Getting Closer

It’s been a few weeks since I last showed you the renovation here at Casa DPUTiger. I’d say that our fabulous and wonderful contractor only has a couple days of outdoor work remaining.

After more than a month of our stone sitting in Indiana (the state, not Indiana, Pa.), it’s finally being delivered tomorrow. There might be one more day’s work of outside stuff, excluding the stone work. Then it’s all about the interior improvements.

Meanwhile, here’s the update.

Over the 60 or so years since our house was built, the relatively narrow door from the kitchen to the back porch managed to shrink vertically, leaving an inch-high gap at the bottom. While that created an annoying draft when that door opened onto an enclosed back porch, it was something that absolutely had to be remedied when it was going to open directly into the Great Outdoors.


That’s Pete putting in the shiny new door, shortly after my last renovation post.

July 1 was a pretty big day around here. The picture window came out (and that’s Pete again, helping carry the picture window down the stairs)

(by the way … if you are in the market for a picture window, please let me know ASAP. This window is in pristine condition and was never actually exposed to weather. We’d really rather not put it in the dumpster if we can avoid it. And yes, we’re planning to put it on CraigsList.)

The hole got bigger



And the new sliding door went it!


Meanwhile, our HVAC guy was making a big mess too


That ductwork comes up from the basement, goes into the attic and snakes over to the ceiling of the master bedroom. It’s a big room, and Ralph felt it needed more air flow to heat and cool properly. As long as that exposed ductwork is eventually returned to its hole in the wall (literally), I’m fine with that.

Much of the remaining exterior work has been cosmetic stuff that has made a big difference. The bottom 6” of the roof was looking rather ratty the whole way around, and the gutter was leaking in the center. Contractor put in a new gutter, the vinyl siding the whole way around the bottom and added a third support post for the roof.


Jim (the contractor) decided that the sliding door should have a step between it and the deck. That went in on Monday. It’s perfect.


We’re really getting close. It’s kind of exciting.

In other news it was eight years ago today that I married The Hubster. He’s certainly proved that he’s a keeper, and I love him lots. I’m a pretty lucky girl, to be honest. Here’s hoping we’ll be enjoying these renovations together for decades to come.

Full exterior of house, Tuesday, 12 July 2011.

Socks Fit for a Queen

Believe it or not, I have a finished project. Actually, they’ve been finished for more than a month, but it wasn’t until yesterday that I buckled down to weave in the ends and take pictures. Of course, this is also NOT their internet debut as a finished pair of socks. I tweeted a terrible dark just-finished picture when I took them off the needles during a nearly never-ending extra innings game at the Women's College World Series. With a joke about how the game won't end, but my socks did!


This yarn, Miss Babs sportweight, was purchased at Maryland Sheep & Wool in 2010. I had heard lots and lots of stuff about Miss Babs, and the dyer herself helped me pick this skein. I prefer heavier sock yarns, so she steered me towards the sportweight section.


Toe Pic!
I cruised along on these socks with my standard memorized Riverbed Master pattern. My most favorite garter toe, a plain foot, arch increases and the NP heel.


One of the best parts of these socks was the colors. They had people making comments pretty much everywhere I went, and I loved seeing the colors progress across my needles. Especially that light teal. Yum. Cleopatra is one of Miss Babs' signature colorways, and I can definitely see why.


They fit perfectly, are very comfy, and I think the way the reinforced heel stretches out when the socks are worn is just too cool.

It almost looks like an Eye of Partridge heel. The flecks of color from the variegated color is just great. But meanwhile, my first Miss Babs experience was outstanding. I will certainly purchase her yarns again!

Cleopatra’s Socks

Pattern: Riverbed Master by Cat Bordhi, New Pathways for Sock Knitters
Yarn: Miss Babs Yummy Superwash Sport
Colorway: Cleopatra
Needles: US 1.5/2.5mm
Started: 4 February 2011
Finished: 2 June 2011

Swirl

So the hot topic … well, the hot sweater at TNNA was unquestionably the swirl sweaters in Sandra McIver’s new book “knit, Swirl.”

I spent the last day-plus of the convention mentally auditioning dozens of yarns for my first Swirl Sweater.

I wound up landing somewhere completely different than where I started. Fortunately, that was (mostly) in my stash!


I’ll be working with Malabrigo Rios in the Paris Night colorway (the darker skeins) out of my stash, complemented by MadelineTosh DK in Composition Book Gray (the lighter skeins).

I bought the Rios, if I remember correctly, at Bloomin’s Black Friday sale. Of course, I loved the color and the Malabrigo colorways just glow in the Rios base.


