Isn't she pretty..........

She has a nice purr to her. This past week I've been coordinating furnace installations in three different homes. We decided to make the plunge financially to replace the old ones as the government rebates were an incentive to do so. At 96% efficiency we're hoping to see some difference in our gas/power bills. We'll see.

While the furnaces were being installed I managed to do some knitting, and finally got the Latvian mitten figured out. The thumb was a real lesson in patience as I had to rip it down three times before getting the pattern right. Hopefully the second one will go faster. I'm loving knitting these up. The weather here has been rainy with some dense fog. It makes for some great knitting weather.

Just a quick video of Anna and Noodles. It's funny the look that Anna can give when being watched, over the shoulder 'Who me?'

Busy Busy Weekend........

In between working on the basement I managed to get some knitting done.

Also some spinning was managed. The 80 merino 20 silk fibre from Aurelia is finally done, and I'm navajo plying. I stopped in at Fabricland and picked up some material to make a kitty and scotty dog stuffed animals. Just a little something for DD and Nathan. DD is missing the kitties at home here, and is desperately wanting a pet of her own in Vancouver. She has terrible allergies and I'm thinking somehow maybe this will alleviate those withdrawals of not having a kitty to cuddle. The Scotty dog will be for Nathan. Just because :)

Next came the books I ordered from Knit Picks. They have a book sale going on until November 4 and I couldn't resist. In Cables Untangled, there is some awesome patterns, and reference to cable stitches. Interweaves Knitted Gifts, is wonderful! There's several patterns I'm wanting to knit up, but one in particular 'Ballet Flats' by Marta McCall. Also if you are a Fair Isle Knitter Alice Starmore's book is an awesome reference book as well it has some wonderful timeless patterns.

Saturday was our 25 Wedding Anniversary which was spent out at a concert with some friends. It was different as the kids aren't home anymore and weren't with us to celebrate, but we had a great time anyway. The next day Sunday was our turkey day. The plan was to have our Thanksgiving around 6:00pm but when DH brought the turkey up in the morning something was off. I mean really off. I kept smelling something, and in the pit of my stomach I was hoping what I was smelling wasn't the turkey, but it was. Bugger. I ended up phoning Costco as I bought the thing only the day before from them. Costco's good that way with returning things, and they told me to bring the turkey back with my receipt and I'd get my $ back. Turns out that a half hour before I got there another lady brought her stinking turkey back as well. So I don't know what was going on with the fresh turkey's from Lilydale. After standing in line up there we ran to Superstore and got a frozen turkey, and Thanksgiving supper was served at 8:00pm instead. With a great bottle of Chenin Blanc from Quail's Gate everything tasted great.

Monday was DH's 52 birthday. Again just the two of us celebrated after a day of working in the pit called our basement renovation. Some progress was made after we did a major backtrack with the insulation. We ended up taking down all the framing which we just finished doing to put in pink rigid insulation to bring up the R value to 20. One of those things that we had to do so there'd be no regrets later on. My camera has this neat feature to take panoramic pictures. (Click to Embiggen) Framing is just about finished. Next comes hooking the electrical back up, and then drywall.

Weighing on my mind.......

First snow fall of the year

Amongst other things on my mind today it's now the snow that is botching my plans of getting outside to do some major pruning. My poor apple tree is calling out for a haircut. It's out of control very much like my own hair. I was hesitating about putting this picture up because it shows the state of the backyard. Yes that pile of 2x2 wood is what we ripped out of our basement walls after the flood. I was going to have a fire in the pit, but the weather put a kabosh on that as well. Oh well, it's supposed to warm up for the Thanksgiving weekend coming up, and hopefully I'll have time to catch up then.

Where am I going with this???

I've been waiting anxiously for this in the mail. Now that it's here I'm not sure where I'm going with it. Up to this point I've been borrowing all the books on weaving from the library, and after doing some reading I know I'm going to have to take some classes. I was naively thinking that weaving was going to come easy to me, I'm not so sure about that now.
Kromski Harp, Rigid Heddle Loom 32"
How it came packed......some assembly is required.
My assistant Noodles.
She soon tired, and took a nap. Right in the middle of my work area. I was trying to assemble the stand for the loom, but it was a two person job and I had to wait until DH was home.
All done! She's a Polish beauty! Now I just have to find the time to warp.
In the meantime I've been slowly progressing on my DD's Pakuna sweater. Blocked the back piece last night which then I can sew the front to the back in order to pick up and cast on for the sleeves.Next I've been forever wanting to knit a pair of Latvian mittens. This is the fourth time ripping this project apart, but I think I've got the size right now.
I'm using 2.00mm dpn with three different colours of yarn. The white I'm using is from my stash Gaella Irish Worsted Knitting Wool. The dark blue is also from the stash Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Artic Pool Heather colourway. The light blue I had a heck of a time finding. None of my LYS carried the type of baby blue I needed so I ended up going to Michael's and buying Bernat Satin worsted weight. The pattern I'm using is 10e Kurzeme, Alsungas (graph 108) from the book pictured below Latvian Mittens by Lizbeth Upitis. Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer 2008 also has a pattern of one of the mittens from the book. The instructions for the mitten in Vogue is a little easier to follow, and it would be a good intro into knitting Latvian mittens.

