17 January 2007

Layers

That's what today's been all about. When I got up to pee at around 6:30 this morning, the temperature was at 1.3ºF. By noon it had barely managed to creep into the double digits, and now that the sun's gone down, that modest gain is starting to wane. I am wearing thermal underwear (top and bottom), a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, jeans, and three pairs of socks, and my toes are still cold. Tomorrow should get a bit warmer, though, and tomorrow night is supposed to bring snow (and/or rain, but I'm being hopeful).

A Little Rave and a SEX* photo


I wonder what sort of Google searches that will pick up. Anyway, I sort of alluded to it in yesterday's post, but I made a trip yesterday afternoon to see Debbie at Nordic Fiber Arts and get some yarn for mittens for my nieces for next Christmas, as well as some pattern books.

011607NFA_stuff

I ended up spending two hours there - looking at yarns and pattern books, but mostly just chit-chatting. Debbie's a Minnesota native who has lived in this area for about 30 years, so we've had some fairly common experiences. Turns out she also knows Landladies Paula & Wendy. Mostly, though, she's just a really nice person and was fun to talk to. She also had some yarns from her stash she offered me for Dulaan, so in addition to the above modest haul, I also came home with a bag of thicker yarns that will make some nice stranded hats and mittens to send to Mongolia.

Looking through the Selbustrikk pattern book, the patterns are actually all for fingering weight yarns. I got the DK weight Strikkegarn (literally, "knitting yarn" - gotta love those Norwegians), though, and I think that should work well for knitting the patterns as written and then felting them down to make a nice, thick, and very warm mitten. Should they end up coming out too small, I can always ship them off to Dulaan where they can find a smaller pair of hands for them. My plan is to knit a matching pair for Dulaan anyway, so that the niece, nephew, sibling, or parent who receives a pair can think of another person being warmed by an identical pair in Mongolia.

One thing I forgot to ask about when I was there was translations for the Norwegian knitting terms. A lot of them I found I could figure out, anyway, as it's all charted and jeg kann litt norsk forstå, but I did a bit of searching online and I found this page. If any of you are contemplating some Scandinavian designs, it might be worth bookmarking.


*I expect I don't really need to explain to most of you, but in case you came across this post while looking for something very different, SEX is a common knitter's acronym for "Stash Enhancing eXpedition".

Thank You...

...to those who made a contribution to Heifer. I realize that some of the folks reading this little blog have already donated and do so regularly anyway, but I know there are certainly others who hadn't and thought a little reminder for them might help, particularly since the stuff in the sidebar isn't what really gets looked at day in and day out.

And if you haven't donated, please consider doing so. I think a lot of us end up not donating because we don't feel we can give a large donation. When you're giving isn't the time to be size-conscious, though. Even small donations can be put to use and are appreciated. When you consider that some of the people helped by Heifer and similar organizations earn the equivalent of a few pennies a day, a $5 donation can be a very big thing.

Anyway, I think that's enough beg-a-thon for the time being, but I will be keeping my eye on that thermometer thing and trotting it back out if necessary.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Mel, we did a yearly "gift" of livestock to our parents through Heiffer, as well as a teacher gift...can you add that to your thermometer? It was $150. I have a Norwegian saying for you... "there is not bad weather, just bad clothes". I have this in Norwegian (on the old computer), even phonetically thanks to Randi (in my mother's name) and will find and send if you'd like. It's a good saying for Maine weather, but I'm not sure about hurricanes and tornadoes, or maybe these aren't weather but rather events.

Liz said...

Theresa over at Bagatell has some fun links for Norwegian, and also offers translation help in a pinch.

And oo, ah! Selbustrikk looks gorgeous - should be a lot of fun. Enjoy.

Theresa said...

I have that same book! If you do have trouble, just let me know. :-)