Mid-January in western NY turns thoughts to chucking it all and moving to Florida    making mittens.  (Truthfully, we have had some very welcome sun the last few days...not a lot of warmth but the sun has been wonderful.)  I've finished some mittens that have been in the works since September.  I had my own little scavenger hunt at the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival to find all the colors of rovings required in the patten, spun the wool, knit the mittens and viola!



Sheepy mittens!  All the wool is from local shepherds (lovely ladies all), most of whom I know from the Genesee Valley Handspinning Guild.  I feel very connected to these mittens as I'm only one step away from shaking the sheep's hand  paw hoof that grew the wool in the first place.  Very cool. 

Pattern:  Sheepy mittens by Amy King from the book All New Homespun Handknits.  (Presumably there is a not so new Homespun Handknit once published that has now been lost into the murk of the river of time.) 
Yarn:  All wool.  All spun by me. 
Mods:  Only the typical lengthening of the hand and thumb.  I added an extra row of solid color between each set of sheep and several rows for the thumbs.

Close-up!


I like the tessellating sheep pattern -- it doesn't scream sheep (Who would really?  Not a very profound thing to scream.  "Sheep!") but has a more subtle sheepiness to it. 

Other mid-January activities have, of course,  included building snowmen and I think the neighborhood kids have shown a gratifying burst of creativity on this one....


I love the mohawk and the heart tattoo.  (Hi DD#2!)

Side view to get the full effect of the mohawk:

And a snowman with ears and a backfin, brilliant!

I mentioned we've had some clear skies which have provided a palette for some stunning sunsets.





Since our neighborhood is so full of trees, I really only get to see sunsets at this time of year.  The rest of the year, I have a somewhat obstructed view -- not that I'm complaining about the trees.  One of the greatest sounds in the spring, is finally hearing the wind in the leaves again. 

** Point of clarification from the last post: I was re-reading my last post and  I wrote some flannel about "If I drank beer...blah blah blah...."  I seem to be  implying that I don't drink beer.  I actually do but  have a very small subset that I enjoy.  I don't like light colored hoppy beer.  I do like fruit flavored beers.  Yes, I know those barely count as beer. I also enjoy Guinness, but only on tap.  I've tried the Guinness from a can that has a head-making capsule in the bottom.  Well,  interesting use of compressed air but a poor substitute at best and having the can rattle when it's empty is just unnatural -- feels like someone was prematurely using the can as a penny bank.