Work, Work, Work.......

I think this was my husbands reaction to something I wanted to change. So much work, too little time.

But fortunately he has a little helper, and I mean 'get right in there to inspect if the work is done right' helper.

It's amazing how spunky she still is at the ripe old age of 17, but she'll leave you in a heart beat if you're not paying attention to her. So off she goes to her new bed we bought for her. Yes a brand new bed! Oh so soft! So comfy! But what does Anna prefer? Her mangy, mat layered old mattress bed. So my DH tricked her. He just put the old one inside of the new one. I'm not sure if I have the heart to eventually take the old one away. I'll have to periodically sneak it away and do a cleaning. Next post I'll have pictures of the Latvian mittens I'm working on.

Back tracking on a few pictures......


We were in Vancouver for four days in July to visit my DD and her DB (Dear Boyfriend) and in the above picture I've amateurishly photoshopped the picture to illustrate where they now live. As always click to embiggen to see more detail.

The following are just a few pictures of the Saturday when we were there and it was one of the busiest. We headed out in the morning on the Seabus which leaves from downtown Vancouver heading to North Vancouver. When you dock on the northside you enter immediately into Lonsdale Market.

On the Seabus coming back with a view of downtown Vancouver. The tent like building is Canada Place where the cruise ships will stop to either load or unload passengers.

After getting off the seabus we hopped on another bus to head to Granville Island.
Yummmmm
More yummmm
Of course my yarn sniffing nose was on high alert. This was a interesting shop. The owner had live silk worms doing their thing. Unfortunately she wasn't too keen on my husband taking pictures of the inside of her store. Too bad because it was a really nice shop with lots of silk yarn.
Some of the handpainted silk I bought.Later that same day I convinced my DD to come with me to another fibre shop Birkeland Bros. Wool. I was surprised that my Mom and DH still were wanting to come along, but this was a really interesting store. The building and the business are over 70 years old, and still run by the third generation of the same family. The lady helping me was very friendly, laid back, and helpful with all my questions.

The carding machine is now over 100 years old.

Birkeland is Western Canada's #1 Ashford products dealer. My spinning wheel is an Ashford Traveller so I picked up four more bobbins, and fibre. I'll definitely head back to this store it was well worth the visit.
Haven't spun Corriedale, but once I do I'm wanting to try my hand at dying this fibre. As per usual I can't seem to get enough of any type of green fibre.

The final fibre/material/notions store that my DD said I HAVE to see was Dressew. They had really good prices on some yarn there, but not anything I wanted. They're mainly a fabric/notions store. It's two floors that are packed to the hilt. I got sidetracked by the buttons. My DH was so patient as I perused from top to bottom, side to side.

Spinning, Chocolate Cake, and a runny nose.....It started yesterday... a craving for comfort food.

It turned into this....sort of looks like a volcano, but it's just warm icing.

My heads pounding and my teeth ache. I've got a head cold, and it's beautiful outside. Instead all my brain can handle right now is the soothing comfort of a motrin, a cuppa, and a spin at the wheel with this...80% Merino 20% Silk from Aurelia Wool & Weaving from Merritt B.C. Canada

In the mail today......

I have plans.....well intentioned plans to start and finish something. Famous words I know.

Knit Picks had a sale on some lace weight yarn....

I have a penchant for green.This is Alpaca Cloud colourway Dill. 100% Alpaca. Heathered lace weight. I can't stop feeling this stuff it's unbelievably soft.

In the same order was some Knit Picks Shadow. Bordeaux Kettle-Dyed. 100% Merino. Not as soft as the Alpaca Cloud, but still fantastic value for a wonderful lace weight yarn.

I know I'd mentioned in the previous post about the flood in our basement. I thought I'd post some pictures of what it is now, and how we'll be trudging through the process of rebuilding.

This was the actual day it happened. We were scrambling to try to get everything on to the dry side of the room.
DH was working to try to limit any moisture sitting over night. We knew there was no way we could clean this up by ourselves. The poor little shopvac blew up after DH started going over the carpet for the third time.The insurance co. hired a clean up company to come and assess the situation. Without a word the dude started cutting up carpet right away. It's kind of shocking when you see someone cutting up your house like that, but he had it done in under an hour. For the next five days we had a humidifier going and four huge fans.

