Celtic Cast On

Pattern: Cashmere Neckwarmer by Kim K.

Start Date: September 1st 2008

Finish Date: September 1st 2008

Yarn: Queensland Kathmandu Aran in Brown

Needles: US 11

This was a quick little knit I polished off while watching my newest obsession 24. I’m nearing the end of the first season and can’t wait to get stuck into the next 6.

Queensland Kathmandu is such a yummy yarn, I had two balls left over from Moose’s Cobblestone so I thought i’d whip up a nice little neckwarmer just in time for fall. The weather here as been rather fall ish with the odd hot day here and there so i’m thinking i’ll be using this soon rather than later.

It’s long enough that I can tuck it into my jacket for a little bit of extra warmth when it gets really cold…… I’m trying not to think about that yet but it will be fastly approaching!

I finished it off with a nice chunky wooden button, delic!!

I have been getting geared up for the cold season, but this week, and for the last few months now I have been sweating my hole off piling wood. We ran out of wood last year so this year we ended up getting 6 cord and it was lucky me who gets to pile it.

Last years process took a LONG time because I was using a small 4 wheeler trailer to cart the wood from the pile, to the basement door and then wheel it inside with the wheelbarrow. Not this year, this year I have the tractor and a large trailer that I am piling as high as I can get it before taking it around back.

I was doing pretty good, the pile was slowly but surely getting smaller with each load but I was really getting sick of seeing that pile of wood everytime I walked out the door so I grabbed Moose on Sunday and we assessed the damage. He figured I had a good 6 trailer loads full left before the pile was finito so a challenge was born.

My challenge was to get it done by the weeks end. If I did two loads a day for 3 days it would be done. Of course things and appointments happen that cause 2 loads not to get done in a day but I still figured I could get it done by the weeks end. Today is Friday and baby I just finished the last load of wood!!!!

I had one load left to do and was determined to get it done today and then I wouldn’t have to look at another wood pile until next year.

Of course it had to be boiling hot out!! The heat factor paired with coveralls, gloves and wellies makes it sweaty work. I did however have my trusty helper.

And….. my not so trusty helper……

Sweet victory was mine when I picked up the last log from the trailer!!!

Those coveralls look hot huh *wink wink*

Challenge complete!!! Done for another year!!!

*you can’t see them but there are two more rows behind that one*

How did That happen???? I haven’t blogged since the concert??? Soooo much has been going on this month I just haven’t had a second, never mind trying to catch up on my bloglines.

Molly and Boston are very much at home now with us. Molly has definatley developed into a dad’s girl while Boston is definately my boy. I’m quite surprised Molly took to Moose because her previous owner was a female and it was just the two of them all the time. I’m glad though that she’s taken to him and not afraid of men.

Moose and I have both been busy tackling THIS!!!

Thats 5 cord of wood sitting in our driveway waiting to be brought inside….. ugggggg but it is no more!! We worked at it a few loads at a time and managed to get it all inside before it got too cold. I can remember bringing in wood at my parents when there was snow on the ground and it was always freeeezing!!! Not this year, wood is in and ready before the leaves really started to turn.

Our assembly line process was that I filled the trailer of the 4 wheeler up at the wood pile, driving around the back of the house to the basement door, with Boston in tow, pull a cord that Moose had hooked up to the hitch of the trailer, which dumped the load, Moose would then pile the wood into the wheelbarrow, wheel it in and stack it up. Repeat this process a gazillion times!!

Glad we managed to get it all in because as of yesterday it has been super cold out! The fire is on and the wood is being put to good use.

I have been knitting through all this. I managed to pull an old WIP out of my basket and get cracking on it again. Its the Tweedy Aran Cardi I started in January……. I know I know. But I did manage to crank out the first front. Only one more front to go and I can sew it all together.

Of course other knits have been popping out at me and the Tweedy is back in the basket for now. I started the Cable Blanket found here. Its going to be for the living room, in a yummy pumpkin colour which match the decor wonderfully. When explaining to Moose what I was making with that “big” yarn  and how nice and cosy it was going to be he replied ” WOW!!! I’m sweating all ready just looking at it!” One panel is done, with 4 more to go!

