Quickly, quickly

Yesterday I started Anne's fingerless gloves, with a lovely pattern from Ravelry by Holly Terrell called "Swan Maiden Mitts". I've had the pattern for a while but hesitated to use it because it calls for lace weight yarn - seemed like a lot of work for something that would probably end up too small for me! However, with the Qiviut I thought it would be OK - the author does suggest that you can use bigger yarn and adjust the needle size. I went down to 2.5 mm from 2.75. This yarn is 80% merino, 15% qiviut and 5% silk, and it is soft and just yummy. It may not be very hard-wearing, of course, though I have high hopes due to the merino content. The pattern is great fun - the lace is only 23 stitches (of 60) and only every second row, so quite a lot of just plain stockinette between chart rows - and it's quite easy as well. Love them!

March came in like a Lion

Well, finally February is behind us. In addition to the snow and rain and then more snow on the weekend, we had another storm yesterday - fine snow which started about 3 pm, and rapidly became quite bad...luckily Fred left work (and let me know) at 3 so we met at the UPEI gym and then we left there about 5 - they were about to close - and getting on the highway was the hard part as all the parking lots were emptying at once. Once there, though, we took it slowly and managed to get home an hour after we'd left the gym (usually a 20-minute drive). I think it was the worst weather I've driven through this winter.
The wind was SE, so it was on the front door, which needs its weatherstripping changed - it whistled all night. The snow changed to rain after midnight, apparently, but I didn't see much evidence of rain - it was blowing at 40 kpg gusting to 70 so the windchill was below zero - it probably froze any rain in its tracks! The path was drifted in again this morning. Anyway, the sun is shining today so we should have some solar gain.
It was chilly in the house last night, so I couldn't really get into knitting - I am finishing the second of a pair of socks, fairly uninspiring ones, having finished my lace-weight "Ethereal" shawl and a fingering-weight small one called "Arroyo" on Sunday. Talking to Anne on Sunday, she would like some green wrist-warmers, so I'll check my patterns and find something that will work with the lime Qiviut. Should be fun.