But as per usual we weren't happy with the fact that the clean up company didn't recommend taking down the drywall. I couldn't rest knowing that it was fish by products that had been sitting in behind the wall. So DH and I made the decision to take down the drywall and we'll be replacing it ourselves.

That's where the basement is standing right now. I'm hoping we can complete this by Christmas, and yes that's our poor kitty Anna sitting on the bottom part of the sofa. Downstairs was her domain and we've tried coaxing her upstairs while this reno is going on, but she won't have any of it. Thank god it's been wonderful weather here so she's been staying outside for hours to enjoy lounging on the patio furniture.

Oh Lord Where Do I Begin........

You think I was on a sabbatical or something, but it was just life in general. I've missed posting and any spare time I had was spent reading all the wonderful blogs I've been referred to and inspired by. It's like getting addicted to a soap opera or something these blogs. Sheesh.

So here's a list of what's happened since my last post in March. Keeping it short and sweet.
-The estate my DH is executing was probated in February '09, and it continues to this day. Don't let anyone tell you this is a swift thing to do. We've already passed the one year anniversary and we're still dealing with it on a daily basis.
-March '09 my DD moved to Vancouver B.C. to be with the one she loves. She's the last of my children to leave home.
-April was just lost.
-In May we went to Florida for two weeks. That was nice. Would like to go again. Experienced rain like I never have in my life. I can now appreciate what they go through in a hurricane.
-June we were devastated to hear from our daughter that her true love Nathan at the age of 28 has testicular cancer stage 4. It spread up to his lungs. The same cancer that Lance Armstrong had.
-In July we went to Vancouver to visit DD and Nathan, and it was wonderful seeing them. Our hugs have a certain desperation to them since this hit us. After getting back from the trip I was home watching the Michael Jackson Memorial on tv, and went downstairs looking for something to start for dinner. To my shreaking panic discovered our 200 US gallon fishtank had drained onto our basement floor. All but four inches which was enough for me to scoop out and save our Koi and Goldfish.
-August basically has been a month of running back and forth from Home Depot buying stuff to fix our basement. In between fixing our house we bought another home which my DS and his friend are renting from us. It needs some upgrading which also demands more trips to Rona/Home Depot.

So that's that list.......The saving grace for me has been, which I'm sure you can all understand, is The Lord above, my DH, family, my spinning, knitting, and not to be forgotten the new blogs that I lost myself in inspiration, and keeping up with the lives of the dear blogs that I've gotten to know over the years.
-Smoking Hot Needles
-Gypsy Spinner
-Susan in Stitches
-NovaMade
-Spin, Knit, and Life

The new Blogs which blow me away by their photography and inspiration:
-Alicia Paulson
-Posy
-Apron Thrift Girl
-Allsorts
-Anna Maria Horner

On to fibre news....here's some of the projects that I've tried to finish, some that are finished, and new ones that keep getting in the way.


Market Bag for Nicole. Having fun coordinating fabric for these bags. Probably having more fun shopping for fabric. Another dangerous stashing hobby started.








This was my first try at making this Market Bag. McCalls Pattern #5822. It's been used more for carrying around my knitting and not groceries. I still have a ways to go in combining fabric.








A sweater pattern (Berroco Pakuna) I found in Vancouver at Birkeland Bros.Wool Ltd.







I'm finally using my natural colour Alpaca handspun for this project and I couldn't be happier how it's turning out so far. Progress has been slow, but almost finished the back. These pictures are of the front and side.




A bit of embroidery from the Babylock Esante. I'm making some bookmarks for my Niece and Nephew. Actually the sewing machine is making them I'm just programming and changing thread.





Some 2 ply handspun from Aurelia in Merrit B.C. We stopped in on our way to Vancouver. It was my first time at spinning something with so many colour changes, but I had read somewhere to separate the colours and have one spun up with all the colours combined which you can see in the one bobbin. Whereas the other single was spun up with the colours flowing one into the other. Which I then plied together. This yarn is going to be knitted up into Fiddlehead mittens with a black yarn anchoring it. Pattern by Adrian Bizilia which I purchased off of Ravelry.





More handspun by Louet. Dark Blue Faced Leicester. This reminded me very much of spinning Alpaca. I had to have more twist when spinning singles. My goal with this was to try Navajo Plying which really frustrated me just watching people do it. Until I found this....Sarah Anderson Navajo Plying. I love how I can take a spool of single spun and spin right to the end of the bobbin with no leftover and the result is a three ply. Wonderful!