Windless Skiing Always a Treat!

We had a great ski yesterday!  Fresh snow which had fallen straight down and there hasn't been any wind--delightful skiing!  When you live in a place that is named for wind . . . well wind can be a rather big deal here.  Anytime we get gentle snows falling straight down it reminds me of some of my favorite wintery places like: Paul Smith's College in upstate New York, Whitefish MT, forest service cabins in MT, West Yellowstone MT, and once in awhile here but it is rare to have snow falling straight down peacefully.

Another thrill is to be out skiing and run into another skier!  Not many adults ski out here although many adults skied as kids.  Kids ski and we have a ton of them on skis.  After all the years of running a ski program we now will see kids out playing on their skis.  These kids are becoming amazing skiers as the more time they spend playing on skis the better they are on their skinny boards.

Our friend Robin who is an amazing person, art teacher, climbing guide and great ski buddy! With her skijoring partner Kuvi.

Robin like us are  . . . well we love snow and being outside!

We all meet as we were heading up into the hills and Robin and Kuvi were heading back home after skijoring.  Our dogs kind of skijor.  The one in read is actually pretty good.  Sadie in the gray thinks I am nuts!  She will pull me over to ski practice as there are KIDS there but other than that she is above skijoring!

Tally enjoying a chew on a moose head . . . the body parts we find on the tundra are oh so yummy!

Christian heading up to the top of the picnic area.

The background is east of us and really some wonderful country!

The girls and I it was just above 0ºF yesterday.

Such beauties!  Our Ski Dogs! 

Heading back to the village we had to stop and get this photo.

Winter, Lights, & Ski Gear

I am well aware of the fact that winter is not officially winter until the Winter Solstice on or about December 21st every year.  Once the snow hits for me it is winter.  When you live 63.8789ºNorth and 160.7897ºWest seasons come and go at different times.  It is now winter and I love it!

These 2 photos were taken this week on an after work early evening ski.  It is about 5 p.m. The top photo I enhanced to get some light so you could actually see Tally and me.  The lower photo is the actual light at the time.

As you can see here we ski on anything.  My first year out here I didn't  but I know now snow means: ski no matter what!  The tundra plant life is very forgiving and rocks are few and far between.  Gear: Alpina BackCountry NNN boots, and a great pair of Rossignol 70 BC Ski.  I love having a leather lace up boot and a great pair of touring/BC waxless skis!  My favorite set up for skiing here on the tundra.

Why?

I love snow and its many forms.  I love the coolness and crispness winter brings to the air. I love watching snow fall straight down. This is a bit of a rare thing here in Unalakleet, so when it happens I really love to take it in and just watch the angels fall from the sky.  I love the peace and quiet that descends on the village with falling snow. The winter blanket of winter is a welcome sight to me!

The other aspect of winter I love compounded by being in the far north is of course the lights!  The Aurora Borealis is nothing short of spectacular.  I love seeing the dancing shimmering lights at night.  Until you actually get to see them you can not truly imagine their beauty.  I often see them on the 5 a.m. morning dog walk.  They arch and stretch out across our sky.  The natives believe they are their elders. I love the notion of the elders watching over us.  If you whistle at them they will move according to lore.  A goal I have this winter is to get our big camera out and go take photos of the light here at night.  I often can look right out my bedroom window and watch the lights.

Below are some photos a ski coach friend took last week from his yurt in a village along the coast north of us.  He had them on facebook and I asked if I could share them as well.  I liked these as these are often the lights we see here green, darting, and swirling across our night sky.

I must say life looks pretty wonderful in his yurt under the light!

This photo is by a local photographer here in Unalakleet.  The photo was taken looking down the slough towards the cannery and the Unalakleet River.

Tomten #2 is off My Needles!

I have now knitted 2 of these very cute sweater/jackets.  I knitted both out of Rangeley Wool which I really like as a very durable yarn with what I like to call "ganas."  It is real and is long wearing no soft fluff yarn the real McCoy in my mind.

A friend pointed out to me the real issue with this project I threw myself into last winter.  I often do this to myself, and I really need to learn from this personality trait of mine.  Taking on far too much and thinking I can actually do whatever I throw myself into.  Well . . . not the case!  The problem with this very well designed knit is it is so dang boring!  Way too much garter sts!  Two in a row is too much.  I have always loved the collar on this jacket.  I also loved using up some of my stash yarn, I learned how to knit in the round in garter sts., and the issue is me and not the jacket.  I am glad this one is done and I am glad I realized the issue.

I still have 2 more sweaters to knit and they will both be pullover yoke sweaters.  I am thinking the smaller kids one will be a combo of my design and one from Cottage Creations and the other may be "No Bad Weather" which I knitted for myself last year.

