Tiny Needle Tuesday

 

I think I've done enough on the Toy Tree Sampler-at least until the little bundle lands safely. In the meantime I thought I would finish up this old gem but it gave me a big scare. In the chaos I am living in not a room has been spared and that includes the sewing/soap room. In the jumble of things I couldn't find the chart to save my life. I spent a very long time in panic mode searching through every project bag or box with no luck. 

I finally found it stuffed in with yet another sheepy project that needs finishing. This one to be exact. Crisis averted. 

In the afternoon sunshine that we are now getting through the front window, I finished not one but two 10 by 10 blocks on the chart and felt very happy about it. I also put the chart in plain sight. I can't miss it now.

I was feeling so pleased with myself that I even got a little forest stitched on the bookmark before dinner. It's so nice to have the sun back now that the leaves are gone. 

Speaking of leaves, before fall is officially over I decided I better put a stitch or two on the crewel project. I did those four small gold leaves in the top right hand corner. I wasn't really a fan of this sort of thing but I have to say I didn't hate it last night.

And........I have to thank bloggy friend Sandflies for this surprise package that showed up yesterday. After spending the morning wrangling tile yet again it was a most welcome treat on a very cold and blustery day. Thanks!!!

A Good Sort

My whole life is so out of control right now that I needed to get a grip on something yesterday so I unstuffed all of the many project bags that I had stashed all over the house. I have a very bad habit of not putting anything away when I finish with it. I just pick up another of my many empty bags and start something new leaving the old bag to fend for itself. 
 

I couldn't believe how many circular needles I found. I thought I had a lot before. Now I have more. Someday when I am in the great beyond someone is going to wonder why I had so many.  My best guess is that bad habit of not putting old projects away is the cause. It's easier just to order more needles than to go looking for them. Shameful.

Then there was all the leftover yarn I had to find a home for. I can't even fit all my Palette in the Palette drawers anymore. Ditto for Yarn of the Andes.  My stash closet runneth over. 

And........Happy Hanukkah to all my blog friends that celebrate. Sadly, In this mess I can't even imagine where I've put the little menorah that I brought home from school with me when I retired. A Jewish co-worker and I used to do a whole unit on Hanukkah back in the day and I got used to lighting it so it came home with me. I've used it every year since. Not this year. 

I fear the same is going to happen with Christmas. We are not even close to the finish line on the big remodel so it's probably a lost cause too. I don't have an inch of house to spare. I spend all day tripping over stuff as it is. I won't even have room for last year's tree-or the paper products to build it with. I hope I won't be regretting using up my pandemic stash. Omicron...I'm looking at you. Play nice now. 

Midnight Madness

 

No wall work yesterday. The Mister slapped a new coat of joint compound on the latest hole so we had to wait for it to dry. We raked leaves and I gathered wood for my fire pit. I even split a little bit of it although it was way too windy for a fire. 

While The Mister watched football I finished weaving in the ends on Festive Doodle. It's finally done. It doesn't even look like it needs blocking so I think I'll give it a few wears before I give it a bath.

Not having much to knit right now is making me antsy so I did something stupid. In a moment of midnight madness I found this on Ebay and bought it. It's a needlepoint kit. I've never needlepointed a thing in my life but that never stops me from buying stuff.

Even though I knew nothing about crewel I bought this crewel kit last year and had high hopes but the kit was so vintage it was hard working with the material and the yarn. It was made in 1974 and looked every minute of it's 46 years. It was practically shredding in my hands. 

This new kit is only seven years old so maybe, just maybe I might have something new to play with this winter. 

Get Stuffed

 

You know it's gotten weird around here when you've got bread drying out in pans on your bed. I love stuffing and Daughter's gluten free version doesn't do it for me so I wanted to make my own yesterday. I had to really improvise using the ingredients I had on hand and the few kitchen appliances I have working. 

Using an electric skillet and my small crock pot I managed a fairly decent version from scratch. It was pretty good with the left over cranberry sauce and the rest of the vegetable sides we had brought home. 

If that wasn't weird enough this is what we did in the kitchen. If you are wondering if that's the same wall we just ripped out twice.....it is.  At least it's just the bottom fourth of it. We went to install the heavy back splash and realized we didn't have studs to attach it to on the bottom so we had to add some to keep the heavy thing from pulling out of the wall. The big plate has a wobble in it and it needed taming where it will meet the tile. We're hoping the third time is the charm. We're getting pretty sick of this dry wall thing.

They've been putting up lights all over town for weeks now and last night was supposed to be the big lighting ceremony but it was so cold and windy we skipped it this year. We were afraid to even go to the mailbox it was that bad out there. I was disappointed not to go but it's not like they are turning the lights off any time soon. We've got plenty of time to see them. 

A Turkey of a Thanksgiving

 

I am sad to say that we didn't all stay well for Thanksgiving so Son and the Big Grands didn't make it for dinner at Daughter's. I had a lot of tears over it but we need to protect Daughter at all costs in the last few weeks before her due date. I did get to Zoom with the Baby Grand in Michigan yesterday morning. He's already a real pro in front of the camera. I see network news in his future. 

