One Crazy Fiber Lady

As I hoped earlier today, here’s a more comprehensive post.  Sorry had to pause to yell at a preschooler who doesn’t exactly want to go to sleep. 

There’s been a lot going on around these here parts.  Like others have noted, this past weekend, especially Saturday, was downright glorious in this area.  My dad and I took advantage of the almost 70F November day and took the monkeys to Van Saun Park.  We went for a ride on the park railroad.

After the train ride, we went into the zoo.  A pretty well stocked zoo whose admission was free for the day.  Can’t beat that.  While in the zoo, I spotted this picturesque spot where fall’s splendour is in full display.

As I mentioned in my brief post earlier, construction is due to start here this week.  If it weren’t for the deluge promised for tomorrow, it would have already.  Monday, a large pile of wood was delivered and stacked over half the driveway.  Interesting logistics now as mom’s Envoy and my Sienna need to get parked in the driveway with dad’s cute little PT Cruiser living in the garage.  In order for him to get out, we need to move the rest of the cars.  Sigh.  We took some before shots of the house:

This is the front (and you can just see some wood in the corner of the picture.

And from a different angle (and pre-wood delivery)..

And the back..

What are we doing you might be asking?  Well we’re adding a whole floor over the shorter half (one story) of the house.  This will contain a new master bedroom suite for my folks, an office for us grups to share and a sitting room/den.  This leaves the existing 3 bedrooms for the monkeys and me.  I’ll take the old master bedroom (kind of cool yet creepy in a way) and when it comes time to split up the monkeys, there will be room.  For a while yet, they’ll continue to share the larger of the remaining rooms with the smaller becoming a playroom for them.  I get to take the current den as a fiber/hobby room to share with mom.  SuiteSweet.  There will also be a porch running the length of the addition along the front of the house, replacing the current brick front steps with a slight wrap around the side.  They are predicting ripping off the roof on Friday.  The builder is promising to have the addition framed in with the new roof in place within 10 days.  Yeah.  I’ll try not to turn this into a construction progress blog, but no promises

Finally there has been knitting.  Pretty single minded knitting for me too!  I’ve been working on the teacher gifts… and joined the KAL that Nancy created.  Here’s my progress so far:

From back to front:

*Irish Hiking Scarf in the hand spun Cormo/Angora that I started 11/6 and finished at the SnB on Thursday.

*One Row Handspun Scarf in Malabrigo started Thursday at the SnB and finished Friday night while watching Battlestar Galactica.  Dude, that is probably the best show on tv, but I digress.

*Skinny Clapotis in Noro Silk Garden started on Saturday (after ripping several other patterns including a Multidirectional Scarf and some entrelac thing I found on the net) and finished Sunday.

By finished, I mean that the knitting is finished.  They all still need to be washed and blocked while all but the ORHS needs to have its ends worked in. 

This leaves one more stinkin’ scarf to do.  And yes, I haven’t finished it.  Actually I really haven’t gotten past the start point on it.  Kat was sick Sunday night through yesterday and work commitments kept me busy so that I haven’t had much time to knit.  I did break out the ballwinder for a skein of Lorna’s Laces in the worsted for this final scarf.  I started a couple of patterns, even got through 5 repeats of the IHS with it before I pulled out the needles.  I didn’t want to repeat any.

I sat with the Barbara Walker books and found a stitch pattern that might work, also named right too.  In the second volume, I found the Twin Rib.  What better pattern to knit a scarf for a teacher who cares for my twins?!  Seems like that serendipity to me.

Oh and this is for Deb, sneaking it in under the wire, here’s my calendar.  It is a mimeo sheet that I get each month from the kids’ teacher as to what they will be doing that month.  It does serve as my wall calendar while the Treo maintains everything else, especially with its on air connection to my Outlook calendar at the office!

Craft on!