Snow Days

It doesn’t snow often here on the wet coast.  Rarer still to get more than a centimetre or so, and for it to stick around more than a day.  Well, it started snowing on Monday and there’s still white stuff out there now, although temperatures are supposed to rise and rain to fall this afternoon.  They say make hay while the sun shines; I say take photos while the snow falls!

Here is Snegurochka, the snow maiden, in her natural habitat.

And look – an elf!  Perhaps he got lost on his way up north!

A little girl took advantage of this rare opportunity to make a snowman.  Something about the white light from the snow makes her rosy cheeks even more adorable!

The coat Rada is wearing is a pretty heavily adapted Swing Thing (Rav link), knit from locally sourced hand spun alpaca that I picked up at the Saanich Fair a couple of years ago.  Adapting the coat was a big pain in the butt because I was absolutely going to use this yarn, come hell or high water, but the smallest gauge I could get was 1/2 the written one, instead of the 1/3 gauge I needed in order to just follow the pattern.  If anyone’s interested in the details, I wrote a bit in my project notes over at Ravelry.  In the end, I think it turned out amazingly well and I’m glad I didn’t give up and switch yarn.  The heavier fabric is just perfect for the look of this coat – it looks perfectly believable as winter outerwear.

I was still working on the coat on Monday when I took the first photos (in fact, I’d put it down in favour of giftmas-related knitting until I saw white stuff drifting down).  I was worried that I’d miss the snow (no such luck!), but in the end the delay was a blessing.  Gareth took a snow day or two this week (-5 and snowy?  Not the best day to start building a fence!) & we spent Tuesday hauling bins out of storage that have been there since the spring when we had to HIDE ALL THE STUFF because the house we rent a suite in was on the market.  We got rid of a tonne of stuff and found a few things we’d been missing – including the doll stands I tried unsuccessfully to hunt down for the first snow day.  I don’t normally bother with stands – the dolls do extremely well on their own 2 feet, especially when stood on a table or shelf – but for outdoor photo shoots, it’s nice not to have to worry about this:

Dignity, Vasilisa’s got it!

Anyway, now that I’ve got a bunch of lovely photos out of it, the snow can just blow back from whence it came for the rest of the winter.  Unless it wants to come and hang out for a day or two at Christmas…