Celtic Cast On

No your eyes are not deceiving you that really is snow! Yes I said snow, and its October 14th…… *sigh*

Sarah posted a few days ago that they got a skift but I did not think the “chance of snow” the weatherman talked about was THIS MUCH!!!

This is what our yard looked like just as the fluffy stuff started to fall….

Amazing huh??? Apparently the trees weren’t prepared for this either, they are all bent over and we even lost one on our trail down back, I had to detour through the pine trees to get around it this morning.

Molly was not impressed with the wet flakes falling last night….

but when she realized the fluffy edible stuff was back to romp around in she was ok with it.

Boston enjoys being outside in any weather but I think he too is a bit partial to the fluffy stuff. He’s just waiting for a snow bank to perch on top of so he can survey his land.

I on the other hand would prefer that my winter jacket buttoned, my snow pants zipped and that I wasn’t currently wearing the winter woolies I would usually be donning in February!! Tadpole will get a shock to the system when he arrives!!

This last week I’ve been quite miserable as I seem to have caught a cold that I really needed to get with just over 2 weeks to my due date. I seem to be getting a bit better but it will be nice when I have some energy back and can breathe through my nose again.

I have WIP’s, FO’s and packages to get caught up on so I best get posting.

Its a lazy day here on The Ridge.

The remnant’s of Hurrican Danny is descending upon us today bringing  a ton of rain. I figured I’d make use of this lovely rainy day and start a new project. This is Super Natural Stripes by Fawn Pea. I figured with my cotton ease colour choices this would suit a girl or boy and with sizing up to 4 years I can definitely see many variations of this one happening in the years to come.

 Having two months of rain, fog and cold weather really makes you think about Autumn more and more. I’ve been dying to cast on for a cosy warm sweater for myself but seeing as that’s pretty much impossible at this present time I settled for a pair of cosy toe socks instead.

 I cast on for the  Gentlemen’s socks with Lozenge pattern from Knitting Vintage Socks, tailored for my little feet.  This is the third or fourth pattern I’ve knit from this book and it has once again proved to be a wonderful library addition.  I’m using Louet Gems in a lovely fall orange, these will be a lovely pair to have on hand this fall.

Of course the minute I start working on them we get beautiful weather, at least for one day anyway. Maybe I should just keep knitting socks if it makes the sun hang around.

My mum and dad are in the process of building a house on the most beautiful water frontage. Dad of course is building the house himself, and Moose has been helping out when he isn’t working. Being the preggo that I am I’m not much good for lugging wood and standing up walls so instead I get to enjoy my surroundings and do a little knitting.

I found a nice half shady half sunny spot on top of a pile of sheathing to work on my socks as well as keep an eye on the dogs.  Molly is perfectly content as long as she can see Moose at all times. She spent most of her day with me on  top of the sheathing watching her daddy’s every move.

Enough already with the SNOW!!!!

At 8 o’clock this morning I was out shovelling snow from the fence, no not the driveway the fence!!! 

We’ve had to dig a trench all the way along the fencing of our property. There is just sooo much snow that it was actually higher than the fence we put up and Boston was able to just walk right out on to the road. Leave it to my little devil to find a way out.

We were blattered with 30cms of snow in a meer 7 hrs in the early hours this morning which easily filled the previous trench we had dug on saturday. This morning it was back to trench digging while Moose plowed out the driveway.

All that work for this little Bohemian trench jumper!!

I did of course have my trusty trench guard on duty to make sure there was no trench jumping while I dug it out again. 

After 3 hours of digging we’re back to a jump free zone only to find out we’re getting another 5-10cms before the day is out.

PLEASE SEND SPRING!!!

January was bitterly cold, wool hats, helmet liners, snowpants, nothing seemed to keep you warm. I had finally accepted the fact that I was going to be cold when I was outside and I’d just have to suck it up and get warm when I came back in.

 I cast my wellies aside in SEPTEMBER because my feet were too cold and I needed my winter boots to keep  my wee tootsies warm. Moose however continued to wear his throughout the winter and  I just assumed his wellies had  winter liners in them and thats why he was still wearing them even though his feet were always cold when he came in. I asked him if he’d like me to make him some winter socks to block out the cold and was pleasantly surprised when he replied that yes he would like a pair.  I thought “man he really must be feeling the cold!” he’s always sweating.

I started knitting the socks and then realized that Moose had been wearing plain old  rubber boots this whole winter, no liners and with only store bought socks on his feet. GOOD GRIEF!!! We immediatley went out and bought WINTER boots, apparently the ones I THOUGHT he was wearing this whole time had started to leak so he through them out .  I  worked solely on his socks, so I could get them on his feet pronto,  no knitters’  household should have cold feet!

