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.