This is another project thats consuming all my time that I can’t put down but I’m almost finished it so I may as well just wait and give you an nice fall FO on the next post. Its Thanksgiving today here in Canada. We’ve already enjoyed one turkey at the in-laws, today its my parents house for round two!! YUMMMMM!!!!

yeah yeah I know LAST weekend was the long weekend, I’m just getting caught up ok? It was actually a LONG weekend for me cause I got all three days off. OFF I SAY OFF, FREE TO DO WHATEVER I PLEASED. Moose of course had to work two of those days….. typical!! I did have a fun time though.

Since arriving on the ridge and cutting the grass several times already we’d discovered that out lawn was well pretty CRAP. There are dandilions EVERYWHERE, its basically a field of yellow when you look out, there are big patches with no grass, more dandilions, burn’t patches where they had several fire pits YUCK! So in an effort to get out lawn looking nice again we bought several bags of weed and feed and I was put to work.

Here’s the cool seed contraption I got to walk about with

I’d also been talking about putting in a nice fire pit. There was a really big one in the front and back of the house when we got here that had some old stones around them to keep the fire in…. not very safe so Moose also surprised me with th interlocking stones to make one. Here’s our little creation!

      I’ve seeded all the way around it so i’m hoping the grass will start to grow and fill in where the old one was.

That night of course we christened the bonfire with a good ole roasting. My parents and my bil joined us for the action.

     Summy really liked the marshmallow’s but she was really waiting on a hot dog….. she didn’t get one poor thing! She’s sooo deprived!

Not much knitting happened but I did a wee bit of dyeing. I like one out of my three skeins which I’ll show you once my battery is charged up again.

Its almost vacation time here at CCO! Everything is booked now all we have to do is wait! More details to come!

Halleluiah we have HIGH SPEED! I thought I was never going to get to blog again. We are finally getting settled in our new house.Sockies is having a grand ole time out here,she’s always wanting to go outside and now has a massive cement slab to roll about on, I think she forgot how nice the summer time is, and its sooo quiet out here that she’s not scared by every little movement. Just incase you don’t believe all that here is is maxin and relaxin

Its been beautiful out these past few days safe a bit of rain here and there, lots of bike rides, short or long, we take anything we can get right now. After church today we had some burgers on the barby

then headed out on a little trip to see mum and dad. They bought a place down on the water not far from here and are working at it bit by bit waiting for their house to sell. Hopefully it will sell soon so they can start building and not be so far away. We’ve also been getting used to the large amount of grass we now have to tend too and all the new trees and shrubs that I have no clue about. I mowed the grass with the tractor for the first time last sunday, after I got used to the gears I was off to the races and it was actually quite fun, lets hope it stays that way We’ve also discovered that we have, well what we think is an apple tree. One of Moose’s co-workers was at the house last week and his wife said she thought it was an apple tree but didn’t know if it was a crab apple or an actual apple tree. Can anyone help me out?? Here’s what it looks like right now.

Oh one last thing we discovered about the house. We have a few little friends here, not mice but……. squirrels. Thankfully they aren’t living IN our house per say, just in the porch lol I must add that the porch is not attached to the house and the eaves are open to the outside so they really aren’t doing any harm, well yet anyway. I discovered them one morning when I grabbed my knitting and went out through the porch to the deck with Sockies to knit. Sock was in tow and as soon as I walked into the porch I heard a flutter, I looked up thinking there might have been a bird trapped in there only to discover two squirrels staring me down. I quickly backed up and called Sockies back into the house after that. They were chirpping wildly at me, how dare I invade their domain Since then we’ve discovered not 2 but at LEAST 5 of them. They are awfully cute and for right now they aren’t doing any harm, so my porch can be their home, or hang out, whatever they are using the rafters for. Here’s a little sneak peak at a few of my fuzzy friends.

Well I’m off to do some knitting I do have an FO for next post which I promise will be much soon than the last one!

Well yesterday was the day when all conditions had to be met on the house, we had everything lined up but I called my agent after work just to make sure that everything went through ok and we were ready to roll. She assured me that things went well and all we have to do now is wait until the 11th to get the house. OHHHHHH I don’t think I can wait another minute!! I should however start packing up some things that we can move over on the 11th. We will still have 3 weeks in this house before we need to be out so we will have lots of time to move.