On Sandra’s suggestion, my first Swirl will be a centered oval. Specifically, the plan is Copper Collage, which has a worsted/aran weight paired with a DK weight. I wanted contrast with both color and weight, so I picked the Composition Book.


I plan to swatch over the weekend at the Lake. Expect sunset pictures. Soon.

Renovation News

The renovation is moving right along. I’m hoping the sliding glass door will be in prior to the holiday. That would make me very happy.

Meanwhile, here are a few highlights since my last blog post. As always, there are entirely too many pictures on my flickr set (HERE).

One of the biggest days of excitement happened a few Fridays ago when we had a concrete pour for the area under the new deck. It was very interesting to watch. These guys really knew what they were doing and the Head Dude was obviously a perfectionist.


After the pour dried for a few hours, one crew member came back to give it a power wash and acid bath, revealing the exposed aggregate concrete. I never thought I could get excited about concrete, but then I saw this:


It’s beautiful. I love it.

While I was at The Mannings for my class, the contractors finished the treads on the stairs, which led to a text-message picture of the Hubster’s dress shoes standing on the deck, and me having to ask if that meant we had a door. It didn’t mean we had a door. It just meant that we had stairs.

Since my return, most of the work has been on the vinyl railing. Here’s a peek:


I’d say that as of yesterday, the railing is about 75% finished. They’re waiting on some long pieces before they can totally finish it up. It’s easy to get excited about this project now that we can really see it taking shape. Hopefully I’ll be blogging about the interior work very soon!

Meanwhile, here’s how the exterior of the house looked as of close-of-business on Tuesday.

WiP Wednesday

Well, hello! I’m kind of excited that after months of working in Word all day every day, I think this is the first time I’ve opened a new document in two weeks.

Yay fake-ation!

So my project from class at The Mannings is finished and I think I have enough pictures for a photo shoot. Maybe tomorrow or next week. The tiny bit of knitting time I’ve had lately has all gone into my Oakland Shawl


I’m really enjoying this nice simple garter stitch knit.

After a week in Weaving Wonderland, I would love to be on the loom right now, but it’s under a dropcloth in the corner of the living room, behind a couch. So I may spend a bit of this afternoon winding a warp or two so I’m ready to get lots of stuff done as soon as the loom is set up in its new home.

Lots has been happening with the house. I’ll get a post up about that in the near future as well. Happy Wednesday!

Re-Entry

Hi there!

So I’m back from the first two of three non-home destinations of June. I survived the softball trip. It was hot, and once it got down to the final two teams, the one I was pulling for took home the title. Then I headed over to Columbus, Ohio, for TNNA, where I spent four days taking classes, eating well and walking around the market.

It was a full 14 days away from home and therefore exhausting, but all in all no serious complaints. I'm just trying to finish a gazillion little things before I leave home again on Sunday to head east for my class at The Mannings.

I know I’m a day late (and probably a dollar short), but I did take my WiP Wednesday pictures on … y’know … Wednesday, I just ran out of energy to blog last night after knit night. So here you go!

The Cleopatra socks were finished during the softball portion of the program. Then I cast on a plain vanilla pair in STR-M and blew through just about all of what you see below while walking the floor at TNNA.


One of the yarns we are bringing into the store this fall is Kauni. I’ve had my eye on the Oakland Shawl for a year now, and have had the yarn for it in my house for nearly that long. So on Tuesday night, I cast on and got knitting. I’m loving it. Really.


It’s been two weeks since I touched it, but I’m almost through my Classic Elite KAL sweater for the store KAL. Yay, chunky yarn and projects that go really quickly!


And, of course, the biggest WiP around here is the house. Here’s a new pic of the exterior of the house. We’re really excited about the project and we are inching ever-closer to the finish line. I’ll post more pictures on my flickr page. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday to Me

Today, I had a birthday. One of the ones that ends with a “0”

And demolition started on my house. It was awesome.

As my IRL friends have heard me saying for months, this is the last big planned renovation that we want to do on my kid-hood home. Back porch will be demolished (roof stays), we’re putting on a big ‘ol deck and we’re taking what used to be the formal dining room and making it the new “family room” or TV room.

It’ll be great when it’s done. I’ll try to document as much as I can here, but I’m out of town for the first two weeks of June (eek!) so I’ll do the best I can. Meanwhile …

Here is what the back of the house looked like before we started anything. It’s the layout I always remember, although apparently the stairs were re-done when I was a kid.



