Ducks in Puddles......

Does it ever strike you as odd that the images chosen to represent spring are always so - cheery? I mean, who doesn't think a pack of ducklings playing in a puddle is totally cute, cute, cute. Still, the day before, when the rain was pouring down to make those puddles happen, they were shivering in the corner neath their mother trying to keep warm and dry. March has certainly come in like a lion and brought with it some storms that started brewing in late February so please forgive me that I've been gone a while.

There have been lots of things happening - some bright and cheery like rainbows, ducklings splashing in puddles, and tulips poking through the ground without the 4 feet of snow that currently smother their bed (shhh, let's just pretend). There's been some no so bright and cheery things as well but nothing that won't right itself in due time. Truly, it is not fair to see or expect to see only pretty pictures and ignore the whole cycle. So, you dig in and take it for what is is, and sit resolutely through the storms, the gray days, the sometimes exhilarating and sometimes exhausting shifts that occur when she's waking from the winter cold. Even the trees seem tired and confused so they crack and pop and shake their limbs in exasperation as if to say, 'enough already, I want some sap in my veins, some leaves, some shady respite!'

Naturally, I've been straight out and spending most of my free time knitting or spinning. So, for about a week now I've been sitting on these finished 'vardo' socks and just haven't landed long enough to show them to you. You like? The cuff is beaded with blue czech glass seed beads and spun from a 'vardo' batt. The body is from my 'silk road' colorway (superwash roving) and they are squishy and soft and fit like a glove...but, for the feet....which is to say they fit like a sock - LOL.

Reading Cat Bordhi's works really got me to thinking about a sock that would fit my 'ample' calves, skinny ankles, narrow, high instep, and smallish feet. I've seen a heel like this on Ravelry and there's one that looks like it in Cat's book as well but, they are both toe up and I was knitting cuff down. A person of average intelligence could probably have looked over the toe up pattern, amended it for cuff down heels, and moved on. When you find that person, tell them I have another heel idea I could use help with - snorks. Being of less than average intelligence and lacking entirely the ability to spatially conceptualize ANYTHING, I just had to jump in and see what I could do. I love this heel. Basically, after turning the heel, I added the gusset stitches onto the heel needles, placing a marker where the heel flap stitches ended on either side. Then, instead of decreasing at the gusset end, I decreased at the heel flap end until all of the heel flap stitches were gone. It draws in so nicely to hug said high arch and the socks stay up so well! Color me happy, and tooting around in handspun socks fresh off the needles. We'll put this under the exhilarating column.

In other news, we got more snow. Yeah, like, more snow. I have started to beat my 'dammit doll' soundly every time I hear the weather man say, "second straight year of record snowfall for Maine," with that sadistic glee in his voice - it isn't a sophisticated coping method but it is keeping me out of jail. We're expecting even more snow soon and I didn't get to go to SPA last weekend because I had to stay home and be a grown up. As the other grown up was suffering from a cold and acting like he'd just home-birthed triplets or something, being grown up turned out to be a full time job, on account of my strong desire to lose my dammit doll, pummel him instead, and claim ignorance and confusion at my bail hearing. The animals are sick of winter and the cats are starting to act like fools. Thing 1's parakeets start the day out screeching like some one's pour hot molasses on them and even the goldfish are getting crotchety. We'll swipe all of this off the table and put it in the 'exhausting' category. But do it quick because I have some gloating to do.....swipes the table and revels in the sound of all that stuff crashing to the floor.

And....there haz been prezintses......which reminds me, I didn't let you all know that Ruth won the last great giveaway and I'm putting her package together this week. But, I was stunned, surprised, and humbled to sloppy tears when I received a package from my good friend, Lorraine this week. This woman must be a guardian angel - she always knows when to swoop in and make you feel like a million bucks, which she did. There were some knit mitts (feel like angora) that I keep putting on and looking at my hands and squealing. Some STR yummy sock yarn (that Lorraine, she knows I dig socks something fierce) and some chocolate and soap and body butter and awesome earrings and note cards and your basic box of squealing kid acting like it's Christmas morning. Lorraine, I love you. Thanks, kiddo. You just took that frown and turned it right side up in a jiffy.

Turns out, I can keep the smile a while. I just found out I'll be vending at Sock Summit. I know (stops to pick up jaw and wipe the drool from her gaping mouth), Sock Summit. Woot Woot! The teacher list is awesome and then there's the travel and then there's sock summit and yarn all around and - swoons - I don't know if I can stand it. Definitely, the exhilarating column, don't ya think?

Okay, so, now what? giggles and goes off to skein up handspun to show you in a day or two.