It's snowing

This was taken this morning; it is now perhaps twice as deep! 

I know, this is not much of an update! 

It's always possible to see pictures at my Instagram, for when I am too lazy to make a whole blog post. 

I will show you a picture I put on Insta the other day! It is also snow-related. 

We learned (from another Instagram post!) that this pancake ice was forming on the Humber, Toronto's western river. It's a short walk from a subway station, so we put on our masks and went across town to see. My camera was almost out of power so I didn't take any video, but if you click through to that link you can see it swirling around. The river comes down off a weir, and some is frozen and some is not, and the ice is forming near the shore, and some water is fast and some is not... so you get swirls of ice in a round ice-free section. Quite nice. 

I might even have some knitting news soon! 

A big ball of cotton

I took this first photo in October of {gasp} last year. I found this yarn at the thrift shop and it might have cost $3 or $4. That is my 13-inch laptop it's sitting on. It's a great big ball of rainbow dishcloth cotton. 

I made my niece a kitchen hand towel of it, and mailed it to her for Christmas without taking a picture! What sort of blogger am I? 

Then I found a charity that makes up starter kits for people setting up homes. They want pots and pans and dishes and blankets and... stuff for the kitchen! So, I made seven more cloths out of that big ball of yarn! I know I have bits of other colours around, but couldn't find them, so everything is just solid rainbows. 
 

This one is your basic ball-band dishcloth. Usually this is done in two colours, but with the multicoloured yarn it works well, I think. 
 

This is one called Clover Tweed, also usually with two colours. Nice and nubbly. 

This is a new-to-me pattern called Simon. 

I love both sides of this, and it looks great in this yarn. Sort of pointillist, sort of pop art. At least, that's my story. 

This is a Double Bump. I love how the colours swirl differently in all these cloths, although they all have about the same number of stitches. 

Another new pattern for me: the Reversible Textured Dishcloth.  It makes a nice texture. 

A round one! I've made this before and I think it looks better in a single colour, but it will wash the dishes just fine. 

Another old favourite, the Tweedish cloth. Every other stitch is slipped on every other row, so the swirls of colour are squashed together. 

The lot. 

 

I also threw in some other cloths and a hat. Someone will need it. 

And a headband, or maybe neck warmer. This is the very last of some Rowan Magpie, one of the great yarns of yesteryear. Not quite enough for a full hat, but it will provide a bit of warmth. 

So, I took all those things off today to the shelter and handed them over, with a bit of cash donated to the Starter Kit program. My good deed for ... now. 

In other news, I took part again in the Christmas card swap on Ravelry. I was a bit miffed because I didn't receive any cards over Christmas but it turned out our letter carrier was off and it looks like his replacement just didn't do much work. I got 12 on the first day our regular guy was back! And they keep coming in. You can see a sort of garland of circles in with the lights -- those are last year's cards cut up. 

I see this is my first post of the year, so Happy New Year to you all. It's not off to a great start, but I hope all sorts of things will improve as we go on.