The day before our anniversary he asked if the socks were done yet, geez he really did want these things. I was almost to the toe on the second sock so I told him I would have them done sometime the following day.

Pattern: Briggs and Little Heavy Socks

Yarn: Briggs and Little Tuffy

Needles: 3.25mm dpns

Start Date: January 3rd 2009

Finish Date: January 15th 2009

They fit to a T! They are very warm and most of all, HE WEARS THEM!!!

SUCCESS!!!! This goes down in history as the first pair of socks made for and worn by Moose…. maybe someday he’ll actually wear sock yarn socks….. or maybe that’s still wishful thinking!

While knitting these my dad complained about the cold, he works outside in it everyday and wears 2 -3 pairs of socks sooooo I wasn’t about to let that go unnoticed. He tried on one of Moose’s liked them, said he’d wear them so I told him I’d put him on the list.

 Mum and Dad are actually on vacation so I started them in hopes of having them finished by the time they got home. I chose green for his and am off to a great start….. I can foresee winter socks for the whole family in my future!!

The socks were definitely worn during a big ice storm we had in January. There was at least 4 inches of ice on our main road so Moose took that opportunity to go skating.

He actually skated up the driveway and out onto the road, it was crazy!!

 Poor Boss was stuck behind the gate, watching all the action!

We’re gearing up for another storm this afternoon.

Stay warm!

Sometimes a knit just sneaks into your finished knits without even so much as a blog post! Its not intentional, the knitting groove takes over and before you know it, its complete. The sad thing is this ones been done for quite a while…..

Pattern: Assymetrical Cable Cardi by Yahaira Ferreira

Yarn: Cascade 220 Heathers

Needles: 5.5mm circs

Start Date: August 19th 2008

Finish Date: September 2008 *not sure of the exact date*

Yes its taken me three months to blog about this one but in my defense it wasn’t quite complete.

You see Cascade 220 isn’t a very sturdy yarn when it comes to stand up collars, I should know I knit my 2830 with it and had problems getting the neck to stand up but I STILL went ahead and cast on for this one with the same yarn…..

Truth is I wasn’t really thinking about the collar and if the yarn would stand up the way it was supposed to. What my brain really was saying was “HOLY CRAP!! LOVE THIS SWEATER, NEED TO CAST ON NOW, I HAVE ENOUGH OF THIS YARN!!

So when I was adding the butons to the collar I realized there was no way in heck it was going to stand up on its own, I needed reinforcements!!! Mum suggested I put a few poppers on to help it stay up. Being the sewer that she is, she had lots and sent me home with two in an envelope…. can you see where this is headed???

The envelope made it home alright but where I put it when I came home is a mystery. Mum said she’d bring some next time she came to visit and forgot, it wasn’t until last week when we were shopping that I spotted some and grabbed them.

It took quite some time to get the finishing touches on it but it ws worth it in the end.

I wore it on saturday when I met up with the Kniterati’s. It was sooo nice to get a compliment from a complete stranger while fixing my tea at Java Moose. She made my morning!!

Have you noticed what i’m leaning on in these pics??

Its a finished fence!!!! The snow did melt away with some help from the rain but it only filled the holes full with water…. arrgggg. We were fortune enough to have three mild days in order to finish it all.  I had to scoop all the water out of each hole with a small tupperware dish before we tried to fill them in. What a mess, the holes were just big masses of mud. We filled them and tamped them down as best we could and are crossing our fingers that its still standing come spring when we will be able to tamp the crap out of them.

This has definately been the most frustrating thing we have done so far, even worse than picking rocks for days out in the pasture. It really was a rough week for us, the feeling of accomplishing nothing when we were putting so much into it was really bringing us down but we got through it in the end and have a beautiful fence that will keep my doggies safe to show for it!

~Perserverance is the work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did~

Newt Gingrich

It all started on thursday when we decided to rent a post hole digger to drill some holes at the top of the driveway for some fencing. We had a skift of snow wednesday but we were good, the ground was’t frozen and we still had a while to get the fencing up before winter was really upon us.

This is the post hole digger and let me tell you its every bit as heavy as it looks, if not heavier. Pulling that thing up and down through the dirt…. or in our case ROCKS was no small feat. Dragging the frigger from hole to hole was also a treat!

After much tiresome work and the occasional angry outburst we succeeded in getting all the holes dug and still had time to get a load of sand before it got dark. Load was an understatement, we piled the truck soooo full of sand that we had to drive 40km all the way home because the front of the truck was raised so much and wobbling all over the place. I tried to tell him it was too much but you know what men are like…… nough said!