Kokkeluri Mittens a Kate Davies Design #sevenskeinsclub

Kokkeluri Mittens a Kate Davies Design

Last night, I finally realized I had ENOUGH of Tomten #2!  I wanted to cast-on a wonderful pair of mittens and knit something new, different and not garter stitch.  I dug around in my DPN collection and did in fact find a 2.75 mm size of needles. I went with that size which I think and feel is a tad bit smaller than the US 2.  I may have to frog this one and go down a needle size but I can not tell yet.  No biggie at all to frog in my books it is simply all part of the process we knitters love! I do love this blue which is showing here a bit richer than what it is like in person.

The crochet provisional cast-on is a great skill and actually pretty is to apply.  I have used it before and really don't be afraid of it at all.  I would recommend working it on wooden needles as they are less slippery.

Using a braid is always a treat to me and such a neat design feature.  I am still amazed at how you knit vertically and yet create this nice horizontal look of the braid.  I do like my braided work to mirror each other and I may adjust for that feature on the right mitten.

Kate's yarn Buachaille has a wonderful hand to it!  I am really liking the feel of the yarn. The yarn weight is perfect as I do love a finer weight yarn.  This weight yarn is easy to work on needles, has great stitch definition, and the drape of the finish product is going to be lovely.

Off to knit some more to check out my gauge!  Knit on!

Knitting Update! Food Update & the good ol' Miscellaneous collection of "things"

I keep trying to keep up with the BLOG but I find I run out of time which is a rather lame excuse I know.  I love writing post and sharing photos of my rather crazy world out here on the tundra.  I know a lot of you enjoy it as well as I have a lot of visitors.  I do feel like I need to keep everyone current.  After this post I think I will have all photos up from October and can feel like I have a clean slate.

I was totally smitten with Kate Davies yarn club  and had to sign up and order her new yarn named: Buachaille.  #sevenskeinsclub you can find out more about her yarn or visit her blog.  

My husband didn't know he ordered this for my Birthday present!  He was thrilled the shopping was so easy this year.  The yarn arrived after my birthday but no biggie at all. I have yet to get it into balls but I did weight it all as suggested for various knitting patterns that are all part of the club.

I love the yarn, the feel of it and the smell!  The colors are great and very rich.  I think Kate has done a wonderful job of putting together a great yarn with some fantastic patterns.  The first item I will knit will be the Kokkeluri Mittens.  I have been wanting a new pair of mittens.  I also wanted something that wasn't to Norwegian and Kate's pattern is the ticket.

This African Violet was started from a leaf last year.  I have several of these in my classroom from last year and they are doing GREAT!  Nothing like a bit of color in my dark wintery world!

October is my birthday month and my cake was pumpkin pie without the crust. I make this wonderful yummy treat often.  No crust well I have always liked the pie more than the crust and now I don't eat wheat so it is perfectly yummy!

One of the many tundra walks we take just about every day or when the snow lands we ski! 

Butternut Squash Curry with chick-peas and rice! Tonight we had this as a left over and added chicken breast so dang tasty@

Sadie loves to eat ice even if it is like -20ºF out she will lay in the snow and eat ice!

Just us "girls" out on the tundra!  Tally and me.

Miss Sadie and me.

I love tally just sitting and wishing those clouds would bring us some snow!

"See" says Tally, "I am praying for snow too!"

In the fall we always get jelly fish on the beach.  This year they are rather small but you can see them on the sand.  Clear jelly fish.  We jokingly call them "Jesuit Jelly Fish" as they have a cross in them. 

I can not say enough about this great tea company!  Chai Diaries.  I ordered several teas from them and all of them have been delightful.  Great flavors and fast service and for rural Alaska that is a must.  I know I will be ordering more of their wonderful teas!

Almond flour , chipotle  crackers.  This is a great little recipe and just plain old yummy and easy to make.

I love homemade soup.  Here is a nice little veggie soup with chick-peas.  The base is turkey and veggie broth.

Almond Flour scone with tundra cranberries!

Beach looking north along Norton Sound.

Beach looking south towards Unalakleet.

Here is Tomten # 2 with the sleeves completed.  Below is the amount of left over green yarn.  Luckly it all worked out perfectly with a bit of frogging and added colors.

Below are a few closing photos from October 31st tundra walk in the wind and snow! All of which makes me extremely happy!

