Cold Weather
4:59 p.m. - 2013-01-22


It has been frosty for about a week and a half or maybe longer. Some years, the almond trees are blooming by now, but not this year. The other day I had to go through all my seeds to see what I had, and I have lots and lots of seeds. We plan to have an even bigger garden this year because times are still bad. Now that the ivy is gone from the back fence, there is lots of sun back there and a chainlink fence just begging for something to grow up using it as a trellis. We got some rose bushes to grow there, but they will take some years to get bigger so we will fill in with lots of winter squash plants. I'd like to get some raspberries to grow there, too. I saw a lovely assortment of different kinds of berries at the Harmony nursery in Sebastopol, so maybe I can get the spouse to go up there with me and take a look.

I haven't caught the current plague that is going around though both girls had it. I haven't been out and about much lately because I have been trying to draft a round yoke Fair Isle sweater using my TNT sweater pattern as the base. I read lots of books on this type of sweater and got totally confused, but finally turned out the first draft. I already started the ribbings for the first try. It will be dark gray with the yoke design in two shades of mustard yellow/gold. I hope it works, but you don't know until you try. The royal blue sweater is all done, but it doesn't really look that good on me. I tried a new neckline idea, and sometimes these things work and sometimes not. As long as I learn something from the effort, I'm happy. This time I learned that the extra side shaping looks better on me.

I finally got a call from the knitting machine shop that has my bulky machine. She says it is all fixed and ready to go, so I will go and pick it up this week. I feel that the knitting phase is starting to wind down after going strong for about 2 1/2 months. Maybe I'll start sewing again soon.