Lots of Snow!!

 Hi all -

It's definitely been an interesting March! This month we went from having one of our drier winters to having enough snow to bring our snow pack up to its normal depth for this time of year. This mostly happened over a single weekend, about 2 weeks ago! We are now having one of our top 5 snowiest Marches in recorded Colorado history. They got about 2 feet of snow down in Denver, and we got over 3 feet at my house. While I'm really happy to get the moisture and know that we need more to recover from the severe drought we've been experiencing, I have to admit that I'm more than ready for spring! Here are some pictures from when I was shoveling. This is what I got done in the first session, before quitting so I could attend a work meeting:

Here's a close-up of the car after shoveling the snow all around it:

Lance has to watch from behind the gate because he likes to stand right under my elbow and get petted, which doesn't help with the shoveling:

His face is covered with snow because the wind kept blowing the snow out of the trees and around from the piles. Luckily, it was a beautiful day to shovel!

We had some warm days last week that helped with the melting, but this week has been cloudy all week with a couple of inches of snow each day, so it's been piling back up. Here's what it looks like out my front door right now:

We're supposed to have some warm weather this weekend, so I'm really looking forward to that!

On a fun note, we had a couple of visitors last Friday. I was attending a live zoom cast-on party for a sweater knit-along when out of the corner of my eye I saw a moose walk past my window. I love moose, but know that they don't get along well with dogs so I immediately got up and closed the doggie door so Lance couldn't go outside and visit them. There were two moose in my yard munching on the bushes and the aspen trees. They didn't cooperate for really good pictures, but I'll share a few anyway:

They grazed for about an hour, then decided to lay down in the snow just outside of my kitchen window for the rest of the day. I, of course, kept going into the kitchen to look at them because they're such incredible animals! Luckily, I was able to take Lance outside on leash a couple of times to relieve himself because they were laying in a place where the corner of the kitchen blocked their view of the front door. I look forward to seeing them again!

Now let's get down to crafting! I've continued to make progress on my various projects. I was able to finish my long-stitch parrots:

Scarlet Macaws

This will be set aside until I decide what I want to do with it. I'm currently thinking it'll get sewn into a zippered tote bag big enough to hold my cross-stitch frame.

I also made progress on my Christmas banner:

It's fun to see Santa taking shape!

And I'm almost finished with my I See Spring sweater designed by Joji Locatelli:

I See Spring

This one is almost done. I just need to pick up stitches around the neckline and knit a couple of rounds of garter stitch, undo and redo the bind-off on one of the sleeves because it came out too tight, and weave in the ends. There are some things that didn't come out great in this sweater, but it fits well and I think it will be really comfortable to wear. I look forward to some nice spring weather so I can wear it!

And, since I'm always looking at new projects, I started a new cross-stitch project. This is a new one that I just purchased because it will be perfect for my sister and her husband. It's a picture of a Dachshund that looks exactly like their dog! Right now, it's a head-less dog:

Dachshund

This project has been going fast so I expect I'll have it finished soon. I'm a little worried that there won't be enough thread in some of the colors, but hopefully I can trust the maker. This uses wool thread and I don't know what brand it is or what the color numbers are so it will be very difficult to match the threads if there isn't enough. When it's finished, I'll probably get it framed for my sister and her husband. Like all dog owners, they really dote on their baby so I think they'll be thrilled with this gift!

That's all I've been working on for the last couple of weeks. As usual, I also have a bunch of projects on my mind. I found a couple more cross-stitch projects that I had started that I'd like to finish now. One of them is all ready to go, the other one was in a plastic sack that basically disintegrated and I couldn't find the thread with a quick look around, so I'll have to do some more searching before I can work on that one. I have the yarn for a cardigan that I'll knit in a knit-along, so I need to finish my current sweater so I feel better about starting on the new one. The knit-along runs through June so I should have enough time to finish even though I'll be starting a little bit late. There's also a knit shawl project that I'm excited to start and necklace project made using a little lucet that I'd really like to play with. I love learning how to use new-to-me tools! And so many more that I won't even mention.....

I hope everyone is having a wonderful spring! 

Nancy

Fanciful Butterfly Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! Spring has been showing itself around here. We've had bright blue days with temperatures in the 40s for the last couple of weeks, with one snow day a week to keep us on our toes.We're up in the mountains so it's not unusual for us to get snow storms up until June. I want to get the snow because we're in a severe drought, but it sure is nice to get those beautiful, warm days! And I love it as our days continue to get longer and longer!

I've just been flitting between projects that grab my interest. I finished my Fanciful Butterfly cross-stitch project.

Fanciful Butterfly

This piece finished at 5" square. I love all of the details! I've put it aside for now, but will probably stitch it into a project bag at some point. I'm really enjoying getting back into cross-stitch so you'll be seeing more of these projects in the future! Micheal's used to have a lot of great sales on handwork kits and, being a sale whore and a hoarder, I have a large stash of projects to choose from.

I've also continued to make progress on my current sweater, I See Spring designed by Joji Locatelli.

I See Spring by Joji Locatelli

As you can see, I now have both sleeves finished and I've made some progress on the body. All I have left to do is finish the body and pick up the stitches around the neckline and knit a couple of rounds of garter stitch to stabilize the neck. I want to finish this sweater up in the next couple of weeks because the Grocery Girls, the knitting podcast that I love, are having a knit-along for the Comfort Fade Cardi designed by Andrea Mowry and I want to join in. They're having a zoom cast-on party on March 19. I ordered yarn from a company in Canada and it's scheduled to arrive on March 18 so I might possibly be able to cast-on with everyone else. If it's late, no problem. I can catch up since we have a couple of months to knit the sweater.

To keep my roving interest satisfied, I've also picked up a couple of new projects. The first is a project that I started many years ago and then put aside. It's a felt applique Christmas banner:

I really love doing felt applique and have mostly made Christmas ornaments. But it would be a really bad idea for me to put up a Christmas tree with my current cats, so this Christmas banner will be something fun that I can put up and enjoy for Christmas. I'm not sure why I hadn't picked it up in so long because I'm really enjoying working on it now. It still has a ways to go since it has about 120 felt pieces and I'm currently working on piece #13.

My final project is a new long stitch project that I pulled out of my stash.

Scarlet Macaws

Long stitch is a form of needle point, done using all of the same materials as regular needlepoint, where you make long vertical stitches rather than the regular small diagonal stitches. As you can see, these projects are very quick to do (I started this one after finishing my butterfly cross-stitch, so less than 2 weeks ago), but they can still have a lot of detail. And the vertical stitches really look cool. When I finish this, I'll put it aside for a while, but will probably end up sewing it into a tall tote bag with a zipper closure that will fit the cross-stitch frame that I use. Currently, projects using this frame are stored in a regular open-top tote bag, but I like having my project bags securely closed to I'm more confident that I won't lose anything. I haven't lost anything yet, but I'll still feel better with something more secure.

That's all for this post. I'm really enjoying the variety of what I'm doing right now. But, as usual, the list of projects that I want to work on is so much longer that what you're seeing. It's so hard to pick what to work on! So I'll just keep plugging away.....

Nancy