Month: February 2020

A perfect fit

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I made myself a hat today.

I’d made myself a ponytail hat last winter, but forgot it at the clinic during one of our doctor’s visits. No one turned it in to the lost and found. I finally got around to making a new one. 🙂

I used two strands of medium weight yarn and a 6mm hook. The main body of the hat is just half-double (hdc; known as a half-treble in the UK) worked in a spiral. To figure out where to put the opening, I just kept putting it on my head until it was long enough to reach where I usually wear my braid, then did a chain 4, skip 4 stitches to make the opening.

Warm hats are, of course, a necessity for this time of year, but most hats irritate the heck out of me. If they’re long enough to cover my ears, they get into my eyes, and every time I move my head, the back of my hat gets pushed up. My ears get uncovered and the hat gets pushed into my eyes. My long hair, of course, also gets in the way of having it sit right on my head.

The joy of making my own hats, is that I can figure out how to work around that.

Along with the opening to pull my braid through (which then helps keep the hat in place), after a few more rounds, I switched from hdc in the back to dc (double crochet, or treble/triple crochet in the UK) on the sides, and sc (single crochet, or double crochet in the UK) across the front. The end result is a wavy edge with longer sides that snuggle warmly around my ears, while the slightly shorter back doesn’t get pushed up when I move my head around, and the even shorter front doesn’t get into my eyes, but it still long enough to keep my forehead warm.

I probably should have done this at the start of winter, rather than the end, but it’ll do the job just fine! 😀

The Re-Farmer

Change of plans

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It’s a statutory holiday today, in most of Canada. February didn’t have a statutory holiday until a relatively few years ago (different years for different provinces), and it’s one of those holidays where each province got to pick it. It is not a federal holiday. Depending on where you live in Canada, today is Family Day, Islander Day (in Prince Edward Island), Nova Scotia Heritage Day, or Louis Riel Day (in Manitoba).

My plans for the day was to do some bread baking and some housework, and otherwise just stay at home.

This morning, my mother phoned.

Change of plans! 😀

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A new path, and comparisons

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What a lovely day today!

Okay, according to The Weather Network, it’s -17C/1F with a wind chill of -27C/-16F, but I’ve been outside for the past while, in full sun and sheltered from the wind, and it was feeling downright tropical out there! Unlike yesterday, this morning I had all sorts of cats to greet me while I did my rounds.

On the down side, when I got to the van to head into town, I discovered a frozen present on the roof, all down the side door of my van, and even on the ground, from a cat in the rafters. I saw Nicky the Nose in there earlier, when I double checked to make sure the van was plugged in. Nasty bugger shat all over our van!

Ah, well. I meant to get a car wash before taking it in to get the brakes done, anyhow. :-/

Heading to town today, we were glad to find the roads had been plowed of drifts – though my daughter did have to fight one to open the gate! The high winds we’ve been having have really hard packed the snow. It was still blowing a lot on the roads, coming almost directly from the north, but here at home, we have trees, and the house itself, blocking most of the north winds. There’s just that one gap between the maple and spruce groves that acts as quite the funnel!

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