We took the long trek up to Daughter's and got there in time to see the Macy's Santa come to town. This is a non-negotiable for me. I haven't missed a year since I can remember. 

My two Sons and my SIL are the real cooks in the family but we managed without them even though it wasn't as much fun. 

SIL was busy out back smoking a bourbon brined turkey. It smelled so amazing that we opened the windows so we could enjoy it. 

The meal was a simple and fast gluten free affair.  We wanted to be back on the road and home before dark. The Mister and I don't see well enough to like driving at night anymore especially on our heavily wooded rural roads down here at the beach.

 SIL is an excellent baker. He made pumpkin pie and pumpkin cheesecake.  I brought mine home with me and ate it while listening to Alice's Restaurant.

When we left Daughter and SIL were having words about putting up their tree that night. She's been out buying ornaments and wanted to see her tree up in her new house. He was worn out from doing all the cooking and cleaning and wanted to watch football. 

Speaking of putting up trees, the Big Grands put theirs up. I hope they are thinking about what Santa's going to put under that tree. I could use that information.

Give Thanks.......

 

.........that your kitchen doesn't look like this today.

And your dining room doesn't look like this. 

You just gotta laugh. 

If we all stay healthy we'll be having dinner at Daughter's.

If not, I'll figure out something. I always do. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Wednesday WIPs

 

I haven't touched the little advent sweater since I cast it on but I did add two more blocks to the Audun box. I haven't touched it in ages and it took me forever to figure it all out again. 

It was an easy day in the kitchen. We had to wait for paint to dry.

While we were waiting we went off to the hardware store to pick up a few of these. I wish we had known about them before we started tiling. They would have been a game changer. They are the Schluter tile trimming system and they would have made life so much easier and made my tile look so much better. We were tiling like it was 1989 and neglected to educate ourselves on the new fangled way things are done today. Old dog, new tricks I suppose. Hopefully they will help us tile neatly around that stainless steel back splash.

Since it was pretty much a day off (and cold as the dickens) we took advantage and finished up the Christmas cards. The Mister cranked and I glued. 

He had such a good time he didn't want to stop and even offered to help me with the shower invitations. We got a pile done before dinner and he promised to help me with the rest of them another day. We'll see. 

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 

This week I've been working on finishing up the top branches on the toy tree but after that I'm not sure where I'm going. There are supposed to be balloons that spell out BABY up there but I'm not a fan so it's going to take some thinking. 

I stitched a little bee hive on the bookmark. I literally fell over the stand on Sunday so I thought it might be telling me something so I picked it up and spent a few minutes with it. 

A few minutes is all I have right now because look at this. We've ripped out the wall over the stove once again. We actually made the hole bigger. Notice that my cabinets are no longer on the wall. The patchwork/Frankenstein approach looked awful when we went to paint it so out it all came-again.

I suggested we take out the cabinets way back when we started but The Mister didn't see it my way then. He does now. This wasn't an easy fix either though. The studs behind the stove are a warped twisted mess and we still had to piece in lots of wood to make things level. 1989 was when this house was built. By the looks of things behind that wall you'd think it was 1889. 

Another Finish

 

We did more of this yesterday. I should be able to paint that mess today.

I had gotten up early to finish Dog Star. I had to kitchener the underarms so I needed quiet. I'm pretty terrible at it but I got it done.  Now it's in the FO pile. 

Then I decided to go ahead and cast on the first of the itty bitty advent sweaters. I am not using the new Arne and Carlos yarn for it. It's too nice for an ornament. I'm using leftover Palette and I'll use that lovely Norwegian yarn for something better later on.

A Walk in the Woods

 

We spent the morning doing this.

We spent the afternoon doing this. 

We even cleared the path through the woods. It was nice to have the woods back since all the muggy and the buggy went away. 

We could follow the creek again and walk across the logs. I should say crawl. Pup went across one and The Mister had to crawl over to get her because the logs are now so rotten and slippery. It was pretty funny.

We took inventory of all our many wood piles. They look pretty bleak. All that wood and we couldn't give any of it away. No one wants wood anymore. 

All that wood made me want to start a fire with it. So I did. It was a good way to end a very busy day. 

Reconstruction

 

We got some of the drywall up yesterday. It took us forever to level out all those twisted studs and to move out those outlets.The back of that wall looks like a patchwork quilt-in wood. We are going to add even more wood at the top so we can attach that heavy stainless steel back splash thingy right to it instead of tile or the drywall. It's slow going but at least The Mister seems to be having some fun with it.

Speaking of reconstruction...I showed off a completed Festive Doodle the other day but when I turned it inside out and sat down to do all the weaving in I made a big decision.

I decided to rip back the cast off edge at the hem and put it back on the needles. Not so much for length but to stop the hem from flipping. I hate ribbed hems that flip. I need at least a 3 inch hem to keep it where it needs to be and Festive Doodle comes up short. I've got plenty of green left over so I thought why not. 

Last night I also got around to deconstructing the baby blanket blocks. I've got to cut all those big nine patches in half and them put them all together again to make a disappearing nine patch block. It seems like all I do is take things apart anymore. I just might need a karma adjustment.