Apr 8, 2007

Snow White... in April

Dogwood developsLast weekend I took this picture of a bud on the dogwood tree in my yard. I was so excited by the obvious sign of spring. At the time, it was about 80 degrees outside and I was walking around, surveying the work that the gardeners were doing with the spring clean up in shorts, a t-shirt and my bare feet. I was thinking about how beautiful the dogwood tree would look shortly - a vision in white.

Snowy DogwoodThis was not what I had in mind. These are the same dogwood tree buds covered with snow. On Saturday morning I awoke to find a dusting of snow covering our yard. I'm usually a fan of snow but not this time. It's not supposed to snow in April. Certainly not in Virginia.

Snowy flowersIt was all gone by mid-day but I suspect the damage was done. You may remember me mentioning a little planting I had done last weekend. I was waiting to share it - hoping that the plants would settle in and start to really look pretty before I took a picture for you. I suspect that the snow took the bloom off of my snapdragons and... I forget what the others were but they were pretty before the snow arrived.

I'm not a huge fan of the cold and there was nothing really major that had to get done this weekend so I stayed home. The girls came and went with their friends and hubbo went to a meeting on Saturday but I stayed home and caught up with laundry and played with fiber. I actually finished 2 socks, plied some of my Magic Carpet Ride and spun some Blue Faced Leicester that I call Violet.

Magic Carpet Ride on the carpetHere's the plied yarn still on the niddy noddy. The carpet in my living room seemed a great place to display my Magic Carpet Ride yarn. This skein is hanging to dry at home right now but I can't wait to start knitting with it. It's still not super even but it's much better than earlier spinning and I think that the plying has improved quite a lot. I could really feel the difference as I wound it off onto the niddy noddy. It feels substantial and yarn-like. I love the way the colors change and combine.

I had quite a bit left on one bobbin and it's very even and thin so the plan is to continue it with the rest of the unspun fiber and Navajo Ply that portion. I can't wait to compare the 2 versions of the same fiber. I still think that this will become socks - very cushy socks.

5 comments:

Carole Knits said...

Up here in the North we call snow in the spring time "poor man's fertilizer" but I don't think it would be very kind to the annuals. Hope yours survived the blast of winter.

Kristi aka Fiber Fool said...

We had snow for Easter too! It made for interesting travel. Your yarn looks great. I just plied, washed, and dried my yarn this weekend too and was much happier with the end result than I have been. Yeah for progressing! :-)

Melissa said...

It was pretty cold here also. Not snowing, but cold.
Love the yarn. You do such a great job!

Sarah-potterknitter said...

We got two inches here! I was thrilled, but covering my plants for 7 days straight is getting old. Maybe tonight can be the last of that.

Teyani said...

your spinning looks great - I just began a sock in that colorway, and it's really fun.
I hope that your flowers survive the snowy blast