In order to relieve some of the pressure off the poor truck we unloaded about half of the sand into a pile leaving half on the truck to fill in the holes with. It was too dark to do anything with it that night so we left it…. for two days. At the end of day one the sand was completely frozen…. both the pile AND the sand on the back of the truck grrrrrrrrrrreat!!

 That was yesterday, this morning we woke up to a full blown winter storm…. could this get any better. Its been snowing since late last night and it is now 3 in the afternoon with no sign of it letting up. Big massive snowflakes falling down, piling on top of the foot thats already there.

Needless to say the holes we dug, are nowhere to be seen. At this point i’m just hoping for one sunny day so we can get that fencing up before we have to bunker down for winter. Fingers crossed all our hard work wasn’t for nothing.

Now how about we forget that its snowing madly outside and focus on some knitting k?

Pattern: Mystery Beret by Woolly Wormhead

Yarn: Cascade 220 Heathers

Needles: 4.5mm

Start Date: November 7th 2008

Finish Date: November 13th 2008

This was an enjoyable knit! The cascade blocked out beautifully to show off the wonderful pattern. This beret is alot lighter than my gretel beret. I couldn’t believe how weightless it feels when its on.

Think this one is going to be tucked away as a pressie.

Almost a month ago we seeded the pasture….

Not a very exciting picture for most but this picture represents all our hard work over the past months coming to life.

We cleared treed land, dug it all up, tilled, picked rocks, limed, seeded…. all with only the hope that this would work. After each step was completed we still didn’t feel any farther ahead, it still just looked like a bunch of mud. That picture above, with those little green sprouts is proof that this actually could work. There are little clumps of sprouts all over the pasture which excites me to no end. Although the grass will mostly stay dormant until the spring, I’m hopeful it will really take off.

We’ve been trying to keep the dogs and ourselves off of it as much as possible but the work on the pasture is far from over. Its fencing time!!

Rolling out the first roll of fencing was very exciting! Once again it just brings us one step closer to our goal. We’re a good part of the way through our 3rd roll and think about 1 more roll will do it to complete the outside perimeter.

There’s been many trials and tribulations working with this fencing. Roadblocks have occurred, we’ve had to work things differently than we originally planned on but we are getting there slowly but surely. There have been some pretty cold days we’ve been fencing, my Casually Cowl has kept me nice and toasty. I can’t wait to get some use out of it snow shoeing this winter.

 Its amazing when I walk out the front door now, I look over, see fencing up and can actually picture animals roaming around in there. Roll on spring so we can build the barn!!!

Thankful for family,friends and this beautiful part of the world I am so blessed to be living in!

Thankful for all my wonderful readers, Celtic Cast On just wouldn’t be the same without you!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

So yesterday marked a day…. the day Moose and I officially became farmers!!

This is the pasture! We’ve be working on it for months now. See before it was pasture it was tree’d ferny land that we morphed into pasture. From clearing the land and picking rocks…….. picking rocks over 2 and a half acres I might add TWICE!!! Tilling, disc harrowing, are you getting the picture yet??

Yesterday was the day! We walked the pasture and sowed the seed. I am offically a farmer! Aren’t I??? Heck yes I am I sowed seed now all we have to do is wait for grass to grow and we’ll have us a dang good pasture! We’re hoping to get the fencing hung before the snow flies, at least on the outside posts!

A lot of you had noticed in my last post that Autumn has finally hit the ridge.

This is what we get to enjoy everyday!

At first when September hit and  I took the dogs for a walk I could just see a few trees turning yellow. Then it seemed like a whole line across the valley was colourful but when I walked down at the start of this week I was blown away. Full blown colour staring me in the face!! How could you NOT be in awe of that view!! I must say though its even more wonderful in person, you just can’t capture that on camera! Once I hit the clearing I gasp EVERYTIME, its soooo wonderful, I’m so blessed to be living in amongst all this beauty!

We don’t have many red trees around the house, most seem to be orange or yellow but there is one. One lone tree that I can see while i”m knitting, through the front window and I wish I could just scoop it up and replant it in my yard. It currently sits right across the road from our mailbox.

 Its so bright it just pops out from between all the green foilage. I love it so!

Our CSU *counter squirrel unit* have been busy, chasing squirrels, partridge, and enjoying all the new smells that Fall brings.

My little fern eater Molly is such a good model!

Boston…. not so much. I’m lucky I captured this shot before he bounced off in search of something else.

As much as I love my woodstove… I don’t want Fall to end, its such a short time, and my favourite time of year. Soon though the cold will set in and the snow will fly…. I’m not quite ready for that yet!! Hang on Fall, Hang on!