Happy Halloween!

 

Season's Greetings from me and The Mister as we sit for a spell and enjoy the view....lol.

We were taking in the scenery down at the boardwalk waiting for the big event yesterday.......

.....which is the Halloween dog parade and costume contest. 

Pup was not impressed. She hates crowds so we sit across the street and watch the action from afar.

There were 72 dogs entered this year. All proceeds go to a local pet rescue. As usual the the work people put into their costumes amazes me. This Handmaiden couple got a lot of wows but...no prize. The big prize went to a Chinese Crested dressed as a skunk. Go figure. 

And.........I did get my Halloween quilt finished in time to snuggle under it while watching the SNL Halloween episode. I ended up sleeping on the couch all night and have to say for a little quilt-it was all I needed. 

Happy Halloween!

Sew, Sew Sunday: Rest in Pieces

 

I've officially used up as much of the Rest in Pieces fabric collection as possible this week and have packed the very small amount of leftovers away until next year. I made two placemats and a big potholder to match the big table runner Dad and I made from the collection years ago. 

I'm also almost finished with the lap quilt I made from the collection. I should be sewing down the last of the binding today.

If I get that done I'll be ready to sandwich up the fall batik quilt. In a really dumb senior moment I ordered that gold backing fabric on the right last week when I already had the fabric on the left in the box for it. The gold will make a good binding for the quilt and some backing for the fall batik placemats I hope to be making in November from the quilt's leftovers. Ordering it may have been a big mistake-but it works for me. 

Like Buttah

 

Yesterday was the day we were dreading. We had to figure out how cut those thin 2 inch tile pieces to fill in around the stairs from those long 24 inch tiles. 

We had been using this score and snap kind of tile cutter and it worked well with this type of tile but those long vertical cuts were worrying us. They needed to be clean and straight and this thing was not the cutter to do it.

So.......we borrowed a wet saw from The Mister's brother and it worked like a charm. We could have cut tile on this thing all day. 

If only the top of the foyer was so easy to figure out. The tile ends about a half inch away from the top step...and even worse the sub flooring didn't go all the way to the end since there was an oak threshold there. We've got some ideas we are going to try out but until all this newly put down tile has sat for 24-48 hours we're at a standstill. Thank goodness. I need the break. Between tiling and raking up leaves all week I'm pooped. 

Friday Fluff

 

I ripped the top out of one thrummed mitten and added a few rows this week. I've gotten the other one ripped out but haven't got very far with adding the additional length. 

I want to get those mittens done so I can spin up the rest of that leftover red fiber to add to the Garter Squish blanket. It's going through a green spell right now.  I would like some more red further up but I don't think I have anymore in the handspun stash.

I'm looking at all my spinning projects differently now that I have a use for them. I did work on Mardi Gras this week and should be plying it soon in hopes that it will be the next blue/turquoise section. 

What I need is more yellow so I went digging through the fiber stash. I don't need to spin it all at once but I could use a few ounces. I'm trying to just let the handspun do its own thing without my input but the bigger Garter Squish gets the harder that it is to do. I just want to keep all that pretty going and going and going.......I love it so much. 

Solid Gold

 

We don't get much variation in color around here in the fall but we do get lots of shades of gold and it's just begun. This is the time of year I make peace with the trees that encircle our house but this year I can hear the work crew putting the house on the hill behind us back together. It was crushed flat by the trees just a few weeks ago. The construction noise is a constant reminder of the danger I live in and it's unsettling to say the least. 

We are inside also working away. We've got half the top foyer tile done and half the bottom foyer tile done. Over the next few days we'll get it all down if The Mister is up to it. It really takes a toll on his fragile infrastructure even with me doing all the down work. I've gotten pretty good with a trowel and I have to say my measuring has been spot on. I wish it were so with my quilting projects...lol.

And......I think it was Vera who asked me about the ribbing on Chestnut. It's the same on BonAmie which is done. It's corrugated ribbing which is a traditional Fair Isle ribbing that is stranded with the knit stitches one color and the purl stitches another. 

It looks like this on the back and as you can imagine it's not as stretchy as regular ribbing although it does have some give. I like it because it doesn't roll up. I have always had an issue with my ribbing rolling and this heavy ribbing stays put. 

Corrugated ribbing usually has 4 or 5 colors going through it. So how do I manage all those colors?  I use a box to keep all the colors from tangling. Right now I've got 5 colors going in this section of BonAmie and everything is playing nice with each other. 

My boxes of choice are the ones my flats of cat food comes in from Chewy. The box they put on top of this one for shipping is even better but The Mister grabs them up for his projects before I can get to them. I'll get the next one for sure because Chestnut is going to need its own box in the very near future. 

Wednesday WIPs

 

This week I managed to finally get the 315 stitches of Chestnut cast on. I've still got a ways to go with that fancy ribbing but the end is in sight. 

My little advent sweater is such a pleasure to pick up every night after the slog of that ribbing. I'll be heading for the sleeves of Number 14 soon. 

BonAmie has become potato chip knitting. If I pick it up before I get my housework done-the housework doesn't get done. I have to have a very good reason to put it down. 

And.....speaking of a very good reason to stop knitting-we got serious about the foyer tile yesterday. We got five rows put down. We realized we are going to have to take it one section at a time so we could still get up and down the stairs. This is going to be a much longer, drawn out project than we realized because of that but....what else do we have to do? Like everything else around here, it will be done when it's done. 

