully feel like it's going faster now since I'll be working on narrower sections of the sweater. I really love how this sweater feels and can't wait to wear it!
Those of you that have been reading my blog for a while know that I hate blocking my knitting, but you really have to block lace items in order to see the lace. I finally made myself block the two lace shawls that I finished earlier this year. The first is the Fraser's Ridge shawl designed by Rachel Roden:
The shawl really looks so beautiful and feels so ethereal after blocking that it's really worth the effort! And here is my gratuitous Lance picture for my good friend who is always nice enough to ask for pictures of him:
The other shawl I blocked was my Easy Goes It shawl designed by Finicky Creations:
And, of course, Lance had to model this one, too!
Lance actually loves to model my stuff because he knows that he's going to get a treat when we're done. And he's incredible about being patient while I take the picture. What a sweetie!!
The only sewing I've done is to make a couple of accessories for my masks. First, I made a band that I can hook my elastic to if my ears start to hurt from the elastic:
This will be nice if I have to wear my mask for a long period of time for some reason. The other thing I made were some filters to put inside my masks:
These filters are made out of Oly-Fun and will slide inside of the mask. I tried to show you how they fit in the mask, but it's a little hard to see. I made 4 filters since I have 4 masks so I can easily wash the masks between wearings. Oly-Fun is a 100% polypropylene fabric that a lot of people are using for mask filters. I haven't done the research myself, but feel good about the group of people that I've seen using this fabric so I'm going to use it, too. According to the Joann's web site:
As a non-woven it is similar to the material used in surgical masks, however, OLY-Fun has not been tested or approved for medical use or filtration capabilities. A one-ply sheet of OLY-Fun is a non-woven 65GSM, whereas commercially manufactured surgical masks are typically made of 3-ply 25GSM non-woven with additional filtration added. Please note, homemade masks are not a substitute or replacement for N95 medical equipment.
It's the same fabric that is used for a lot of reusable shopping bags. It's easy to sew, but I'm not sure if it can be washed. The care instructions on the package say to "wipe clean" and that you can use an iron on low heat with a pressing cloth, but doesn't say anything about washing. I'll probably try blasting the filters with steam from my iron to disinfect them between use. We'll see what that does....
Well, that's all the crafting for now. The stay at home order for the state of Colorado is lifting tomorrow, although they're still asking people to stay home as much as possible (calling it "safe at home"). Boulder County has extended the stay at home order until May 8 so people around here should still be hunkered down. I hope all of you are doing well!!
Nancy
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