An Early Hint of Spring

Ten days after our blizzard, we have 65 degree temps and most of our snow has turned to puddles, mud, and flooded basements. We now know why our house that we rent has no carpet in one of the rooms in the basement. Grrrr! It's not a true flood, but there's enough water that all our boxes that we had stored down there needed to be rescued. I nearly lost my scrapbooks! Thankfully, that box had something waterproof at its base. The scrapbooks are now in a more fitting place - on a bookshelf in our living room.

About a week ago, I finally finished the first of the Paris socks. I only have until the end of March to finish the second sock and I haven't even cast-on yet. I'm starting to feel the pressure. I see some late nights in my future!

Voila! Rightside out and inside out Paris sock:

So why the delay in casting on? This has had me preoccupied:

It's my own design. This is just my pattern swatch. In the end, the pattern will adorn a Seamen's Scarf. I will post hte pattern when I have a finished product to show for it. I came up with the idea last week. Dyed some yarn for it on Thursday morning. Pored over lace patterns and books Thursday evening. Then I knit, frogged, knit, frogged, knit, frogged, knit, frogged, and then knit again through the weekend! I still need to make a couple of minor adjustments to the final pattern, but ultimately this is what it will look like. I've begun to knit the actual scarf and so far I'm pretty darn pleased with myself!

There's a whole story behind this pattern which I will divulge later, but for now I'll just say that it is supposed to represent flames rising from the embers. Though, in a nice pastel color I think it could easily look like calla lilies and pebbles.