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 

I don't have too much to show for this week and Halloween is getting might close but I did finish the witch and her pumpkin. I also did a tiny bit more fill on the moon. 

You can't really see it but I did one more row of the white checks in between the red ones on the border of Button Eyed Cat. I should never have started them in the first place all those years ago but I did so now I have to finish them. I started the yellow fill on the background but didn't get too far. Honestly, I'm not in the mood to work on cats right now so these two projects are getting packed away until next year. 

Since I needed a break from all that Halloween stitching, I did do another two squares on the Autumn Patchwork and started working on the back end of the big raccoon. I did a bit of his tail and then realized I had picked up the wrong color so I had to rip it all out. Grrr.....

And...we didn't get too far with the tile yesterday. We spent the entire morning measuring and figuring out how to lay it all out. Working with long tile planks is very different from what we are used to so we had to do a lot of homework in order to figure out that 30% staggering thing. I think we've got it now so we should be ready for some serious tiling today. Fingers crossed.  

At Last

 

It's been a long time coming but I've finally gotten all that warp sorted out and tied on. It was very slow and tedious at the end because for some crazy reason I thought it would be a good idea to warp two colors at a time in the checkerboard section which only resulted in a tangled mess behind the lease sticks. Lesson learned. It does NOT pay to take shortcuts. 

I wanted to do a happy dance when it was time to wind some bobbins. It's been a long time.

My brain completely shut down when it came time to weave. I had forgotten so much. I had to let my hands take over and thankfully they remembered what to do. 

Just look at that. So pretty. So perfect. That's the appeal of weaving. It really is like magic. I'm only letting myself do a few inches a day as I want to stretch out the joy. I've got to start another warp ASAP so I don't end up with an empty loom for months like before. I've got a closet full of cotton so I think I'll just repeat this pattern one more time using new colors to get my brain completely back in the game. It's a lovely, easy pattern and I am so grateful I bought this kit. It was just the right thing at the right time. 

AND.......I want to wish Pup a very happy birthday today. It's hard to believe she is 9 today. It just seems like yesterday that I brought her home. She's had one heck of a terrible year. The mites, the leg, the surgery...it's all taken its toll on the old thing, She's still her happy, smiling self-most of the time. Like all of us old things, she has her good days and bad days-and I hope she has many, many more. 

Sew, Sew Sunday

 

The backing for the Halloween quilt is here. Some Christmas material came along for the ride. It's just enough for the holiday apron that I plan to be making next month. 

It was a tight squeeze getting the top to fit onto the backing without having to make any seams but I made it work. 

I'm really happy with the backing color. I wish now that I had made it a few rows longer and maybe a row wider. It's a nice little lap quilt but it's so darn pretty that I'd have loved to have more of it to curl up with.

I won't be quilting it today because I still have the machine all set up for this monster and I don't want to have to re-thread it and then fuss over the tension all over again. I've only got the strength to drag around one block a day so I've got a long way to go. I'm pretty sure the Halloween quilt won't see any use until next year. 

Scribble and Splash Update

 

Well, hello. After working through all the stages of grief this week I am now back in real time. I've eaten my way through that bag of chips, a bag of Twizzlers, a full size Milky Way and Three Musketeers bar AND three days worth of Chinese take out so it's time to get back to the new normal and let her memory be a blessing.  Thank you all so much for your messages and comments on the passing of Dear Departed Kitty. It was so kind of you all. When you share stories of your own grief it means so much. I'm not sure why, but getting permission to grieve your heart out when you lose a pet is important. I guess it's because we don't get the collective grieving we get when a human family member passes even though the pain is as bad and sometimes even worse.

Thank goodness it hasn't been hard keeping busy because we've still got so much to do around here.

My stair painting adventure is ongoing. After three coats of gray, I got around to removing all the tape that was protecting the newly painted white and...of course there was carnage. I bought this $$$ Frog Tape to avoid this very issue but as you can see, paint still came up with the tape. It wasn't a big deal to fix it though. I had plenty of other touch up to do where I slopped gray all over the place.

Now we are working on the molding that will do down the stairs. First we have to paint it. 

Then we have to cut all the angles we need. This is going to be a much simpler, cleaner looking molding than we had up there before so we've got some thinking to do. We've also got to get the tile down first. We plan to start that process Monday.

Yesterday I also finally got the new front door painted. I am so ready to be over this painting. 

Speaking of painting, The Mister's been keeping busy at night too. He just finished this Halloween paint by number. 

He finished this one last month and he's working on a Christmas one now. He's got quite a collection of them.

I don't know how he does it. After a day of painting stairs, trim and doors I can barely keep up with my daily scribble and splash Inktober prompts. This week showcased a lot of things I really can't draw like people, birds and dogs. You would have thought that the Morton's Salt girl would have been easy but mine ended up looking like Hitler in pigtails. I had to white out her face...lol. Next week I get to try to draw a fairy...that should be good for a laugh.

Friday Fluff

 

I haven't worked on the thrummed mittens for ages but...MUST. KEEP. HANDS. BUSY.

Working with fiber is soothing so I sat down and made thrums yesterday morning. 

I only have one thumb left to do so I am going to have lots of fiber leftover. I wish I had more yarn leftover because....THEY ARE TOO SHORT. I don't know why. I used the same pattern I always use. I counted every thrum row and they match up with my other mittens but-they don't fit. I am going to have to rip out the tops and see if I can stretch any leftover yarn into a few more rows so I can wiggle my fingers.