There's a Nip in the Air......I Could Use a Nip Right About Now

Wow, almost a month since the last post.  Time is flying! The weekend before Halloween, the TV stations started running Christmas commercials!  Now that's downright depressing.  I have to muster all my energy, brain cells and money just to get through Thanksgiving.....which is less than 2 weeks away.  But I digress.......

So 3 weekends ago, son came up to visit with us and spend time with his 15 yr. old son....who lives up here with his mother.....not with us, just in the same town.  2 weekends ago, same son and his buddy came up for a long weekend....Thursday night through Monday morning.....for the last weekend of Trout season. Temps: 20 degrees in the early AM, high 30's/low 40's during the day.

Then youngest son came up that Saturday to visit....us.....he has no kids. No human kids, that is.  Just the bunny.  Our "grandbunny". Actually, he was leaving one of his cars here to do repairs the following weekend.  We drove him back to the Cities on Monday morning.  Why didn't he hitch a ride with his brother?  Well, because brother borrowed his father-in-law's pickup truck.....which was filled to the hilt with fishing gear......and younger son also had our "grandbunny" with him....to be transferred back home.  It's a long story.

Lots of cooking, dish washing and cleaning up.  Lots of drinking in the evening.  Oh yeah.....and grandson (the human one) was also here for most of the weekend.  Full house.

Last weekend, youngest son came up to work on the car.  Changing the whole rear brake system from one car to the other;  drums to discs.  Not a quick or easy job.  Few glitches here and there, but he finally got it done.  Temps:  high 20's/low 30's in the early AM; low 40's during the day.  More cooking, dishes and cleaning up.  And babysitting.....the "grandbunny".

This weekend, son was going to come up again and work on the front brakes....same switch.  But....it's cold!  We're expecting high winds, rain and some snow showers.  So that job has been put on hold for now.

We finally got the woodstove up and running a couple weeks ago; today BH plans on putting up the storm windows.  I discourage him from this for as long as possible.  If it were up to him, the storms would go up at the end of September!  I can't bear the feeling of being totally closed in like that until I'm sure we're definitely on our way to winter.  It's bad enough that it'll be 5-6 months before I can open a window again!

In other news, I did finish the white beaded tam for the second time.  Now I just have to get it posted on Etsy.  Anyway, these are the blue "tweedy" socks with an off-set cable that went up for sale last week (finally!).....

That makes a total of 39 items for sale.  Hopefully get the tam and fingerless mitts on there today. That'll make 40 items.  If you want to check it out, my name is HomeSpunHandKnit  on Etsy.com.

Now I'm knitting a vest with the copper/navy/brown/red painted Targhee/Merino that was spun up a while ago.  The vest is turning out pretty good.  I've had the pattern for years.....I've made the vest before, but only used the stitch count as reference, using my own patterning.  This time I decided to actually knit the vest as written!  Hey, so far, so good!  I think I'll make another....as written.

And the last of the black Shetland roving is being spun.  Holy crap.  I didn't realize there was that much.  Actually, I found 2 more balls of roving after I thought all was spun.  But that's ok.  It's destined to be plied with the rest of the wine colored Merino. 

That's my downfall......when I see a color I love, I gotta buy as much of it as I can.  Visions of what it will become, what it can be plied with, how it's going to feel....I can't help myself!  But when it takes me 6 months to spin it all up, or think I have, only to discover another pound of it hidden away, I swear I'll never do that again.....1# max for all colors.  But.....then I run across another color that I just love.....and......it happens all over....again. 

Anywho, it occured to me early this week that I really need to get started on crocheting the slipper socks for Christmas gifts.  Crap!  Put the spinning and the vest aside for a month.  Need to make more pairs this year because they've been requested.  Wednesday I bought 2 skeins of (ppfftt) acrylic yarn to add to the stash.  The pattern calls for working 2 strands throughout.  So colors can be mixed and matched.  I still might need a few more skeins though.

I think that about covers it.  That's all the news that is news.  Hope your Fall is as beautiful as a Norman Rockwell painting and the season upon us fills your heart with joy.

God bless all those who have been victims of Hurricane Sandy!