Little update

I can show you this previously secret thing now. I made it for someone whose husband has been in hospital.



Alpaca, mohair and a touch of acrylic, very soft, silvery colour... I got the yarn at a swap at Knitomatic once. The pattern is sort of the Simple Yet Effective Shawl, but with a few added eyelet patterns here and there. I bordered the whole thing with a ripply edge from 200 Knitted Blocks. Which took forever...

I am starting to get squares for my a4A blanket. I do love to get mail, I must say! Big envelopes of possibility! I'll sew it all up early next week I think -- can't start till I get the whole lot and spend hours arranging them this way and that.

Squares, happy and sad

The squares in the last post are going to be part of a baby blanket. The children at Elaine's school will contribute some, too -- as well as a teacher or two, and I hope some parents! Since it was my bright idea, I will have the job of sewing it together before the end of the school year and making something wonderful out of it. We shall see!

I will also be sewing squares together in a week or so. You may have heard that Kay's husband passed away last weekend. I've met her and like her, and her kids are about the same ages as my kids, and I just can't imagine what she's dealing with. If I lived down the street, I would take her a banana bread or something, but since we are far away, we knit.

The Fans of Afghans for Afghans on Ravelry suggested making a blanket (or 6, now, I think!) in Kay and Peter's honour, and I am sewing up the Canadian effort. So far, one square: mine.


The finished blanket has to be in San Francisco by mid-May, so I expect to start getting packages in the mail any day. I'll show you the finished project before I send it off.

Square Mary strikes again

Oooh, a square! I love me a nice square.


Garter stitch with some eyelets, a nice heart, multicoloured random bobbles (not really random, since I followed a pattern...) and a good old basketweave.

I should have taken this picture outside this past weekend. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the weeds were getting yanked. Now, it's all grey and the remaining weeds are enjoying a nice rainy drink to encourage growth. And the flash is giving us over-bright colours.

Next up: Maybe a dishcloth!

A bit late for April planning

I have several things on the go, which will be finished any time now...



The green vest is quite fine, but needs something around the neck and arm holes. I know, it's 6 months late (or early) for a nice snug wool vest, but that's the way things go sometimes. (Note the shadows -- the sun is actually shining!)

I'm also knitting a secret something.

It needs one more ball of yarn, I think, before it is complete. This is an alpaca, mohair, acrylic concoction, so the family is going around with watery eyes and sneezy noses. But it is so soft it is worth it!

When I get those two things out of the way, well, there are lots of other half-done things around here, but I will have to turn my attention to 6-inch squares for a moment. The principal at Elaine's school is having a baby this summer and I had the bright idea that the kids should contribute to a blankie. So, I must set a good example by cranking out a few squares myself.

But now I must go peruse my new Spring/Summer Vogue Knitting! Finally!

Oh, and it is my dad's 91st birthday today! He got socks when he turned 90, but you just don't get socks every year...

Okay, back to winter

I do have a wee bit of knitting news, but haven't got around to taking pictures, so you are stuck with the weather again.

Mucky, slushy, cold, wet and grey.

Yesterday we were riding bikes in the lovely sunshine, raking the yard and thinking of what we would grow.

We should be back to nice weather by the weekend again, but for now, muck. Good knitting weather, though yesterday I sat outside to knit....

I like this statue near Yonge and St Clair, but it was so gloomy that my camera flashed this morning. So you get big white snowflakes, which we could do without. And it wasn't the weather for retakes!

In which Mary goes nuts looking for signs of spring

Look, look! A bud, on a lilac bush in my garden! Look!


And, ooh la! A robin! Hopping around on the grey and pathetic grass! (I have no grass; this is someone else's pathetic grass.)


Hey, a rock! Seen through chives growing on my very own back deck!


(And now I must tell you a story. Once upon a time, many years ago when Arthur was in kindergarten, the teacher showed the class a picture and asked them what signs of spring they could see. Bozo [not his real name] says, "I can see a rock." The teacher sighs heavily and says that's not really a sign of spring. Then Son of MothMan says, "I can see a cardinal." Not a rock, not a bird, not even a red bird, but a cardinal. Way to go.)

Yay! Another sign of spring, just found this second, is the preview of the new issue of Vogue Knitting. The magazine is late this year -- usually out in March. Must be global climate change...

Extreme Sheep

I don't want to turn this into Mary's Favourite YouTube things, but I just have to show you all this.

I bet you don't know where spaghetti comes from