Some interior shots of the enclosed back porch …






My parents insist that they used the back porch all the time. I remember my mom sleeping out there occasionally when I was a kid, before the house was air-conditioned and it was the hottest part of the summer. Personally, I always felt like when it was warm enough to use the back porch, there was so little air circulation out there that it was stifling on the porch.

We’re gonna fix that.

For the first day of demolition, I’d say we really only had one surprise. Ants in the far wall, center post. Yuck-o.


Beyond that, it was just kind of cool to watch the back porch melt away. Demo is loud, but it’s fast. A lot got done today.



The stairs were one of the first bits to be altered.



If you look at the ground in this next picture, you can see that the AC unit is already gone. This pic was taken at lunchtime.



And a look at the outside, also at the lunch break.



So that was pretty much it from opening day. I’ll try to update periodically, but I’m also planning to put lots of pictures HERE, on my Flickr account.

Maryland Sheep & Wool, 2011

So I took a break from my regular crazy last weekend and switched to a different flavor of crazy by traveling to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. A few of my favorite visitors-from-afar were unable to attend this year and they were missed. But I still saw several of my favorite peeps and a good time was had by all.

I spent very conservatively on Opening Day, and then let loose a little bit on Sunday. I had Camnesia for the most part, and did not manage to take people-pictures, but that’s OK. We’ll skip to the haul:


Top Step (L-R): Jennie the Potter mug, Echinacea honey from The Bee Folks, Mug from the Lion Potter, Crochet hook needle roll, Inkle loom in the background, Recycled sweater mittens, Lunatic Fringe (weaving) scarf kit; Bottom Row: Broom from One Oak Brooms, Bamboo Honey, Miss Babs sock yarn, Sanguine Gryphon Bugga (x2), Killer Bee honey and Lemon honey candy, Socks that Rock (x3), Miss Babs Yowza! Whatta Skein (x3)

Let’s take a closer look at some of those non-yarn purchases, shall we?

My first purchase of the day made me a repeat buyer of this item.


They’re made from recycled felted sweaters and fleece-lined. I bought a pair on my second trip to MDSW, but that pair is a tiny bit small, so I was able to justify a second pair. While I hope it’s a long time before it’s cold enough to wear them (they’re really warm!) I’m excited to have such a fun winter accessory to look forward to.

About three steps later, I solved a problem I’d been pondering for several months.


Since I filled out my Addi crochet hook collection last summer, I’ve been thinking about the fact that they needed a home. Yes, I’m perfectly capable of sewing a case, but this was a good price and it meant that I didn’t have to think about making it myself. WIN!

Another three steps and I landed on the doorstep of one of my favorite vendors, the Spanish Peacock. They moved from their “one spot” near the door because the Main Barn is being wired for heat and AC, but they were still easy to find.


I forgot to put something “for scale” in the above picture, but these are stick shuttles, about 5" long for the bigger one. Used for Inkle weaving. I’ll get to that later, but they were pretty and very reasonably priced, so YAY!

After meeting up with Jenn, the newest Hurricane Knitter, we started making our way uphill. She was unfamiliar with Jennie the Potter, so I dragged her into Jennie’s booth.


The mug on the left appealed to me because, well, the yarn is blue, and because the sheep on one side is white and the sheep on the other side is black. Yay! But there are two mugs in the picture, you say!

Well, Jenn decided to return the favor by walking me up to her favorite potter, the Lion Potter, who is one of the outside vendors at the top of the hill, near Brooks Farm. The mug was beautiful, and somehow those “dents” you can see in the body of that blue mug make it fit perfectly in my hands. I’ve spent the last six months having a cup of tea just about every morning, so I figured it was a reasonable purchase.

The only problem is that now I want to ignore my entire shelf of mugs and just use these two. They’re both awesome.

All of those purchases had been made by lunchtime on Saturday. I perused quite a bit more as the afternoon wore on, but didn’t make any other purchases.

All of the yarn was purchased on Sunday morning. Three of those skeins were purchased for friends, the rest will appear on future Yarn Pr0n Fridays.

Going into Sunday, there were two things that I knew would be purchased: Honey from The Bee Folks, and a broom. After a wonderful conversation with the staff at The Bee Folks, I tried at least a half-dozen honeys and landed on three varieties to bring home. Bamboo, Killer Bee and Echinacea. All very yummy. I finished my Wildflower jar from last year’s MDSW on Monday morning, so I figure that’s good timing. Oh, and I tried the lemon honey hard candy last year and YUM! So I got more.

