On Scarves, Hearths and Inspector helper kitty

I decided that I would unpack 2 "sewing room" boxes on Wednesday. Sewingroom really means miscellaneous craft supplies or we don't know how to label it so we'll put sewing room on it and leave it for Mom to deal with later! The first box I found had yarn, yarn and more yarn in it! Well, as it got unpacked and I was distracted. I found the green wool from the Summer Solstice dye pot and a bunch of handspun bits and pieces, all in grey! Of course, I suddenly needed to dress the loom. You know, a small project like scarves really takes little time to wind off the warp and little more to thread the heddles and reed. It really only took a couple of hours to set up! Sometimes it's really nice to have something work up quickly. The grey warp is about 4 or 5 different handspun yarns, in different shades of grey and slightly different thicknesses. One is some of Wellington Fibres mystery rovings which I split to maintain some of the colours, so there is a bit of blue and purple in there as well. There is enough warp for 3 scarves on the loom. The first weft is wool dyed with apple leaves in an iron pot, done back in June. It's a very pretty green and I wish I had more of this colour to work with as it really does remind me of spring! It's woven off and I'm just waiting on finding the skein of handspun black yarn I wanted to use for the second scarf weft. I may have to change my mind if I don't find the box it's packed in soon! While having a project on the loom always looks nice, I hate not getting it woven off as there is always another project waiting in the wings.

It took 2 days more to get that second box unpacked, but I did 2 more to make up for my inattentiveness. If hubby hadn't shifted some boxes, it might have been even more as I'd just found a box with books and binders packed in it. It was like finding an old friend. It was slow to unpack but enjoyable. I got a couple of books put away and found my Tudor costuming binder and then he shifted some boxes and I can't find the half unpacked box of books now!

The fireplace insert has been ordered but we don't yet have an install date. We were hoping the stove would be installed next week sometime, but I'm guessing that it won't be. The weather is getting rather cool and the wood burning insert should be able to heat most of the house. Hubby is starting the hearth repairs and upgrades. There was carpet right up to the fireplace and a hole in the floor with a fan in it as well. Both of these are code violations, so they need to be fixed up before the stove gets installed.

We need to extend the front of the hearth at least 16 inches of a non-combustible material. We're putting in 18 inches of ceramic tile over concrete backer board. It was fun choosing tiles. While the sales guy at the store thought we should co-ordinate our tiles with the carpet, I really wanted it to look like fireplace, not the greyish colour of the rug. The tiles are extending the hearth the whole width of the fireplace.

The first step is for hubby to measure out the tiles so he knows where to cut the carpet out. Then it's fixing the hole by putting in stringers along side the joists - one was cut for the fan hole, sigh.. and then patching it with a piece of wood the same height, in this case 3/4 in plywood. The helper kitty decided to play inspector to make sure the job is getting done correctly. It's pretty ugly right now but will be much prettier when done!

The black wool with all the veg matter in it has turned into a not so bad project after all. While spinning it is a bit of a pain, it knits up really, really soft and yummy. It's rather nice to work with after all in terms of the finished project - which isn't actually finished yet.