 I joined The Sockamania club knitalong which started yesterday. Each month the members will receive a free anni design sock pattern. If we complete the socks and post finished pictures of them by the end of the month our name gets put into a drawing for a prize. We got our first pattern yesterday and immediately I knew the yarn to use. Here’s a picture of the completed sock picture that accompanied the pattern.

Cute huh! I got out the ball winder and wound my Kelly yarn fromLaura at Sugar Bunny Boulevard. It is the perfect springy yarn for this pattern. I decided to try a picot edge on these socks as well so its been slow to start but i’m getting there, now if I can just get the attaching of the picot down I’ll be off to the races.

I also might have wound up and cast on another sock last night………. don’t worry I haven’t thrown my other projects by the way side, I just wanted to get these up a running too.

This is Trekking 126!!! I have been drooling over this one for a while. I saw the finished socks over at Carole’s, they are the one’s with the ice cream on top of them. Instantly I new I HAD to have it. I went on ebay and found 4 balls still available and up for bid. I didn’t win the first one but I did get the second without any other bids!!!! The source is Mountain Shadow Ranch in Oregon.

I do have more to talk about, more pictures, and house pics too but I’ve gotta go get ready for work. Another installment soon!

WE GOT THE HOUSE!!!!

WOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Not only did we get the 30 acres but they added in the 10 they had set aside for themselves so really it is 40 acres!!!

That is all

Holy crap WHERE DO I START??????

Well lets start with…..

The Disappointment: The house we were all set to buy failed the water test miserably so we have decided to go no further with it. We now have on month to find a place to live

The Estatic Excitement : Upon finding out that the house was a no go, Moose hopped back on MLS to see if there was anything new on the market that we hadn’t yet looked at. Welllllllllllll there just so happened to be a house with 30 acres in the area we had orginally been looking for land in. The pictures didn’t really do it for us but we thought hey 30 acres of land is a nice little chunkie we may as well go have a look. I got home from work and off we went straight away to see it.  It’s set in a pretty secluded area *obviously when its on 30 acres huh*, back off the road, fantastic view of the valley, its 1000 ft elevation up there, its just altogether EXACTLY what we were looking for. The house was surprisingly VERY nice inside compared to what the pictures show. We of course will want to make it ours and put our own touches to it but right now its perfect to move into. Soooo before we left our agent we had put an offer in. It was weird cause we both walked in and BOTH said WOW I love it! We got walking around and I swear I could have moved in right then and there, all my ties to the house we just sold had been cut instantly, I’M IN LOVE!!!! I don’t want to get my hopes up just in case but HECK MY HOPES ARE ALREADY UP!!! I couldn’t even sit down to read blogs last night OR knit I was too wound up! Prayers and finger crossing and whatever else you do would REALLY be appreciated on this one, I don’t even want to think what i’ll be like if we don’t get it.

I’m sure you were wondering how Heidi got along with all that sock yarn huh!

Here she is with her favourite of the bunch, and if it wasn’t MY favourite too I probably would have given it to her but I LOVE THAT YARN! I’m waiting for a special pattern to pop up to knit it into. Although Heidi and I have only had three knitting dates so far, it is VERY safe to say that we like the EXACT same things lol Very weird but I think its good. We buy the same patterns and then find out after the fact that we both have then, we both love tweedy green yarn, and green yarn in general hahah I have no problems knitting the same patterns and picking the same yarns that just means we both have seriously good taste We joked about having to call each other before church to make sure we are not wearing the same thing. You can see in the picture Heidi’s first sweater, its the cabled cardi from Knit 1 spring mag 2007, when she told me she found a pattern for her first sweater I laughed and said I bought that mag for the same pattern! GO FIGURE!

Our summer time visitors are back:

I love these little guys soooo much, even though they do tear apart our garbage and leave it all over the deck. Sock seems to not mind them, she’ll sit and watch them, then paw at the window as if she wants to go out and play with them. I think really she is saying *Geez, you guys sure do look like me but from the looks of those black circles around your eyes, I think you need to get more sleep* I hope the new owners are nice to the little guys!

As you can all see, Sock has no problems catching up on her sleep. She’s found a nice mix of wool and alpaca to bed down on while I try to find out what the heck I did with my spray bottle so I can block that sucker!

I have been working on a secret knitting project, I’m about half way through and I’m loving every minute. Maybe you’ll get a sneak peak next post. I’m off to bouce around the house, hopefully I’ll hear something before I go to work!