fiberhart

Is it spring yet???

Obviously not, as much as many of us here would like the answer to be a resounding "YES!" We have had a steady stream of storms blow through, most of them dumping snow on top of the growing snowdrifts. I'm sure the skiers are loving it, but we have had enough.

This is the view from our sliding door which leads to our small backyard patio. There are two steps from the house to the patio- that should give you an idea how deep the snow is out there.



Those pieces of wood by the gate are a safety gate, the kind you put in front of stairs to keep toddlers from going there. In our case, it's to keep Annabelle the cat from escaping under the fence- not that she would try it now!! Poor Sadie sinks in up to her belly when she goes out there. And we are getting another storm tomorrow- joy.

So it is a good time to stay home and play in the studio. The February TIF is posted, I'm in the brainstorm stage for that one. I think it will come together a bit smoother than the January challenge, and I'll post more on my thinking later. This morning I got back to my tree. I started to pin and scrunch the cheesecloth I'd dyed onto the painted batting, and decided the colors needed to be toned down- especially the green. So I not only overdyed the two pieces I already had, but I grabbed the couple of yards left on the roll and threw them in a 'parfait' dyepot together. I did a layer of mixing gray, a layer of Sabrecon brown, and a layer of Safari gray. I decided just to let it batch a couple of hours instead of my normal overnight, so it is already washed out and hanging on my nifty Ikea dryer.



I tried layering it over the painted batting, and I think I was successful with the overdyeing. Mayber later tonight I will start pinning and scrunching again, and since I now have plenty of cheesecloth, even layer that. We'll see.

I'm also knitting again. I've wanted to make myself a cream colored vest for a long time, and finally found a mostly cotton yarn I liked. Best of all, it is chunky, so it will knit up fast. I got this far last night--



I really wanted to find yarn to start on, I'm working the polls Tuesday and want to have something to do with my hands when it slows. So between that and a book, I should be fine- that will be a very long day!!