Brrr...

My poor plants! I spent a goodly part of Saturday transplanting little seedlings into larger digs with real soil instead of starter mix. I also started some new seeds: broccoli, tomatoes, coreopsis and marigolds (dye flowers!). They now won’t all fit under the lights so some of the transplants must spend their days in the greenhouse. It’s so cold (snowed yesterday!) that they are shivering out there. It’s not actually freezing though so it’s better than sitting indoors in the dark. All of these are things are fairly cold-hardy plants so I’m hoping they will get used to the cool greenhouse eventually. But I won’t leave them out overnight until it warms up considerably. It’s a PITA to keep schlepping the flats in and out every day. Today I just managed to miss a downpour that happened right after I got inside. The things I do for fresh veggies!

Nearly a dozen braved the wind and snow yesterday to get to our Sunday Ravelry group meetup at the coffee shop. I might be the granny of the group but they are all intelligent and interesting women and I quite enjoy their company. I almost forgot my hearing aids though and had to make a quick about-face to fetch them! In a noisy coffee shop with many conversations going at once, I would be totally lost without my “ears” on. They have convinced me – ok, it didn’t take much convincing – to participate in a KAL beginning April 1. We’ll be using the Selbu Modern tam pattern (pdf link) by Kate Gagnon (the same designer as my Earthly Beret, aka Springtime in Philadelphia). I haven’t done any stranded knitting in awhile and it’s a cute tam. Anyway that’s my excuse! I have one skein of Louet Gems fingering that I had already dyed red-orange and I was going to dye another contrasting skein for the main colour. But when we made our usual Sunday afternoon pilgrimage to our LYS, I found a skein of Koigu in a semi-solid dark grey that worked perfectly with the orange. So I bought it instead. Just saving myself a little work! Plus I still have 2 skeins of white Gems to dye for something else. BTW that’s my very first skein of Koigu ever:


I’m on the home stretch on the Bead-Dazzled Scarf. Only 2 rows and the bind-off with beads included to go. I want to have it blocked and ready to take to my guild meeting on Thursday so I’m on a last push to finish the knitting today. Then it’s on to the Papyrine Shawl so I will definitely need something more portable to start at the same time. The paper yarn is too fragile to travel and it needs great concentration to knit my pattern which has formal leaf borders framing a more free-form and oval-shaped central section. Decisions must be made on every row so there is no rest for the weary knitter! And the tam KAL will also take concentration. A mindless alternative to them both will be a must. Socks perhaps? I don’t currently have any on the needles. Ooh, how unusual!

It’s going to be a busy week. Not only do I have to finish the scarf but more plants must be transplanted, a weavers’ guild meeting on Thursday to which I must bring cookies and Saturday is our day for the guild to have a booth at the new Fibres West event. I was hoping to fit a haircut in there somewhere too. We won’t even discuss the housework that has been sorely neglected. The dustbunnies are getting way too comfy and are reproducing like mad. Though one big thing did get crossed off the list this weekend: while I was playing with my plants,T-Man finished up repairing the insulation in the last attic space, vacuumed it all out and put everything back in again. It was a much easier job than I had originally thought it would be. And I didn’t even need to help him.

Spring Equinox is on Friday morning (4:44am PDT) but true spring seems to be running very late judging by the delay in many plants’ development caused by the cold weather. We aren’t even sure yet whether some plants have even made it through that horrendous winter.