Pompom Is Attached

I finally made a pompom and attached it to my Bousta Beanie.

Man, that pompom took a lot of yarn.

It's almost cold enough to wear it. Brrr.

Thickson's Woods

On Monday, it finally stopped raining and it was mostly sunny. We bundled up and went down to Thickson's Woods to do some birding. It was so cold there were not many bugs around, hence not a lot for the birds to feed on. We did, however see a few species.

Ruby-crowned kinglet

Northern Cardinal

This squirrel rested in the warm sun on a fallen tree trunk for quite a while. 

At this same location (NW corner of the woods) we spotted what we thought was a white-throated sparrow. I didn't get any shots but we later determined it was an ovenbird. That's a first for me up here although I have seen them on South Padre Island at the Convention Center.

In the meadow there were a few tree swallows.

This little pine cone was smaller than my thumb nail.

On the way back to the car, we spotted this grey catbird scuffling around some leafy debris.

Other species we spotted were red-wing blackbirds, American goldfinches, chickadees, and a white crowned sparrow.

These are the first trilliums I've seen this year. Most of the buds were still tightly furled. It's still pretty cold for them to bust out.

We need another sunny day to go birding before all the leaves are out and it's impossible to spot anything. Hopefully tomorrow.

Backyard Birding in early May

We have had cold weather these past few days and it's been too cold to go out birding most days. However, we do see a few species from our kitchen window, beyond which we keep two feeders.

We keep binoculars, bird books, and a camera there so we can capture shots at a moment's notice.

We have several American goldfinches in the neighbourhood so we hang a finch feeder and keep it stocked with nyger seed.

Mr. and Mrs. Goldfinch

There are also several house finches. The male looks like he's been dipped in raspberry juice. The female is much duller but has the same markings.

This morning we had a white-crowned sparrow. It was scrounging around on the ground below the sunflower seed feeder.

Another UFO Finished

I finished the first Mock Cable Sock back in 2011 on my way home from a UK knitting tour.

It's a pattern I improvised using 80 stitches and staggering mock cables.  Instructions are outlined here.

The yarn is lovely, Berocco Ultra Fine alpaca and a beautiful heathered colour (1285) including blue and green fibres. Now that I look at the composition of the yarn, I realize it is rather unsuitable for socks because of the lack of nylon content and alpaca wears through very quickly. Whatever was I thinking?

I found the second sock in a UFO pile and noted that I'd already rounded the heel and only needed to finish the foot and toe.

Ta Da!

It took almost 6 years to finish these? (Sheesh).

I will keep the leftover yarn as I know I will need to darn these suckers in fairly short order.

Gobsmacked!

My wonderful and very clever friend, Marilyn, has recently begun taking watercolour painting lessons. She has been producing amazing pictures.

Last week I showed her a photo a friend took of me with my ukulele the week before. She really liked the quilt in the background.

Today, she presented me with a framed painting!

'Geri & her ukulele' watercolour by Marilyn Girndt 2017

I was totally gobsmacked! I am in total awe of people who can paint and cook. Marilyn can certainly do both. What a wonderful gift!

Bousta Beanie

On Saturday at the Knitter's Frolic I bought the Bousta Beanie kit in the blue colourway from Sheeps Ahoy.

It was a really fast knit.

I still need to make and attach a pom pom.

I LOVE working with this yarn (Jamieson & Smith 2-ply Jumper weight) and am looking for other projects to knit with it.

I'm all ready for Rhinebeck and hope it isn't a really hot day (but not too cold either, please).

Riddari

I finished Riddari, the Icelandic pullover sweater, this evening. It is in the English version of Knitting With Icelandic Wool. 'Riddari' means 'knight' in English.

Last night I had to reknit the neck 3 times before I was happy with it. First, I had to figure out which bindoff was stretchy enough yet also looked good. Then I realized decreasing from 112 sts to 80 was too far so I ripped back to the first round of black after the last round of grey and black and decreased evenly to 88 sts.

The rolled collar was really easy to do. It was 5 rounds of stocking stitch with a loose bindoff. The loose bindoff was achieved by using a 6mm needle.

It knit up quite quickly once I got back at it.

I ignored the names of the sizes and went by the actual dimensions. Skip is normally a 'medium' but his favourite sweaters that go over long-sleeved shirts have a 44" chest so I swatched, determined the stitches per inch, multiplied by 44 and determined which size used that many stitches for the body. In this case, it was the XL size. I also knit the sleeves first to check that the gauge was right before committing to hundreds of stitches for the body.

I still have a bunch of ends to weave in.  The yoke rounds start at the left shoulder blade and the jogs really aren't apparent.

I didn't add any rows on the back to bring it up a bit higher than the front. A little coaxing when I block it should do the trick.

A few years back I made these labels using printable fusible web and satin ribbon. I sewed one in so Skip will know the back from the front.

I'm very pleased with it and know it will look smashing with black, or grey trousers, or jeans. Skip suggested I knit one for myself so we'll have matching sweaters. I just may do that as I'm hoping to go on a Baltic cruise next year. If I do one for myself, I would definitely 'cardigan-ize' it.

For now, I have enough yarn left over to knit a matching hat. I will definitely line it with light fleece or t-shirt material as this yarn is really scratchy. My sources tell me that using hair conditioner in the water when I wet block it will soften it up a bit.