Turkey Day!

Psst..... don't mention to Sunni that we are eating a giant bird for the holiday.  He is sensitive.

We are having our traditional meal at my aunt and uncle's home on Friday so today was spent lounging around and watching lots of tv. 

I did finish 2 knitted reindeer toys.  They are absolutely adorable!!!!  I'm seriously tempted to make 6 more they are that cute.  They look exactly like the Rudolf from the annimated special.  I know 2 little kids who will be getting reindeer for 12th Night.

Friday morning I am making a apple pie and a batch of lefse to take to Lonsdale.

Aeolian Shawl

Blocked and beautiful!  I am in love with this shawl and I have a fan blowing on it so I can remove the pins and wear it ASAP.

The picture does not do the beads justice.  There are 2200+ faceted crystals on this thing.

The yarn is lace weight alpaca and I purchased it from a local seller at the Shepherds Harvest Festival this Spring. 

This is the shawl prior to blocking and it's already a good size.

Warm weekend

The weather was unseasonably warm this weekend, like in the 70's.  Just lovely!

Tim worked on getting a large # of leaves into bags and then off to the compost site to drop it off.  I took advantage of the sun and washed the bedding and dried it on the line.  Probably the last chance to do this before the weather turns.  I made 2 trips to Menards over the weekend  so you can see that I had projects.

Tim packed up most of the Halloween decor that was downstairs and I vacumed and dusted everything.  I also took advantage of the corn stalks out back and did some autumn decorating out front, once I took down the Halloween lights.

Tonight Timmy has gaming and I'm going to knit; starting the main edging on my lace shawl.

Wood working

Considering how nice the day was I spent time outside using Buzz to rib down 3/4 and 1/2" plywood to make 3 new hubs.  Since I no longer have access to the uber band saw at Big Wood, I needed to find a new way to create them.  I think they will end up octagonal instead of round. 

Tonight I'm taking in a movie at the cheap theater.

Red stockings

I returned from our local summer event and checked the Calontir website to discover that my friends Hirsch and Magda won Calontir's Crown Tournament.  Weeeee!

Naturally I had to make her stockings so I set out to find the perfect red.

I ordered the yarn from 3 Kittens Yarn Shop and spent about a month crafting them into knee high stockings on size 0 needles.  The clock detail is a crown and a red scallop shell.

I delivered them, along with other presents, to their Coronation in September.  I managed to surprise them with my presence and she was delighted with the gift.  Fortunately they fit her perfectly as I was guessing on the measurements.

Germanic American Institute

The GAI is located on Summit Ave in St Paul, MN.  A friend of mine told me about it and the fact that they serve a Saturday morning Kaffeestube from 9-12 for a suggested $5 donation.  Tim, Tosten and I went a couple weeks ago and it was lovely. 

Naturally I wore my durndl.

The building is beautiful and located near the walking tour of Summit Ave. and not too far from the stores on Grand Ave.

It was the weekend that we had our first snowfall.


The caffe stubbe runs until ealry December and it's a really nice place for a bit of brot und kaffe and eine kleine Deutsche.

Knitting update

When I wasn't making stuff for Halloween, I have been knitting.

I finished my Rolling Thunder socks by designer Sivia Harding at the end of September.

I purchased the yarn at Shepherd's Choice in East Bethel, MN in July.  There are small beads on the cuffs and I love that touch. 

I started a pair of socks for Tim. The Retro Rib sock by Evelyn A. Clark knit in Knit Picks Gloss.

I have been working on a new lace shawl.  I purchased a skein of lace weight alpaca from After the Sheep Fiber Arts at Shepherd's Harvest in May.  The yarn is a silver color and I'm adding faceted crystal beads. 

The pattern is the Aeolian Shawl from Spring Knitty 2009.  It is beautiful and I can hardly wait to block it.  I'm beginning the edging, but I'll need to work on it sparingly since I need to sew up 2 tents for a mid Nov delivery.

Raking up

I spent a couple hours raking up the hay in the backyard.  With the rain prior to Halloween we laid down a base of hay to combat the mud.  It did a good job keeping people's shoes dry and it also did a good job keeping the grass healthy.  I raked the majority of it onto the perennial beds. 

A number of our props have been loaded into their bins and put away, just a few more to go.  They are predicting temps in the 60's this weekend so we have time to work on the yard before it truly turns cold.  It also gives us more time before we turn on the furnace.

We received a lovely thank you note from one of our neighbors.  That was a lovely surprise.

Back

The simple act of lifting a shovel of dirt and rotating to put it back in the trench in which it came out was enough to nearly put me out of comission during tear down.  I took 3 Ibuproven and pushed through but I'm walking like I'm 70 today. 

The house needs a thorough cleaning.  Lots of mud, grass, leaves and straw got tracked in from the back yard with people coming in and out.  Me and my back are going to be washing dishes, doing laundry, mopping the floors and vacuming.  Or, I'm going to brew up some coffee, put in a healthy dose of Baileys and sit and work on my lace shawl.  We'll see how everything goes when I take the hamper down the stairs.

Don't Blink

We created our Haunted Maze at our new home.  To say that we were a hit was an understatement.  Our neighbors got in on the act.  One was our gate keeper for the maze and the other brought us coffee, home brew and pizza while we were finishing set up.  Pretty nice.  We returned the favor by scaring the crap out of a bunch of folks.  Good times.

After years of being a guide I wanted to be part of the action.



My costume was inspired by the Weeping Angels from the Dr Who episode "Blink".  Some people didn't think I was a person, no one guessed it was me and I even managed to startle the person who made my wings when we were completing set up. He thought I was a statue .... until I spoke to him. The effect was pretty good, especially with the strobe.

Our neighbor took a video, but the parts in the grid were too dark to show up.  We'll see what she got.

Happy November!