November 1st First day of Skiing for 2015_2016 Ski Season! & Wovember

No great surprise if you follow my blog a bit anyone can figure out I really love winter, snow and skiing!  I love being outside in the elements (most of the time) simply enjoying Mother Nature.  Today was the first day skiing for the 2015_2016 season.  Since I moved out to the village of Unalakleet my goal is 100+ days a year on skis skiing.  The last 9 years this has not been an issue at all!  I am sure I will make it again this year.  Often, I close the season around 125 days.  I love this as I have a full time job and am actually a very busy person.  I still manage to get my days in gliding around on the snow.  I am not a killer alpine skier at all just a basic alpine skier at best.  My love is nordic skiing and touring.  I am a classic skier from way back when . . . yes I do know how to put pine tar on the base of a wooden ski and I can use klister too!

Christian with a ton of snow on the base of his ski.  It was a sticky ski today as we had cold then warmer snow and another layer of cold snow.  The end result was over the top kick!

Tundra skiing is actually pretty forgiving as there are not many rocks so skiing on the grass and plants is really very easy on your gear.

Always there is a tea break!  These palettes are our snow fences.  We build drits, groom the drifts and ski on top of them.  Skiing here is a full time love and devotion to the sport---NOTHING and I MEAN NOTHING about it is easy!

Heading in after a few hours tundra cruising ski!  I am so grateful to our snow!

We also have a storm a brewing.  We often get a good fall storm with high winds over 45mph, high surf and flooding.  We have something out there building.  I am sure we will get rain and snow and hopefully more snow than rain.  We will just have to see what mother nature is up to the next 48 hours.

Now if you are a knitter you may know about: WOVEMBER!

If you are not a knitter you may be thinking what? Really Wovember oh get a grip!

http://wovember.com/2015/11/01/welcome-to-wovember-2015/

Here is just a bit about Wovemebr and you can visit the site to learn more:

WOVEMBER is about:

* recognising that WOOL is a premium textile which comes from an actual sheep, and that – as such – the terms WOOL, WOOLLY and WOOLLEN should only be applied to real WOOL and not, for instance, to polyester or viscose.

* celebrating the important heritage and contemporary value of WOOL through our 100% WOOL stories, blog posts, pictures, textiles, and garments.

* educating and informing the wider public of the wondrous qualities of WOOL.

* creatively pushing the idea that the word WOOL should refer to sheep’s WOOL only.

*reconnecting the idea of WOOL to the animals and people involved in its creation and manufacture.

* campaigning for a clarification of trading standards to prevent further misuse of the term WOOL.

The story of Tomten #2 and not enough yarn!

The Tomten which is a design by Elizabeth Zimmermann is a favorite of many a knitter.  I too enjoy this rather brilliant jacket and I am currently knitting # 2 in the Tomten parade.  ONLY, I ran into a bit of a snafu!  I was dead on certain that I had one more skein of this wonderful green yarn upstairs!  The first mistake of a knitter, is one who is convinced they have more skeins of a certain yarn.  Of course I didn't have any more green!  None at all!  All gone! Zip--zero--none!  At which point knitting came to a grinding halt!

Do you see the right  sleeve is all done and perfect!

 The other sleeve had just run out of yarn, done, none, no more yarn!  I thought about making this left sleeve a fun wild crazy striped arm.  Then I stopped and thought this out a bit!  I could frog the other sleeve back use some of that green to knit a bit more on the other sleeve.  Ok, and then add some striping and get this project off my needles.  I am almost done with this sleeve adjustment.

Since running out of yarn is a bit of a topic on this post. Here is a completed pair of socks.  The goal was to use up some PDS DK Yarn.  I purposely knitted them as opposite socks, but ran out of green.  I knew I would runout of yarn but the goal was to knit up socks and use up some of the left over project yarn in my stash.  I now find this a bit funny as I realized those darn greens are the trouble makers here in my knitting!  I used up all the green and blue and tossed in just a bit of what is called fireweed for the toe.  I love this bright little toe as it certainly add a smile to any day!

What can you buy for $10 bucks and 2 moose roasts?

Hmmm .  .  .  not sure?

Not two dogs or a wonderful husband or even an old ski track groomer, but yes a 1997 Skandic snowmachine as they are called out here.  Yes our second old very used snowmachine that we groom the ski trails with was traded for $10 bucks, 2 moose roasts, the lucky purchaser had to haul it away.

James Herriot

I recently finished reading a kindle book The Real James Herriot: A Memoir of My Father by: James Wight (Alf's son).  I completely enjoyed reading this book.  It brought back so many memories of reading all of the James Herriot books.  I would say these books helped me to become a reader in high school.  I remember reading them all slowly over many years and falling in love with the country side, the great stories about the local people, all the animals and James Herriot himself.

Now some 40 years later, I have reread all his books over the years and am now listening to them.  I have the first two as audio books and will soon be purchasing the rest.  It is a great joy to sit down with my knitting and listen to Christopher Timothy read Alf Wight's writing.Christopher Timothy  captures his listening audience with his wonderful voices of the various characters.  I am always laughing out loud as I remember reading these same stories years ago.

