Snowy Weather

 Hello!

It's been a while. My weekends have been full of Japanese homework, knitting, garden cleanup, and flower bed creation. Now the ground is covered in a foot (at least!) of snow, we have a weekend off from homework, and I am between knitting projects as of right this moment!

I pulled out the leather working supplies and started making my leather tags for the knitting - they are pretty cool! But it was a day full of learning lessons about all the little intricacies - how wet should the leather be? How far apart should the stamps be? Should they go the same direction or upside down? Which of my scraps work for the stamping? Should I buy the heat gun so I can burn the suede style leathers since they won't stamp?? There were also lessons learned on how large the holes need to be in the leather so that I can actually get the needle through, (bigger than I expect they should be) and how to keep the label straight on the knitting while I stitch it (lesson still being learned...) But, overall, I'm pleased with the project. It has been years in the making, and finally seeing the labels on my hats and scarves is very satisfying. 

The knitting projects always come in waves for me - I wanted to work on my colorwork mittens, so I have yarn set aside to make about four different pairs. Of course I didn't swatch my new yarn, assuming it would work since it is sport weight, and while the mittens will fit a variety of hands, they look very silly - long and thin. So...now I have to decide how to proceed - do I rework the pattern to fit my yarn or do I find yarn to fit my pattern? I also have two different colorwork patterns that I want to test out, and one is quite a bit smaller than the other - so that raises even more questions. What it really means though, is that I am doing a lot of thinking about knitting and a lot of charting, and a lot of math, but not actually a lot of knitting. 

With the holidays coming up, I have several custom order malas to be working on, so I'll need to get my thoughts and materials gathered for that. Yesterday I worked on my Etsy listings for the jewelry shop, I have jars of jewelry sitting on the coffee table staring at me: earrings and bracelets and necklaces that have yet to be photographed or listed. 

We shoveled three times yesterday and once on Thursday - so we are fully into snow season! Matt and I are hoping to get out in it today, put on our long johns and go enjoy the sunshine and the blinding white snow. Hope you all have a lovely week!