The O-Zone

Now I can work on something else.

Covers a lot more of the bed after being blocked.

Too warm with a wool dress. But it’s a good kind of too warm.

My next project is to inventory and organize my yarn so I can get all those plastic storage tubs out of the upstairs bedroom, and while I’m at it I’ll unearth my various unfinished knitting projects and put them into a work basket so I can finish them. 

And then I’m going to do some weaving.

I soaked the shawl yesterday and pinned it out on some insulations boards I laid out on the king size bed upstairs, on top of a bunch of towels.

The shawl feels dry, but the towels underneath are still damp when I just checked it, so it isn’t ready to get unpinned.  Most likely tomorrow it will be done.  Everything needs to be completely dry before I unpin it.

I didn’t get it quite square.  It ended up being 57 inches square, and 81 inches across the middle from corner to corner.  A thinner yarn is easier to stretch farther.

It has a lovely halo to the fabric from the qiviut fibers, and the silk gives it a lot of tensile strength.  Patience is such a virtue.  Pity I don’t have any 🙂

Today a pellet stove we had ordered last week showed up, and got installed.

We’ve used firewood for the vast majority of the last 42 years. So it’s time for something completely different.  The color of the stove is a deep reddish brown.

We still buy some firewood assuming we can find anybody to deliver it (that’s getting harder every year), as we have a cook stove in the kitchen and definitely still want to use that.

We’ll buy pellets for the entire winter, and the guys bringing it on a big truck will have a forklift to put the pallets wherever we designate them.  No more splitting and stacking many cords of firewood – yay!

The hearth has to be extended as this new stove is a lot deeper than the old wood stove.  One step at a time 🙂  Our neighbor who built the tile shower is a master stone worker and he can handle this project.

We’ll now have three sources of heat.  Firewood, propane, and pellets.  A good plan for long term future heating.

I finished two important tasks. Friday afternoon I made my first ever batch of Josta Berry Jelly.

It’s pretty much impossible to describe the taste of this jelly, but here goes. The first thing you taste is the sweetness of the jelly, and then the complex flavor and tartness of the fruit hits you like a mack truck. It’s extremely good. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. We will have to have some of this at lunch today.  Which means I need to make something bread-like to put it on.

The second thing that strikes you about this jelly is the color. It’s so dark until light hits it and then it looks like something you’d see in a medieval stained glass window.

All in all, I can see a lot of making this jelly in my immediate future.  Plus Gooseberry Jelly too.  It’s amazing that Gooseberries are half of the makeup of a Josta Berry.  I need to get the freezer downstairs empty of fruit because the garden will want to fill it up again soon.  Sooner than we want, actually.  More pies! 🙂

I finished the knitting on my shawl Saturday morning! Yay!!! And now I need to get to work on blocking it. I figure it will end up being roughly six feet square when I’m done stretching it out. My next task is threading a blocking cord into all the points on the outside border. I figured out this morning how to ensure I have six feet of cord on each side, so it is just a matter of being careful with how the blocking cord is threaded so all the points look the same when the shawl is dry.

The shawl is just deliciously soft and fuzzy, with the shine of the silk showing through. Blocking it will transform this fabric.

Our main project today is getting the greenhouse ready to plant. We really want to get some seeds in the ground.

Spring is really here. There was a Varied Thrush singing this morning right outside our front door!!!! We saw a Western Meadowlark on the main road yesterday, and small flocks of Robins are flying around on the mountain.

And we saw a Yellow-Bellied Marmot sunning himself on top of a rock, no doubt wondering what all that white stuff is on the ground around said rock.

Today I made a pie, and some salsa. I have some other things on my cooking agenda but I kind of ran out of energy.  Tomorrow 🙂

The original raspberry pi.

I’m going to make some coleslaw, sweet rolls, and cream of celery soup.  Then I can rest on my laurels the rest of the week.

When am I ever going to finish this? I wonder the same thing. I’m almost done with the 10th ball of yarn.

Now I’m working on the top border, which will finish this project. The tiny ball at the top next to the needles is all that is left of the 10th ball of yarn.

So I will end up using a hair over 10 balls of yarn, when this is all completed.  I had hoped to block it this weekend, but alas I did no knitting this past week.

Here’s my friend’s grandma wearing the bead knitted purse I made for her 🙂

So maybe this next weekend I’ll get to block my shawl.  It is incredibly boring knitting the border pattern all by itself, and it’s easy to let my mind wander; then I have to undo what I just did while my mind was off doing something other than paying attention to knitting.  I have rough 17 pattern repeats left to go.  I should be able to stand knitting at least a couple of those a day.  We’ll see 🙂

I’ve completed 85% of the pattern rows on my project, and I’m now to the point where knitting is less mind numbing and more just plain knitting. I’ll be finished sometime in early March, if all things remain equal.

Only 82 rows left to knit before I start the top border.

Then the fun part… blocking the shawl to its finished dimensions.  Have to say, I can hardly wait!

Last night we had one of those really pretty sunsets, and I was lucky enough to take a few pictures before it disappeared.

The colors were so intense, and at the horizon with the sun just having set, it was almost on fire.

Then I noticed the snow was reflecting some of the color in the sky.

Then it was even a darker blue sky and the snow was a warmer rose and blue. One of my favorite color combinations!

And then poof, it was over.

I am almost ready to start on the 7th ball of yarn, but today I did no knitting.  So it will remain almost 🙂

Ended up taking most of this last week off from knitting, except for the stray row or two. This weekend I’ve tried to make up for being a slacker.

Almost to the midpoint in the row count, just 8 more rows to go.

So I figure, given my propensity to get distracted, this will take me another two or three months yet to finish.

The way the pattern works is the left quarter is a mirror image of the right quarter, and the top half is a mirror image of the bottom half.

Good thing I made a chart to follow!

After a couple of weeks with below zero temperatures, suddenly having above freezing temperatures feels amazingly warm!

The other morning it snowed, a very pretty spring snowfall (even though it’s not actually spring yet); big flakes, falling thickly.

The snowfall didn’t last all that long but so pretty while it lasted.

So we had blueberry pancakes made with wild blueberries, and some spiced josta berry sauce and a bit of maple syrup on the side because the josta berry sauce is very tart.

It was so warm, we didn’t need to use the wood stove in the living room, and when the cookstove is working, it says “Pancakes.” Who knew wood cookstoves could talk?

I took a break from shawl knitting this weekend and made a bead knitted purse. I decorated it with jet beads and amber beads. Nice to make something fast and get instant results.

Love making these.  They are small but surprising heavy for their size.