Anyone who knows me even remotely also knows exactly where I stand on the subject of winter.
I HATE*:
(1) Snow. (Especially when gale-force winds blow it in my face and it melts all over my glasses as I trudge from the parking lot to the mall doors, so then I have to dig through my purse to find a tissue that I can use to clean the lenses so maybe I’ll be able to see again, but dammit, the glass is smeared and starts to fog up just as I put them back on, and I am halfway through cursing a long string of expletives when I realize that lots of people have stopped shopping to stand and stare at me and some are even crouching behind clothing racks.)
(2) Ice. (Except when it’s in the stiff drink I’m going to need by the time I get home since I’m trapped in my car behind a bunch of dimwits who have suddenly forgotten how to drive on Canadian roads in winter, so their cars are all upside down in the ditch while the rubberneckers ten miles ahead slow down to gawk, which means I’ll be idling in traffic for what is going to feel like a week. Maybe two.)
(3) Boots. (Unless they’re on a cowboy that looks just like Clint Eastwood in his prime.)
(4) Frozen ears, hands, feet, arms, hair, eyelashes, brain…
(5) Dead foliage. (I’ve been housebound for so long, I’m beginning to act like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, so I talk my husband into risking our lives to go on a Sunday drive. How picturesque the scenery is at this time of year: dried up brown farm fields, tree trunks and branches stripped bare of all growth, evergreens that will never again be green because they are now the colour of dried blood. It’s all so stunning, I feel inspired to go home and write poetry. Not.)
(6) Brown snowbanks. Or even worse, yellow. (Double worse if you fall in it.)
(7) Being trapped behind that confounded snowplow blocking both lanes as it moves at 1.5 km/hour. (I swear I can hear that prick of a driver laughing his face off at the masses stuck behind him, all of whom are cursing the ground that he plows on.)
(8) Slush. (Unless it has “fund” after it and fills a box in my cupboard). 
(9) Salt. (Not the kind we eat. The kind that eats holes in everything we own, from the boots that I hate having to wear to the freezing car that I hate the thought of having to go out and get into right now.)
(11) Grey skies. Grey landscape. Grey skin. Grey mood.
(12) Sneezing and coughing people. Everywhere. (And why can’t you cover your mouth?? I’ll bet you can’t be bothered to use your car indicator either. Is it really that much trouble to lift your hand?? I’ll bet your kids are the ones that always have snot oozing from their noses—why bother lifting a finger to pass them a tissue when they can just use their sleeves, right??)
(13) The gazillion dollars I pay Enbridge to barely heat my house. (My pleasure, Mr. CEO—mi dinero es su dinero! I just hope you’re able to get by this year on your 12+ million payout!)
(14) Snowflakes. (I really don’t give a flying puck how pretty they are).
(15) It’s night when I get up for work. It’s night when I get home from work. (No wonder bears sleep all winter. I am so coming back as a bear in my next life.)
(16) Goddam snow. (It’s no surprise that there’s never quite enough to force employers into giving us a snow day but always just enough to wreak havoc during rush hour.)
(17) Having to wear layer upon layer upon layer of fleece-lined clothing to keep from turning blue. (Of course, the multi layers make me look like I’ve scarfed every box of chocolates that pretty much everyone I know gave me for Christmas—damn them—which, ok, I did because I have no willpower (resolutions? what resolutions? they were blown all to hell on Jan 1st), so now I’m dreading spring since I’m going to look like a great big hot-dog cart sausage when I try to squeeze into my clothes from last year. But seriously, what the hell else is there to do but eat bonbons when it’s cold enough ou
tside to get hypothermia just by walking across the street to the mailbox.
(18) Hat hair. (Why waste time and energy brushing my hair when I know it’s just going to look like Kim Jong Un’s by the time I get wherever I’m going?)
(19) Anybody and everybody with plans to travel south. (May you bump into Jaws at the beach.)
(20) Fucking goddam snow. (Whether it falls gently from the sky, spreads like vanilla frosting over hill and dale, or becomes a cute little snowman on your front lawn—I HATE it.)
*I know. HATE is a strong word. But in my case, it’s warranted.
Anyway. While my daughter was shopping at Christmastime, my miserable face sprung into her mind the moment she spotted this hat, and she just couldn’t resist buying it for me. In only two words, it sums up everything I feel in my heart at this time of year, and even though it makes my hair look like crap, I love it so much that I crocheted a wacky looking infinity scarf to wear with it.
Without further ado, here’s the pattern:
“Hate Winter” Infinity Scarf
Materials
Yarn: one ball black fun fur; one ball black chunky worsted; one ball hot pink worsted
Crochet hook: 10 mm
Pattern
Using fun fur, chain 112.
Row 1: Single Crochet (sc) in 2nd chain from hook, and in each chain across. Turn.
Row 2: Ch 1 and sc in same sp; sc in each sc across; fasten off and attach black worsted.
Row 3: Using worsted: ch 1; sc in first sc; sc in each sc across. Turn.
Row 4: Ch 1; *Double Crochet (dc) in first sc; sc in next sc; repeat from * across, alternating dc and sc. End with a dc in the last sc.
Row 5: Ch 1; *sc in first dc; dc in next sc; repeat from * across, ending with an sc in the last dc.
Repeat Row 4. Fasten off and change hot pink.
Using hot pink, repeat Row 5. Fasten off and change to black worsted.
Using black worsted, repeat Row 4.
Repeat Row 5.
Repeat Row 4. Fasten off and change to fun fur.
Using fun fur: ch 1; sc in each st across. Turn.
Ch 1; sc again in each sc across. Fasten off.
Finishing
Using black worsted, seam together both ends of scarf on the wrong side to form the infinity style.
(SIDEBAR)
On the other hand, here’s what I love about winter:
I’ve always been entranced by the look of pineapple crochet patterns—so lacy and intricate—yet I always shied away from attempting to work on one because they seemed so complicated and I consider my skills to be more intermediate than advanced. I once tried a pineapple shawl pattern that I’d found on the Web but got stuck at a point where the instructions suddenly became confusing, and thus ended up throwing up my hands and ripping it all out in frustration, thinking that pineapples are probably just too advanced for me.
On a trip to the library, I spotted a book called Crochet Wraps Every Which Way written by a talented crochet designer named Tammy Hildebrand. The book featured 18 gorgeous shawl patterns, but the one that really caught my eye was called Purple Passion—of course it was a pineapple design.
All I need to do is block it and it will be ready to wear this summer, paired with a lavender sundress.
Create-a-holic Writer 