Small projects, shawl and pumpkiny stuff

This morning, there was a barn fire on the next block, up the road.   All morning and half the afternoon, fire trucks and emergency vehicles have been streaming by, sirens and lights going.    The news says it was a straw barn, and no animals or people were hurt, so that is a good thing.    My chooks were hunkered down on the back deck most of the day and I don't blame them.  The noise and lights were quite unusual for around here.   They are already a bit unsettled as I moved 3 new rescue chooks into a pen in the barn last night.    They are quite well socialized, being the Westfield demo chooks.  They don't really have the means to keep the girls over the winter, so one volunteer or another gives them a home in the fall.

 I've been making tiny knitting needles by the dozen.   They aren't difficult, but you need to get them just the right size for the intended purpose, which is ornaments.

I've been making tons of tiny skeins of yarn as well.  A bit is handspun, but mostly it is leftover bits of sock yarn.
I've also been knitting tiny swatches on size 0 or 1 needles and transferring the partially finished swatch onto the tiny home made needles.   Hopefully soon I'll have some of the ornaments assembled.  

My son bought a dremel tool this summer, and tried it out with carving this pumpkin.  He told me it was a simple design, meaning no shading or anything.    It doesn't look simple to me!   There is a huge pumpkin sitting in my hallway, waiting for his attention.  He doesn't think that this pumpkin will last with our weather being what it's been... mild or even warm.   

It was an amazing weekend and I wish I'd taken photos of all the baking I did at Westfield, in the Misener house yesterday.  It was Pumpkin Sunday, a pumpkin themed day and of course along with the pumpkin games and decor, all of us cooks, cooked pumpkin themed goodies.    It was so busy though that I didn't have time to cook everything I'd hoped to make, nor did I have drag out a camera to take photos of the goodies.  The photo montage up on the Westfield FB page shows what we were baking and what a great day it was, both for fun and weatherwise.

I finished the Godey's Ladies Book shawl a couple of weeks ago.  It took 2 days to cut and tie the fringe on.  It probably could have been done in 1 day,  but who wants to sit still cutting and tieing for that long.   It took almost a whole skein of yarn to make the fringe!  It's long and covers my back and hips, which is what I'd wanted.  I'd wanted it to be more of a wrap than a shawl.   I'm not sure how to photograph the whole thing, so here it is folded up.  It is warm and cozy.   The only thing is that the cats like it and I'm finding one or the other asleep on it, all the time.

Weaving rugs, spinning and a bit of cattiness

The Bluefaced Leicester is plied and skeined.  There are 2 skeins of it and some sliver left to spin.   The plying went super quickly.  I was listening to some Bela Fleck and those singles just flew out from my fingers.   Seriously though, if you've never heard of Bela Fleck, check him out on YouTube.  The guy is amazing!  Sometimes a bit weird I'll give you, but none the less amazing.

I had this white sheet with roses on it.   It was making a lovely rug.   Then I realized that I was running out of weft.  It turns out my double sheet was a twin sized sheet.   I worked the rest of the yardage out and I was definitely short.  My rug would have been lucky to be square and definitely not the rectangle mat I was aiming for.   I wished I'd had some green to add to it, but only could find red or beige with large black figures.  The beige wouldn't have worked at all, a way icky combo but the red didn't look awful.  The white became stripes and I finished the rug off quickly, thankfully unweaving went really fast.

This is the finished rug.  It looks pretty good finished and the red is a deeper tone of the pink used, so it fits together.

4 cats are a lot of cats!  I've finally gotten a morning feeding routine.  We've had to change up a few things as we can't demand feed anymore or Dion who has gained 3 lbs in short order, just keeps eating.   He is so happy to have food, he just scarfs it down like he may never be fed again.   I've had to leave a bowl of the cheaper food that they don't like as much out, just so that he always has food but only put the good stuff out at regular feeding times.   The first time I did this, he dug through the cheaper food, looking for tidbits of the good stuff.    What a mess, with those little nuggets flying around as he was mining for treasures in this tiny little bowl... lol.

Phil looking regal, sweet and calm, hiding his inner crazy cat!

Phil spends his mornings flying around the house, bouncing off furniture and playing with everything from plastic bottles to his tail.  I've had to hide all my pony tail elastics for fear he'll swallow one.   He spent over an hour yesterday playing with a plastic bottle top  - big enough for him not to eat, but light enough for him to bat  around the house.   He has a lot of crazy cat in him.   Then he settles down for a nap and is so sweet, with his little sighs and mews.
 Our old cat isn't quite so happy and accepting yet.   Last night he chased Phil off my lap and then chased Dion, who was sleeping quietly on a chair.  It happened to be the chair I normally use.   We figured the old guy was just making sure that they both knew he had claimed me first.   It was kind of amusing, except for the hissing and swatting which took place on my lap.

Shawl Progress

I've been knitting away at the Godey's Ladies Book Shawl (Nov 1864 issue).  The border calls for 2 colours, contrasting to the main colour.   I've seen the whole shawl elegantly done in just 2 colours, but the original was described s the main part being violet and black varigated, with a gold and black border.   I wasn't sure I had enough blue to do the border and the fringe, which is tied on after the shawl is finished.   I have 600 g of the blue, 400 of which were used for the main body.   I had 250 g of the brown and I had 300 g of the white tweed that I could dye up for the third colour and 200 g of a grey marl, which I'd tried first and it was pretty wishy washy and unattractive.   I saw a photo using the deep blue, brown and gold, which was spectactular, so I chose that as a colour scheme.   To say the least, it is indeed a bold choice.  The gold was dyed with weak acid dyes, using warm yellow, black and a little bit of magenta.

Instructions state to use a safety pin to mark increase row 

I used 4 skeins for the blue.  It wasn't as long as I'd done the math for, but draping it on myself showed it was going to be long enough.   The border is 4 rows colour A, 6 rows colour B, 4 rows colour A, 6 rows colour B, 10 rows colour A, 6 rows colour B, 4 rows colour A, 6 rows colour B, 4 rows colour A.   I almost stopped halfway through the border.  

Not only was it plenty big enough, but each 2 rows increase the total stitches by 4.   It is taking me about 1/2 hour to knit one row.   I'm quite ready to cast off.    However, by the time I'd finished the centre section of the border, I realized that I was now on the count down, so I kept going.   I have 14 rows left to knit.

The gold and brown border is  bright and hardly subtle.  I think it is a good choice for the time period and  it is well within the colour suggestions of the original pattern.

This baby is going to be warm.   It already weighs close to 600 g.  I'll need to use part of the second skein of both gold and brown for the rest of the border.  There are 2 skeins of the blue left, which will be used for the fringe.   I don't know how much I'll need for that.

When I start getting a bit overwhelmed with the knitting, I choose to knit 4 or 5 stitches.   Then another 4 or 5 and so on.   Usually it's just 4 stitches, and by doing that, in no time, I've completed a row.  I've only had to resort to that trick a couple of times though.

I am already thinking about my next project, which will likely be a) smaller and b) incorporate a stitch pattern other than garter stitch.  The only thing good about that much garter stitch, is that I don't have to look at it very often while I'm knitting, so I can talk, read, entertain the cat etc..