Tiny Needle Tuesday

 Ta dah! The November block is done and you can see I took your advice and made the last one a different color. Lavender to be precise. A grayish lavender. I stitched it in three different colors before I found one I liked. I had to go outside the charted colors from the pattern because none of them were working for me.

 Here's a reminder of what this project looked like this time last year. I've got one block to go and it will be completely done. I hardly ever finish anything so I am very impressed with myself.

If my dining room table wasn't ground zero for the kitchen remodeling I would be working on this Thanksgiving project I started last year. The place is such a mess I'm just going to pack up my projects for the duration. Hopefully I can get the December Sheep Virtue block done sometime in December. By then I hope the worst will be over.

Back to Work

 We've had a lull in the kitchen business but we were back here on Friday. That's the floor store.

 After a week or so of thinking about it we finally decided on this floor.

 We had to special order it so it won't be here until December 2. We didn't bring a floor home on our excursion but we did bring this home. We had lunch at Panera and The Mister was obsessed with this pastry ring. After dropping a big bundle of cash on the new floor, paying $9 bucks on a box of empty calories didn't seem so crazy. It was gone in in two days. Shame on us.

We also took another trip to Ikea and Lowe's where we compared cabinets. I'm pretty close to convincing The Mister this is the kitchen we need. It's Ikea's Bodbyn and The Mister was pretty impressed. He took all the drawers out and really looked at how they are put together. I thought we might be asked to leave at one point but I guess Ikea is pretty used to crazy customers.

Now we have to get back to work and get up the rest of the tile and scrape off all the remaining thinset. We were going to just replace all the plywood but The Mister saw a video of someone using a grinder with a dust shroud to smooth it down so that's what we are going to do instead. This also means taking out all the appliances and the base cabinets. It's getting really serious now. Yikes.

An FO and an Uh, Oh....

 My second Mosi hat is done. It's a bit bigger than the first. I used the same pattern and the same yarn (Palette) but I used a different circular needle which must have been a bit bigger. The first hat I had knit using the magic loop. The brown one was done all in the round. The bigger one fits better so it was an accidental win.

I love knitting these hats so much I have a green one already started.

 Now for the uh, oh....Soldotna is done but the hem rolls up. Argh.....I've already done my homework and I know why it happened. Now I just have to rip it all out and do it right. It's always something.

Sweater Weather

 For the past week all my handknits have been getting a bath. It started when Daughter asked if she could borrow one of my Lopis to take to Iceland.

All my sweaters were stored in a yucky old garment bag and forgotten since this time last year I was covered in poison ivy and wool of any kind was off limits for the season. Now they are all getting a soak in the sink....

 ....and then a drying on the rack with the dehumidifier on full blast in the small downstairs bathroom. They dry really fast that way.

I've had a real assembly line going. After they dry I pack them in my new Ikea underbed garment bags. I love these things. Unlike the cheap Walmart bags these things do not attract dust. They slide in and out easily and are very lightweight for being such a structured box. I need to pick up a few more on my next trip. I've got a lot of sweaters.

I'd also like to sing the praises of sock blockers. I know, I know, we all have them but I never used them. They were just for photo shoots with finished socks. I've been actually blocking my socks after I wash them and the difference is amazing. They fold better, fit better and just seem softer.  Who knew?

Snow Day

 It's still fall but it's been winter in my card room for a while now. I've been inking and spritzing snowy backgrounds and cutting out snow drifts pretty much every night.

 My little snowmen have to live somewhere.

I'm really having fun with this card. Hopefully it will be riding along with the January Giveaway if I ever get all the soap made. This kitchen remodeling thing is really taking up a lot of my time. Lol...

Brrrr......

 How cold is it? Too cold to do much of anything outside so I decided to make soap. Lots of soap.

 I've got some on the curing shelves but I need a lot more. The Mister loves to give it away and with the holidays coming I thought I better be prepared.  My fall soap went fast.

The problem with this soap session is that my favorite calculator doesn't work for me anymore. I've always used Brambleberry's which was pretty simple and straight forward but they stopped including lots of the oils that I use in favor of only the ones they sell. The other online calculators are full of mumbo jumbo I don't understand. That's the one I have to use now in the photo. I'd need a chemistry degree to figure it out but I think I muddled through it. At least I hope so. I'll know in 6 weeks.

 I spent a lot of time watching people make soap on You Tube while I was at Daughter's so I was inspired to venture out of my comfort zone.

All my little gifting soaps are my same old, same old but I went crazy with this big chunk of a soap I made just for fun. I used the aloe juice instead of water. I think the sugar in it must have heated it up too much because when I went to check on it all my pretty gold dusted swirls had flattened out to an ugly plop. I'll have to cut the top off when I take it out of the mold. Oh, well. I guess you can't win'em all.

 I have to confess that I am still obsessed with the grocery store soap. I just bought this bar of lavender yesterday.

 I bought the lemongrass last week and that itty bitty sliver is what's left of my first bar. They are a very soft soap and only last about a week with daily use. I like them for my body but I hated them on my face. They make it tight and itchy.

Here is a bar of my clay soap that I started using in the tub weeks before I even thought of buying the other soap. It's still got a lot of life left in it and I show it as much love daily as I do the store bought soaps. I don't know if that longevity is a good thing or a bad thing because I've got a lot of the odds and ends soaps piling up around here.

Big Needle Wednesday and Some Kitty Stew

 I didn't take much knitting with me the Daughter's. So many of my projects take multiple colors and I'm not dragging all that around. I did take my socks. They are both now on the gusset decreases.

 I brought along the two skeins of yarn I picked up at Micheal's last week for Pup's next sweaters.

I decided to cast on the Autumn Leaves colorway. Look at that crazy pooling. This is going to be interesting.

I also got another few inches on the Wind Blows cardi. I'm not hating the slog of all that stockinette since it's good TV knitting and now that it's getting dark so darn early I'm getting plenty of TV time.

I had someone ask me how I make my kitty stew so here goes. It's pretty simple. I just raid Daughter's freezer. Whatever frozen seafood or poultry goes into a deep frying pan with a little lightly salted water. I boil the heck out of it until it is all thawed and cook through. Daughter usually has packs of Cod and Salmon fillets, scallops, shrimp and chicken breasts. When it's cooking the kitties go wild. It does smell good. When it cools, the broth that has cooked down makes a jelly-like gravy that they love. I always heat it up before serving it and break it into flakes with my fingers to make sure there are no bones. A big pot doesn't go far with Daughter's kitties. They can't get enough.