Winter has Arrived!

I find it hard to believe how quickly December is speeding by. It's looking like we will have a very White Christmas. I have spent a lot of time in the last few days shoveling. Today it took me almost 2 hours to shovel the driveway and front walkway. I was so proud of me-I even managed to shovel the end of the driveway after the snowplows passed by several times. It helped that it was relatively light snow. I'm looking forward to a nice soak in the clawfoot tub later.

By the end of the winter this pile of snow will be my nemesis (a formidable and usually victorious rival or opponent). The end of the driveway becomes narrower and narrower as the winter progresses and this pile gets higher and higher and it is harder and harder to throw the snow on top of the ever growing pile.

Here's a view of my winter garden. This is a chair that was not put away when all the other outdoor furniture was put away (why would that be Tim, Travis and Caitlin?) and it was lying down under the snow. I was able to extricate it and it has been safely stored, so it will see another summer. I don't think it could have survived a winter outside.

I had to shovel so I could get to the post office to mail my very late samples for Phat Fiber. This month the theme is "The Music Box" and I chose one of my favorite songs by Gordon Lightfoot to interpret called "Song for a Winter's Night". I dyed merino/nylon superwash sock yarn and created a batt from alpaca, merino, wensleydale, romney, tencel, superwash merino and angelina. I am loving the batts and think I may have to spin one myself.

The batt is black with some midnight blue and gold with dark blue angelina. The yarn is dyed in shades of midnight blue, sapphire, denim blue and gold. They will be available in my Etsy shopthis weekend following the box drop.

I had so many people at the Craft, Food and Wine show ask me where they could get my yarn and fiber locally that I have decided to set up a little shop in my front living room. (It's convenient to have three living rooms.) This is how it looked in the beginning.

As usual, I had a cat helper, which made it so much easier to accomplish my task and get the living room looking like this.

A visit to the shop will be by appointment-just send an email and a time will be arranged. This will also make filling Etsy orders easier-to have everything out and easily accessible. I filled an order this afternoon and it was lovely to just go the basket and pull the yarn. The yarn is already on it's way to California.

I'd better go and check to make sure the dastardly snow plows have not blocked me in . Stay warm!