Five on Friday

Joining up with Amy's Five on Friday today.

I've not been able to blog much for the past few weeks. I've been working on a few projects in all my spare time, and just couldn't find time to blog. Thank you for all your kind comments on the knitted scarf I last wrote about. I apologize for not replying to comments (which I normally do), but time has not been on my side lately. I haven't been able to finish that scarf as I didn't have enough yarn to make it as long as I like. I haven't quite decided what I'll do with it, but the yarn is too beautiful to be cast aside. I have a couple of ideas though, both of which involve ripping back the entire scarf.

One: Last weekend my husband and I took the dog for a walk at Heber Downs Conservation Area at the north end of my town. We were surprised to see snow in the woods as it's been so rainy and mild all this winter. There is no snow where I live closer to Lake Ontario. The path was quite icy, but the woods were pretty with fog hanging low in several spots. We walked along the paths that I have only recently started to explore ... and we got lost. Lost in the woods! The paths are not marked, which I find amazing for a conservation area, and it seems people have created their own paths criss-crossing through the woods. We followed one such path straight across the woods and met up with a well-worn path along the other side. Unfortunately, that well-worn path soon petered out into nothing in a very boggy, icy, deep snow section, and that's where we got lost. We didn't want to back track ... I hate backtracking ... so futile ... I want to complete the trail! We did have to go back a little ways as the bog was getting too difficult to get through. We ended up finding someone's laneway through the woods and came out on a road quite far from where we thought we were. Where we came out onto the road was a sign "Private Property/No Trespassing" ... oops! It was a long walk back to the truck, and rather than seeing the fun and adventure in that, my husband just got annoyed. Oh well, Cody and I enjoyed the adventure ;)

 

Two: This is one of the projects I was working on. One of my daycare clients recently had a baby girl, and despite the fact that I know she was given a large number of outfits from someone at her work, I couldn't resist knitting up this little dress. I had a heck of time with the gauge as I knit quite loosely. I must have knit about five swatches to get the gauge correct. I think I knit half a dress with just those swatches! Anyway, I was pleased with the results ... my first dress! This was knit in the round and I only had to join the shoulder straps with kitchener stitch and it was done. I made the hat up myself copying the "trellis" pattern from the yoke of the dress. 

Three: Yesterday we had sunshine. This fact alone deserves a post of its own! We have had such a grey and dark winter this year. Very little snow where I am, and every day it seems has been overcast and either raining or drizzling, or just plain yuck. When it does snow, it has turned to freezing rain and made a mess of the roads. I can't even remember the last time we had a sunny day ... I think it was in the fall. When the sun broke through yesterday morning, I told the parents we were skipping the library storytime and heading to the woods instead. They didn't argue as they knew their kids were getting tired of being indoors. So we travelled over to Lynde Marsh and had a relaxing walk in the fresh air. These are not my favourite woods as they are now well-worn from so many people walking through, but I take what I can get. We went along the boardwalk first that heads straight out into the marsh. The marsh is loaded with Canada geese & swans. When the swans saw us, they paddled over to us in a big hurry looking for handouts. We had a bit of corn for them, and a few seeds for the chickadees that came to us in the woods. The turkeys are still there too, and they are such fun to feed and hear them "gobble". It's been so mild that earlier this week my son and I saw a great blue heron flying across towards a little pond in our neighbourhood. Normally herons migrate until early spring. I've also seen flocks of robins all winter long, both here in my yard and again in Heber Downs.

 

Four: Visits to dear old Dad have continued, but not as often as I would like. It seems everyone I care for lately is on a jigsaw puzzle craze. My daycare kids can't seem to get enough of jigsaw puzzles this winter, and when I saw Dad recently, we also did a puzzle together. My mom and dad used to do jigsaw puzzles all through the long winter months. They would have a table set up in the living room just for jigsaws and would work away at them together. I too like working on a jigsaw, but these days there always seems to be something else I need to work on instead. It was nice to slow down and do this (surprisingly difficult!) puzzle with Dad.

Five: I am now working on a project for Dad. I'm knitting him a lap blanket. Possibly the worst winter to knit a blanket, but I've put this off for a few years now because I couldn't decide on a pattern. (I know, I spend far too long making these decisions!)  Despite the fact that I have a lot of blanket patterns to choose from, I finally decided to just knit the thing in stockinette stitch. I'll share more on this next week with Jennifer's Winter Project link.

Thanks for stopping by today, and have a great weekend!

Wendy