A Week to Forget

 

The new view from my deck. It was a massacre. 

It's hard to tell how big these trees were from a photo but this should give you an idea. 

Look at how tiny the workers look compared to that tree. The whole house has been shaking all week. 

It was a hair raising experience watching them climb and drop those trees. All together, there were twenty four that needed to go since they were within striking distance of the house. They had to take out even more to get to those twenty four.

We've got piles and piles of logs all over the property. We even had to put some in our neighbor's yard when we ran out of room. A logging company is coming to pick them all up tomorrow.

We've got a debris disaster to cleanup when it's all said and done. There'll be plenty of kindling this winter. The city is also making us replant twenty four trees to replace those old poplars we took out in the newly cleared spaces. That's daunting to think about but will have to wait until spring. 

Pup and I hid in the downstairs craft room for the first few days while they were working close to the house. I had DVDs of old movies going full blast all day. I can tell you this. That's not tea in my teacup. My nerves were shot. We've still got a few more days of buzzing and crashing scheduled for next week when they come to finish clearing in the front of the house. It turned out to be a much bigger job than they had planned for. 

Some Sweater Talk

 

Look what I did. I used the machine to sew in the sleeves on Bon Ami. Mattress stitch be damned. I took Arne's shortcut and used the machine after basting them in place. The whole process took less than a half hour. 

Before I did the second sleeve I tried the whole thing on to see if it worked and it worked. 

The only thing left to do now is sew down all the facings.

Now that Bon Ami was a success Chestnut is back into play. I enlarged the chart and made cards for each pattern section so I could see what I'm doing.

I'm not sure what to do with the Ski Sweater. It was a great travel project all summer while we were traveling back and forth to babysit but it's been neglected ever since. I think it might re-emerge in January. The sight of some snow might re-ignite my mojo for it. 

Wednesday WIPs

 

Ta da....another sock finish. I loved working on these in spite of my rather wonky short row heels. The pattern really holds your interest as it changes every nine stitches. I have to thank SoxieKnitter for the pattern. She gifted it to me last year. 

I put a big rush on getting them finished so I could free up my tiny Rocket circular needle thinking I could join the Arne and Carlos Christmas Stocking KAL but I crashed and burned. I can NOT do toe up socks. I HATE increases. I tried three times to get that toe looking right and gave up. Instead I bought one of their other stocking patterns and I'll just reverse it to go cuff down. When this year's pattern is complete, I'll reverse it too if it's one I like. Now I'm just waiting for yarn. I'm ditching the Palette. I liked knitting the Cozy Quilt socks with Stroll so I ordered some in holiday colors. 

My other knitting plans went off the rails this week when my sister sent me a photo of the crochet poncho she just finished. She calls it her reading poncho and it sparked an idea.

I wake up at all hours of the night anymore and I like to pick up my Kindle and read but my arms and shoulders always get cold. What I needed was a shawl made of soft non-woolly fabric that can live in my bed so I started one using the Lion Brand Prayer Shawl pattern that I've made so many times before with their Home Spun yarn. I'm actually only knitting it at night when in bed as to not have it covered in cat hair. My room is off limits to the kitties. Allergies. 

And....once againI fed my insane Croc obsession this week. I was looking for some that were winter themed to use as my indoor Crocs and found these for a reasonable price online in all places at....Walmart. 

TNT: Help Wanted

 

All that needs to be done on Matter's Choice is the bottom border but there is a hitch.

Dots. Lots of dots. Here is the photo from the pattern and they are all over the piece. TNTers please weigh in on how you would stitch these. One at a time or stranding the thread along the back? I have no idea So I've saved them for last.

I've got five more boxes to fill in on the center part of Patchwork Automne and then it's on to the borders. I hated doing the borders on the original one. I'm going to have to my grit my teeth.

Dear Jane has another finished block. I know. It's ugly. Many of the blocks are when they are standing alone but all together they seem work. I've got the four corners left on the Patchwork of the crosses quilt and then I have to decide how to quilt it. I thought I would hand quilt it but I don't think I have that much time left on this earth tbh. 

