When you have lemons

March 22, 2013 / one2travelfar / Leave a comment

When you have snow…go skiing. Travel and surgery caused me to miss the past two winters. I downhill skied once 3 years ago, traveled to Australia in 2010 and was on crutches in 2011.

Yet a beautiful mountain is only 30 minutes away. And we just had 16 inches of fresh snow. And it was midweek. I gave it a try on Wednesday and was reminded how much I enjoy it. Best of all, my ankle worked ( the one that had me on crutches last winter).

What fun, even if my style hasn’t changed in 40 years. I tried out the newfangled skis, shorter than me, had a group lesson, which turned out to be a group of only me, and relished the day. Sweet.

I returned yesterday with DH who immediately wanted to go to the top – he’s a mountain hiker after all. Even though I had been to the summit, three years ago on my one day skiing, I balked.

Some male-female dynamics automatically triggered in my brain and I resisted, initially. Perhaps I have been led astray in the past? Lets just say I had not been to an ER before I met DH and now I have been there twice; first due to broken face in a boating accident; and then due to an ankle injury, which occurred while following him up one of his high peaks. Just sayin’.

So away we went and it was lovely. I’m sold. And I didn’t visit the ER. The view of Lake Placid was stunning.

I’ll be back today after a half day of work. After all, we have snow.

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Snow incentive

March 19, 2013 / one2travelfar / 1 Comment

A winter storm warning is in effect (yeah!) and I have some unfinished business to take care of.

I finished piecing and layering this lovely quilt over the weekend.

Cool, right? Each block is basically a nine patch but stretched in various ways.

I am considering finishing a bunch of quilts (I’ve acquired several almost finished projects) and then quilt them all at the same time, or serially, to work on technique. That should keep me busy for a while.

My Harmonia Rings möbius cowl is complete. I may have to arm wrestle Shirley for it though.

Second time is a charm. I almost followed the directions to a tee, except my gauge was smaller and I added a few stitches. I even added beads for the first time. I think that’s why Shirley likes it so much.

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How was your day?

March 17, 2013 / one2travelfar / 3 Comments

How was your day!

March 16, 2013 / one2travelfar / Leave a comment

Snow is in the forecast but the birds are unaware

March 15, 2013 / one2travelfar / Leave a comment

The temperature is below freezing again but hasn’t stopped the bird migration. It seems every day we hear new songs and see more species at the feeder. This morning a flock of common redpolls stopped by for a frenetic visit. Mourning doves have returned and their song echoes in the woods.

Today a plump, Tufted Titmouse was stopped by and settled in the tree among the spring buds.

As long as the birds don’t care about our Hazardous Weather Outlook, neither will we.

So blue

March 13, 2013 / one2travelfar / Leave a comment

Two projects completed, infinitely more to go. This will be classified as my blue period.

I tried this new technique, which is a woven quilt!

Both passions in one project. It’s from the book, Simply Stunning Woven Quilts.
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I didn’t have the right fusing material on hand and tried using the zigzag attachment on my little ole’ Singer Featherweight but it was more than it could handle. There are some amazing 3-D patterns in this book.

The technique is simple. Fuse two pieces of fabric onto Thermaheat (double sided iron-on fusible material, which I didn’t have) cut into wavy strips and weave them together. I made it in case I couldn’t weave a few placemats in time for a trip to Washington, DC to visit my darling daughter.

But I did.

I didn’t use a thick enough yarn for the weft for the first placemat so it became a towel and I was left with an odd number of placemats. I will definitely try this again – but not before my trip.

An afterthought

March 9, 2013 / one2travelfar / 1 Comment

It’s funny about mittens. They need thumbs. I am trying a new knitting technique, twined knitting, which creates a dense, thick, elastic fabric. So far I have used it with colorwork and haven’t explored all the textures you can create with it – yet.

I was so wrapped up in my twining and twisting and untwisting, I forgot to include a thumb in the second mitten.

I didn’t want to rip back and decided to insert an “afterthought” thumb so I searched for the technique on the Internet.

Almost all the results weren’t an afterthought at all. They required you to knit waste/scrap yarn as a placeholder where you wanted the thumb when you passed by the thumb the first time. There was my problem, I never thought about it the first time as I merrily knit and twined past the where it should have been.

I used the same technique, but instead of ripping out waste yarn, I placed the row above and below on needles and carefully snipped, from the center, the thumb stitches in between.

My main concern was the cut ends might be too short to weave in.

They were short, but not too short and I used a crochet hook to hide them. I can’t tell the difference.

Now they are drying by the fireplace before being sent off to a new bird lover’s home.

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An afterthought

March 9, 2013 / one2travelfar / 1 Comment

I was so wrapped up in my twining and twisting and untwisting, I forgot to include a thumb in the second mitten.

I didn’t want to rip back and decided to insert an “afterthought” thumb so I searched for the technique on the Internet.

I used the same technique, but instead of ripping out waste yarn, I placed the row above and below on needles and carefully snipped, from the center, the thumb stitches in between.

My main concern was the cut ends might be too short to weave in.

They were short, but not too short and I used a crochet hook to hide them. I can’t tell the difference.

Now they are drying by the fireplace before being sent off to a new bird lover’s home.

A ski in the woods

March 7, 2013 / one2travelfar / Leave a comment

Skiing conditions were perfect. The snow was soft and plentiful. I skied through the woods with friends to lunch!

Blue skies even peeked through for a moment.

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Ausable Chasm ice

March 5, 2013 / one2travelfar / Leave a comment

The temperature is gradually turning warmer but ice abounds. I had heard the ice jams at Ausable Chasm were at their peak. I may have missed it by a few days, but it was still pretty spectacular. There were both frozen and flowing waterfalls.

This is the view from the road. These amazing rock formations were purchased and made private in the late 1800’s, even before the Adirondack Park was formed. It is one of the oldest “attractions” in the United States.