I'm a Winner!

I won some yarn from The YoYoKnits, Alyson! She had a contest that ended over the weekend, so thanks to the good old random number generator I won. That's a good thing considering the crappy time we've had lately. I don't know exactly what I won yet, but it's either sock yarn or yarn for the shawl I had wanted to make. I'll be happy with either one for sure! Edit: I got an e-mail from her, and she said she found the perfect sock yarn. I don't get many surprises, well, not good ones anyways, so I'm very excited!

Here are a couple of final-final pictures of the slippers I made for myself, on my feet as I type. These were taken after defuzzing. I must say I love them and will always have a pair. Once these start to wear out I'll have another pair on the needles. I think I'll make a pair for the camper, too. I won't need them in the middle of summer, but our campground opens the end of May and runs til October, so it's chilly mornings in the beginning and the end.


I finished one of the sample pairs for the store. These are men's medium made from Patons Classic Wool in chestnut brown and natural marl. These felted with one trip through the wash. Mine are Briggs & Little and took like 45 minutes to felt down to my size. I much prefer CW for felting. A lot of people are frustrated when trying B&L for felted projects. I do have some B&L to make a pair of ladies' medium for the store, too, so people can see how they both look. Anyone using B&L has to be prepared to put a lot more effort in the felting process. We also had a lady in not long ago who could not get her B&L slippers to felt as small as she needed and had to make another pair with CW. Luckily the first pair were made with browns, so she could gift them to a man. (Sorry that the picture is blurry. I couldn't tell til it was transferred from the camera, then the batteries were dead so I couldn't do it again.)

We had our first real snowstorm today, no school, of course. We probably got about 6", enough that I can snowblow the big driveway tomorrow, provided I can find the snowblower key. It has an electric start, so if I can't get it going the normal way I'll plug it in (provided I find the key!). I will not ever snowblow with the kids in the yard. Tomorrow the Oldest One should be gone to school, and the Littlest One will be in preschool in the morning, so I'll do it then. I have to get gas in my jug first. The nephew took it over the weekend and brought it back empty, of course. He said he wasn't going to use all of it. Yeah, whatever. I'm lucky I got the jug back at all. The snowblower has gas in it now, but the forecast is saying snow on Wednesday. Doesn't say how much, but I better be prepared. No real snow all winter, now we'll probably get storm after storm. (Pardon the crappy pictures. I just stuck my head out the front door and snapped. Not much for scenery around my house. Yes, that's a graveyard across the street, but they're quiet! My great grandparents are the first ones on the far left, and I've got other relatives over there, too.)

Hubby made it out of the mountains. You'll never believe it -- three of them were travelling together, all work for the same company. He said it was snowing so much they really shouldn't have been driving, but they did. One of the other guys has a yellow Peterbilt (ours is black), and they ended up having to wait half the day on Saturday for him to get pulled out of the ditch! Luckily his trailer was empty, and he went straight in. The lack of a load and all the snow helped hold his truck up. Hubby said if he would have had a load on he probably would have tipped over, too. His bumper got bent, and he probably came away with only a $1,500 towing bill or so instead of $23,000. (Of course, our truck was a "salvage" operation that required two tow trucks, grader, couple of half tons, extra people, 1200km round trip drive, and reload the steel he was hauling.) There was one more load going to Whitehorse, and I guess the company sold it to someone else. Out of the eight trucks that went up there, three had accidents, and a couple of the other ones ran into truck problems. Hubby took pictures of this last incident and has some of the damage to his truck. He wants a picture of the other guy's truck, too, so he can put them on the wall at work. That way if they ever get the bright idea of sending them over the mountains in the winter again he can say, "Refer to the wall, boys, refer to the wall." Head Honcho found out about our accident on Saturday. He had been on vacation in Bermuda and didn't know anything about it. He wasn't happy about it, but what do you do. Accidents happen, not like he did it on purpose. They won't be out anything anyways. We have to pay them back for the deductible, and insurance covers the rest (it better).

Well, I've got it quiet for a bit. The boys conned me into getting Ice Age 2 on Pay-Per-View. I think they tried to use that as a ploy to avoid bath night. Wrong! Baths will be done right after the movie. I have to watch Coronation Street after and part 2 of Doctor Who. (The new Doctor Who. We get the old ones on BBC Kids. Talk about corny! Reminds me of this old show they used to show on Switchback when I was a kid.)

Happy knitting!