Not much else is going to happen this week because of this. We've waited eight months to get our trees taken down and it's happening now. I hate it. I hate the noise. I hate the mess. I hate the guilt of "harvesting" all our old friends but it has to be done for our safety. Pup and I are hiding out in the far corner of the lower level watching videos at high volume all day in hopes of shutting the horror out. It's a war zone out there. 

Out With a Bang

 

When all of the soap making things are in the dish washer you know that Soap Week is over. I wash them after every batch but only run through the dishwasher before storing them away. 

Before all the cleaning began there was a flurry of activity using up as much of the oils and butters as I could with the new lye that just arrived.

I had three loaves left to make. This is Showgirl. When I put it in the mold I thought it looked more like peas and carrots. 

I was pleasantly surprised when I cut it. I think I nailed the Showgirl Era colors. All the glitter doesn't hurt either. This one is full of glycerin rivers meaning it got a bit hot. I think I went a little heavy on the honey. That'll do it. 

It and Winter Wonderland were layered pours meaning I took a wire and pulled it up through the colored layers to make the patterns. 

Opalite was the last batch I made and it was a rescue mission. When I first started this soaping session I had bought a new scale. I knew right away it was not right. I have markers on all my equipment that helps me make sure I've got the right amount of everything. Measuring is critical. I could see right away it was wrong. I had too much oil in the mixture. I put it all in a jar and left it until I could figure out what to do with it. Before making any more soap I bought a new scale so I weighed it all out again and re-made the formula. 

I made 13 batches which gives me 65 bars for gifting in total. I get five bars to gift per loaf and two ugly ends that I keep. Look for these to be sent out after January 18th when the USPS shipping rates go back down after the holidays. Right now they are keeping my Barbie collection company while they go through their 6 week cure. 

In the meantime, I still have a lot of cleaning to do. As careful as you are, the room becomes an oily mess. I need to get moving on it because I need the space for Christmas card making. I settled on this stamp and die set for this year's cards. It's a new collection called Reading Tree from Mama Elephant. 

An Unexpected Journey

 

The Mister and I decided at the last minute to hop in the car on Halloween and head up to Daughter's. If the trick or treaters won't come to us, we'll come to them. It's also a family tradition to make donuts on Halloween and it would be much more fun if there were people around to eat them so off we went. 

Big Grand had fun helping me make them but wouldn't eat them because they weren't like the donuts he's used to.

It was Baby Grand's first Halloween so extra bodies come in handy when you're trying to give out candy and take your own kids around. 

Just getting both of them ready and in their costumes took a team effort.

The Mister and I dressed in our costumes and rang the bell when we got there. Big Grand came to the door and freaked out. He ran into the pantry, shut the door and wouldn't come out until he knew for sure it was just us. After dark, the Mister helped take the kids around while Pup and I handed out the candy on the porch. There were herds of kids all night long. We went through a lot of candy.

After the kids were in bed, The Mister and SIL sat around a fire, watched the World Series and did some serious damage to a bottle of fine whiskey. Pup and I crashed on the living room floor for the night. I didn't even hear them come in. 

Since we weren't babysitting we didn't have a timeline to deal with so we made a lot of stops along the way up. I ran into Ikea to take a look at the Christmas displays and to pick up a holiday tin of ginger cookies. Then it was Panera, Starbucks and finally the grocery store for some snacks. 

And...we did get our Mexican take out for dinner. It was a good day. A very good day.

Inktober

 

I had big plans for Inktober this year. I bought these markers to do some fancy things with the gelli plate but never got around to it. I was too busy with Socktober and Soaptober. 

I didn't ignore it completely though. While I was waiting for my lye to cool down everyday, I picked a prompt and attempted to do a little sketch of it then slapped some watercolor on it to hide my shame. On the long list of things I discovered I cannot draw over the years are owls, bee wings and trunks (I should have gone with elephant). I would have thought that I could have done a better job with weave since I have a loom sitting right here in front of me. Oh, well. There's always next year although I have noticed with horror that by looking at previous year's work that my eye hand coordination is deteriorating at an alarming rate.