Tag: january

Happy New Year 2026 and Time to Cast On

A new year means a brand new knitting project to begin. What will you be making?

Believe it or not, this unfinished post has been sitting around for a year! I had to change the title for 2026. Talk about being behind!

Last January

We went camping the beginning of January 2025 (pics below) and I wore my Calliope 2 sweater. It does get cold in Florida and it is a damp, nasty cold. Sometimes we even have ice! The hand knits that sit in my closet and under the bed for months and months, finally come out and get some use. We had fun camping last January, even though we had to bring our cats!

In the photos below we are camping in north Florida at Mike Roess Gold Head Branch campground. I love this area for the hills and trails. Bike riding is a challenge (for this old gal), but lots of fun. The campground is expansive, with lakes and three separate areas for RV and tent camping.

wearing the Calliope sweater in gold
Winter camping, sweater weather- yay!
Campsite at Mike Roess Gold Head Branch state campground in north Florida.
Our campsite – January

Plans for This January

We are not camping. The past two years of camping in winter made me re-think it. In Florida it can be nice in January, and it can be downright cold. This year we are skipping the January camping trip. That means it will probably be a beautiful and temperate month…LOL.

I will stay home and knit instead. We do have some fun planned, which I may share – we’ll see how it goes.

January 2026 and a New Cast On

I like to begin the new year with a special knitting project. I’ve been thinking about knitting a cable cardigan for a while. Cables are time-consuming to accomplish, and I knew the project would require the best yarn combined with an awesome pattern.

After much thought and lots of searching, I hope to be casting on for the ….. Book Club Cardigan.

Sari Nordlund is the designer and I see her knits on Instagram all the time. Usually I feel like they are too difficult for me to manage. But, she assures us (right on the product page) that this cardigan is easier to knit than it may appear. It is seamless – meaning there are no pieces to sew together. Often a cabled cardigan is knit in pieces and then the pieces have to be attached. This pattern is not like that. I’m looking forward to it.

I just need to buy some yarn.

After completing the Simple Stripes sweater and a beanie, time got away from me. Already it is New Year’s Eve! And I don’t have the worsted weight yarn for the cable cardigan.

Do your New Year plans include a new knitting project? I ‘d love to hear about it. Thanks for reading!

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January Snow

snow storm
January Snow

The winter has not been a good one. Last year (2013-14) there was a lot of snow and truthfully I handled it much better than all the sleet and freezing rain this year. Up until today there has been only a crusty frozen few inches covering the ground. The driveway is a mass of icy ruts from the melting, rain and re-freeze.

When it rains in winter I have water issues to deal with. After the all-day rain last weekend, I had many inches of water to push out of the garage. First I had to dig trenches in the driveway to direct the water off to the side. Thankfully I had a door put in on the back wall, and it comes in handy in pushing the water out the back.
The water problem is an easy fix. The garage has a drain, but it’s clogged with sand. It’s been like that since I moved here a few years ago. So a new drain, in the back corner at the lowest point would solve the problem.
Just like all the other problems, big and small, nothing can be done about fixing them without money to hire someone to do so. So I deal with the issues as they arise, as best I can.

At least today it’s snow coming down and not rain. It should never rain in winter. In fact it should never get above freezing. That is when all the problems occur. Ice forms and makes walking treacherous and shoveling impossible. These are the things I forgot about while living in Florida for 27 years. I remembered the snow, but not the ice. Shortly after I moved north in 2005 I fell and cracked my head open on black ice. A few stitches later and lesson learned.

If we end up getting more than the 3-7 inches predicted, I will have to start up the snowblower and try to clean up the driveway. It was a bit difficult getting the thing started last time, which was the only time I’ve had to use it so far this season. Usually by now we’ve had a number of big storms here in New Hampshire – like the big one in October 2011. My daughter is disappointed as she likes to go snowboarding. The slopes have been making snow, but it doesn’t compare to nice, fresh powder.

This snowfall looks so pretty. Maybe the rest of the winter will be normal.

Happy New Year, We Are Snowless

On January first the temp reached into the mid-forties the sunshine drew me outside to pick up fallen branches that were scattered over the front yard. There is no snow here in southern New Hampshire.

I think that is a first for me since I moved back to the northeast. We have had a white Christmas for the past 6 years and don’t see the ground until Spring. This year was different. We had 23 inches of snow in October and have had very little since.

 

Pictures of Past Snowfalls

high snow
Basement slider- I won’t be using this door any time soon
Black lab in deep snow
My neighbor’s black lab walking in deep snow

The photo here is one I took last year on January 12th during a snowstorm that dumped a bunch of snow on top of the bunch of snow we already had.

This was the year when my landlady had decided she didn’t need the driveway plowed by the guy she had been using. Because she was waiting for the new, busy plow guy, our driveway was way down his list and we had to wait! I didn’t have to get out in my car, but I didn’t like the idea that we were snowed in. Good thing I work from home!