Snow Day

Our fourth since mid-December, as a matter of fact. We have two left before we start digging into spring break in April. Some people get all nervous about using them up; I would rather stay home on a miserable day in the winter. OK..I would rather stay home on a nice day in April too, but April is not always springy here anyway.

So the view from my back porch door looked like this earlier in the day:





Which, as lovely and peaceful and serene as it is, inspires me to knit these:



Yep. Four projects, all in varying shades of orange. Clockwise, from three o'clock, are Ann Campbell's Circle Socks in Trekking XXL (don't ask the color number, the ball band disappeared a while ago). Then, some Bluefaced Leicester in the "Monarch" colorway from Black Bunny Fibers. It's part of the fiber club Carol Sulcoski runs. Next, 'Vog On Socks from Aleta Fera in the summer 2007 Knitty. They're in Koigu PPM. And that big honkin' cake of yarny goodness in the back is Decadent Fiber's Cookie Dough. It's the beginning of a self-designed vest.

Add to that the fire-engine red mittens I'm cranking out for the second-grade classes at school and you might assume I'm starved for color. You would assume correctly. This is a hard time of year. Fresh snow is very pretty, the purity of the white contrasting with the deep evergreens and bare, dark tree trunks of oaks and maples. However, fresh snow does not last and soon, wherever there's foot or car traffic, it turns the color of light brown sugar. (It does not, I assume, taste like light brown sugar.) Then it devolves further into the color of mud as a preview to what we'll see for two months in April and May. Starved for nature's palette, knitters, weavers and spinners turn to the best replacements we know.

I'd like to do some more dyeing soon too, especially cochineal and indigo. I love intense colors, and those two give me the best fix. I fear I may drape them around my shoulders once they're finished. Or maybe a fishing pole extending from a funny hat, like a carrot for a donkey.

In non-fiber-related creativity today, there's two loaves of quick bread cooling on the counter; whole-wheat molasses, and honey bread. Yum. There's chocolate chip cookies waiting in the wings. Most of this will go to school tomorrow, as much as I'd like to eat them for all three meals. I haven't done much baking lately, and now I want to bake EVERYTHING. Fortunately, all you have to do is put a plate of goodies on the table in the staff room, and by lunch it will have quietly disappeared.

Snow days are a gift not to be wasted.