Wednesday, February 6, 2008

A Blizzard, a Yeti, and Some Cabled Mitts

We had a lovely blizzard last night. When I say lovely, I mean crappy. My knitting class was canceled last night because of the weather. The boyfriend is on a business trip, so I had to do all the shoveling myself, and our driveway is one of the longest in the neighborhood. I shoveled about four inches yesterday when I got home, and thank goodness I did, because I awoke to about six more this morning. I took the morning off to get over a headache (I think it was another migraine, which makes sense) and to avoid the ugly commute, which gave me time to dig out. It took me around 45 minutes or so to make a wide path out. I made sure to leave a nice pile of snow around the boyfriend's car, so he'll have fun shoveling his way out when he gets back tonight. They say it will snow more this week, too. I can't wait.

I left for work around 10 to one p.m., and the roads weren't too horrible, with one exception: only a block away from the parking lot, I turned onto a street that wasn't plowed very well, and I got stuck, Big Time. I couldn't see that this was the case until I had already started turning onto it, and there was no going back. Luckily, I live in Iowa, and two guys came by to help me out. People really are very nice here, that's one of the things we all take for granted. It took about 20 minutes to get me freed. Now I'm a little dirty and I can't get the smell of burned rubber out of my nostrils, but I'm OK. Lessons learned.

It's hard to complain about your car getting stuck when there are people cleaning out from those tornadoes in the east overnight. I've been through a couple of close ones in my life, being from Kansas, so I really felt bad for those folks.

On a Lighter Note

On the crafting front, I made a little toy. This is the first sewn "softie" I've made since the sixth grade, and I think I did a nice job of it. Behold the Yeti:

The Yeti Walks
Now, I need to explain this toy to you, unless you are a huge old-school Doctor Who fan. The boyfriend is a Who fan from way back. There are stories I could tell, but I won't, because I'm being nice for one, and for two I have no reason to blackmail him right now. Later...later...

Anyway, he was watching some of the old Patrick Troughton episodes a while back, and he fell in geek love with the Yeti (Abominable Snowman) creature from both the Abominable Snowmen and the Web of Fear series. He asked me if I could make him a yeti of his own, and I guessed that I could try. I put it off for a while, fearing failure, but I finally sat down this weekend and cranked one out in one evening. Here's a picture, for reference:In the Web of Fear, the Yetis are robots that can only be brought to live when a special sphere is inserted into their stomachs. I made sure to include this detail in the yeti, though I later read that the sphere is supposedly silver, and not gold. The episode being in black and white made it difficult to tell, you know.
I took these pictures this morning in the snow before I started shoveling. I think he makes a great model, don't you?
Yeti Tummy Button
I've started a new knitting project, as I need some small project to go to when I get tired of working on Oblique. I found this really cool cabled mitts pattern the other day, Evangeline from MagKnits, so I set to it last night. The cables are a little more advanced than I expected, but they aren't too challenging for me. The only problem for me is that I chose black yarn, and it's harder to see what you are doing with black yarn than with a lighter shade. I'm making the elbow-length version, so it might take a while to finish them.

I know I've been a bit bad in my posting habits lately, but that will change now that I've gotten over my cold (for the most part) and my work schedule has lightened. We actually had time to go to a movie a week ago, Juno, and I highly recommend it. I bought the soundtrack this past weekend, and it is also very quirky and good, like the movie. I wish movies like this had been around when I was in high school, as I might have had a movie I could relate to. I think Wayne's World was probably my favorite movie back then...sigh. I saw it again in probably 1998 or '99, and it already looked dated, which is sad for a movie that was less than 10 years old.

Wow, this was a long post! Less next time, hopefully!

1 comment:

Debbie said...

Oh, cute Yeti! Maybe he's the Supreme Yeti, and that's why his sphere is gold.

And there's nothing wrong with being a Dr. Who nerd. But I'm willing to listen to the stories if they're juicy.