I also have discovered the joy of audio books when I am out walking on the beach or tundra.  It is great to turn a book on on my phone and with out ear plugs I can walk and listen.  I wonder if people see me walking and laughing if they think I am totally nuts!

If you are a James Herriot fan I can highly recommend giving this book a read or a listening too!

Fall Knitting

"I wonder why we battle with our knitting——a baby sweater should be easy to knit and fingerless mitts should fly off ones' needles .  .  .  but NO!  Amazing how many mistakes and challenges 2 sticks and some string can be——even more amazing is how knitting ever got invented—early knitting must have looked frightful!"

Above is a little piece that I wrote to a friend of mine back in September about our knitting.   There always seems to be an endless supply of knitting mistakes a knitter can make.  I have been knitting over 20 years now and I still mess up and I still find new ways of messing up.

I was knitting a hat and fingerless mitts for a trade.  My niece has a friend who makes wonderful goat's milk soap and has fantastic honey.  This friend also likes my knitting and thus a perfect match for a trade.  I knitted her a Crown Jewel hat which happens to be #6 for the year!  I will say knitting this hat is addictive, fun, and with enough little design features to keep a knitter interested in the project.

Crown Jewel #6 in Noro Silk Garden from the Knit 'n Needle my FLY shoppe in Montana.

Knitting mistake #5,106 these mistakes seem endless if you have been knitting for years.  No, I don't keep track of my mistakes but I do joke about them!  One always needs to remember humor when knitting or you might just have a full head of grey hair.  I had knitted one fingerless mitt and it was done other than the cast-off and cast-on tails needed to be weaved in and trimmed.  I was on the second mitt and had picked up the sts around the thumb.   As I was knitting in the pattern with the Whiskey Spring color (which I love and I am not even a brown person)  the other mitt kept getting closer to me and I kept pushing it away.  One would think, I would have stopped and looked at what was going on but, NO I just kept knitting.  I am knitting away on my thumb and getting excited that "I am almost done!"  First mistake to think one would be done soon!  The curse of an over confident knitter about to be humbled once again!  I am knitting around on my thumb and SUDDENLY!  I realize the reason the other mitt is closing in on me is because the cast-off tail of mitt #1 is what I am knitting with on thumb #2!  WHAT THE HECK!  Yes, I really did pickup the tail of mitt #1 and I am knitting with that on mitt #2.  I thought for a minute I would frog the thumb back but then I stopped!  "Just cut the yarn tail and weave those tails in!"  Take mitt#1 and set it on the other side of the living room and grab the ball of Whiskey Spring and knit-on!  I have to admit I wanted a bottle of whiskey and not a ball of yarn at this point  .  .  . 

Knitting mistake  # 5,106!

The two yarns I used for these fingerless mitts are PDS Whiskey Spring and Ptarmigan.

Done! With no "Idiot String" between the thumbs!

A rather long term project was completed in early October!  This project lingered far to long on my needles.  Finally, I went to retrieve it out of its storage bag only to realize all ends had been woven in and it was even blocked.  All I needed to do was sew on the buttons!  What have I been waiting for who knows!?  

Kate Davies Bláithín sweater is off my needles and joins the DONE pile!  This is a wonderful design full of all kinds of finishing techniques I have never applied before.  The most challenging part was the sandwich steek.  I have used steeking often but have never heard of or used a sandwich steek.  This is with out a doubt is a very fussy bit of finish work that is well worth all the fuss.  At one point, I must of had about 6 circular needles on this sweater doing various important jobs.  The other part I found a bit daunting was the icord trim which was also the button band.   This part of the design brought be to a grinding halt.  I really procrastinate over button bands as I don't like frogging out those suckers more than I have to.  I really had to make sure, several times over that, I had all the math correct for the button placement.  There was no way I would be frogging out an icord button band that was also the trim for the whole sweater! 

I used one of my favorite American yarns for this design.  Harrisville Design yarn Highland which is worsted weight yarn.  Purchased at Knit 'n Needle.

The back ground in these photos is what life looks like in a rural Alaskan Village.  The palettes we use for snow fences to help us make ski trails so the ski team kids do in fact have snow to ski on!  It is a bit of a story. I will write more about trying to run a cross-country ski program out here.

I still have a sleeve of Tomten #2 to finish and I have 2 more Tomtens to knit!  I love knitting the Tomtens as that is another great EZ design.  

Next project I just casted-on is a Shetland Chunky weight vest.  The theory behind this vest is it will be close fitting and used as a layer for skiing and hiking.  I am thinking I might do some embroidery on the vest just to jazz it up a bit.  I am planning on a zipper front.  It will be knit int he round and steeked.

The beginnings of a swatch.