I didn’t take close-up photos of the broom because, well, it’s a broom. It’s been doing a great job getting the bud-bits from the tree in our front yard off of the front walk, and I expect it to get heavy use on our new deck, and clearing snow from the front walk next winter.

As for the final things in the picture … Over the last month or so, I’ve been daydreaming about getting an Inkle Loom (that's a YouTube link, so you can see how it works). It will give me a portable loom, and it makes warp-faced bands. I can take it back and forth to the Lake, and because it’s small and portable, I’ll be able to use it in front of the TV when I want to work on something smaller than whatever is on the floor loom.

So I caved.


Yeah, it’s goofy looking. It’ll make more sense when you see it in action in a month or two.

And I made one other weaving purchase. A scarf kit with cotton yarns from Lunatic Fringe (purchased from a resale vendor, actually, the same vendor where I got the Inkle). I’m quickly getting sucked in to Lunatic Fringe World, and am already part of their yarn-of-the-month club, but an eight-yard two-scarf warp should go on and off quickly … assuming that I ever finish the rep weave placemats.


So that’s about it. The weather was nearly perfect, although I forgot sunscreen on Saturday and got a mild burn on my arms. Still, no complaints. I look forward to returning to the Howard County Fairgrounds again next year!

WiP Wednesday

Another boring knitting week. I actually didn’t do much knitting at Maryland Sheep & Wool, a trip that I’ll recap tomorrow. Meanwhile, back at WiP Wednesday …

My plain vanilla Miss Babs socks are chugging right along, but since I haven’t started the heel turn, they still look exactly the same as they did last week, so no new picture.

Shortly after taking last week’s WiP Wednesday photo of my giraffe, I went to knit night. While there, I finished the Giraffe Torso:


Yeah, it looks like a pear. I’m sure it’ll improve in appearance as soon as it has limbs and a head. Actually, that’s the back of its head on my DPNs to the right there.

In the car on the way to MDSW, I actually was a passenger rather than the driver, and did a little knitting. Sadly, my Chart Tracking System for the BFF socks is small-notation driven. I struggled through about 10 rounds, then got massively frustrated and gave the hell up. Still, some progress!


I have a sweater vest I should start. I’d give just about anything to show you even one warp thread’s worth of progress on the rep weave placemats, but there just isn’t time. Speaking of which, I need to get back to the writing gig.

MDSW recap coming soon…

Bunny Luv

So my niece turned two recently. I needed a present to go with a couple of board books to complete her gift.

Enter this guy:


Yet another home run pattern from Susan B. Anderson and Itty Bitty Toys. He’s even cute from the back!


I had to resist my urge to do a “proper” full pom-pom with as much yarn as I could stuff into my Clover maker. Instead, I counted wraps just like the pattern-writer said and I took the additional step of using my sewing machine to sew all the pom-pom bits together. I figured the biggest pom-pom danger is having pieces fall out. Hopefully this will keep Mr. Bunny’s tail intact for the long haul.


Of course, Susan was right. The slightly scraggly pom-pom looks much better than the really full one!

I figured Mr. Bunny wouldn’t mind meeting some of the other animals in the store. He played with Baby Bobbi Bear for a little while


And he hung around with the store’s Gauge Chickens for a little bit too.

See those three chickens? Knit with the exact same yarn and exact same needle by three different knitters. That’s why they’re “gauge chickens.”

All in all, another Susan B. Anderson success story. If you want to knit toys, Itty Bitty Toys is full of great patterns.

Bunny

Pattern: Bunny from Itty Bitty Toys by Susan B. Anderson
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Worsted Cotton
Quantity: One skein did everything but his feet and ears. Ears were leftover yarn from the Owls, as were his feet and tail.
Needles: US 5, magic loop, KnitPicks Options
Started: 17 April 2011
Finished: 26 April 2011
Mods: None

WiP Thursday

Holy week that sucks. Tons of stuff to do before I leave for Maryland Sheep & Wool. Running out of hours to get them all done.

And yeah, I’m a day behind on WiP Wednesday. Sorry about that. These photos were taken on Wednesday morning, though, just like normal. Here’s what I’ve been up to:

Itty-bitty progress on the Miss Babs socks …


Another tiny little chunk of progress on the BFF socks …


A giraffe tush … yeah, you heard me. I finished it at knit night on Wednesday night. Now it looks like a gigantic pear. Started its head Thursday night …


And, finally, I managed to start warping the loom. Hallelujah.



This is going to be my first Maryland as a weaver. I hope I find some cool stuff and can stay within a reasonable budget. So I can have leftover cash for my weaving class next month. Geez, that’s right around the corner!