November!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! Almost missed my picture post for November!! *scramble*scramble*scramble* 

Getting in just under the wire. :)

(This post was a real labor of love, too, because I hit something on my keyboard in the middle of it that split all the paragraphs and symbols into gobbledy-gook and, well, it took some doing to figure out how I had screwed THAT up. Turns out ctrl-alt-something will change the formatting of your keyboard to.......something that does not benefit an English only speaker. Ha!)

 Hope everyone in the US had a nice Thanksgiving.  I cooked a lot......and ate a lot. So two thumbs up for the holiday from me! (Also: watched some movies I've been meaning to get to, like Catching Fire, that I never make time for.) 

 (Much better Youtube link)

The husband was  a little more pro-active than me, as he participated in a bike run through the woods in the morning, put on by the local bike shop. (Which is also a fledgling beer company. Beer and bikes! That's aweso.......wait, what? I'm not sure they thought that one out. lol)

I will admit I was still sleeping when he got back from the run. 6am on a holiday? NOT ON YOUR LIFE. lol) 

 No crazy Black Friday shopping for either of us. Not my scene, I have to say.

Went to a not-at-all-local show up in Mass. instead and got some handmade gifts for others and a couple for myself, like Mr. Sheep here. Not sure where I am going to put him yet but I couldn't pass him up!

  

 It's been an insanely busy month because beads, beads, beads, and more beads. Every day a new pile of beads made, packed up and shipped out. Thankfully, December is a little easier because that month has more to do with personal sales (gifts, etc.) than designers loading up for their holiday shows. Just keeping my head down and plugging away at it, trying not to think TOO much about where/when I'm going to knit up some gifts for Christmas. Heh.

All the pretty 'leafs' are gone for the year now. :*(

I enjoyed snapping pics of the nice ones in my travels. I love when they look like they are on fire.

'Stitches East' socks............put to bed. 

Trekking XXL striping yarn. Fruit Stripe Gum pattern.....again. 

It's so much fun I make have to make a dozen socks in this pattern before I'm tired of it. (Pair #3 is already completed, but not photoed yet, and pair #4 is in the very, very, very early stages of being completed.)

Tomorrow is a very exciting day because...

...I finally get to start my David's Tea advent calendar!

You have to get these the SECOND they come out if you want to grab one so I've been staring at this big box for a whole month now, trying to wait until December 1st. Soooo hard! I love advent calendars in general but one that gives you a little tin of special tea every day? Ho, ho, ho!  *fans self*

I got the winter collection at the same time to keep me busy or otherwise I never would have made it. Never. Ha! :)

(Not an actual Grumpy Cat. Sweetest, Gentlest Thing Ever Cat.)

Meisha is still doing ok, so that is a good thing. Her levels are worse every time we test for them (grr!) but she still doesn't have any major symptoms. 

 I got her a new doctor, someone who can devote a little more time/energy to a rare case. Did another whole round of various tests and there is still no cause to be found for her hypercalcemia. (It's certainly not for lack of trying, that's for sure.) The testing was great overall though because her kidneys and joints showed no calcification yet, which is AWESOME. She's the healthiest terminally ill animal you've ever seen! SO FRUSTRATING! @$!@$!@#$

*ahem*

I gets angry sometimes. Just saying.

Someone pass me a holiday cookie to distract me. 

See? I feel better already. Eating your feelings WORKS, guys. 

IT WORKS. Never forget that. Heh.

October II

Picture post! Lots of eye candy! 

Before it gets too late and I end up having wasted my time taking all these photos. :)

Hartford Convention Center

Oooo, Stitches East 2014 show was fun. Last year I didn't see much that excited me but this year I wanted EVERYTHING.  A whole convention center of everything you want. It's so sweet and so cruel.

Did indeed start some knitting up before we left for the show. Can't go to a fiber festival without some fiber involved.

(Yarn is Trekking XXL, pattern is Fruit Stripe Gum.)

I don't think I did too badly with my purchases considering I wanted everything. Right?

A couple skeins of rainbow striping yarn from White Birch Fiber Arts.

Navy/blue australian merino from Windy Valley Muskox Co.

Regia. (Great for socks. Wears like IRON.)

And a sparkly turquoise yarn from The Periwinkle Sheep.

Also a lobster hat kit. BECAUSE why not? (This was the hubby's pick.)

Those rainbow striping yarns are like a Lisa Frank/unicorn/glitter bomb happy making thing. Rainbow. Stripes. 

I regretted only getting two colorways........so I *may* purchased have another two the week after the show from her Etsy shop. Maybe. Nobody saw. (Feel free to judge.)

The hubby did his own purchasing: a big ole hank and a cone of alpaca for weaving. 

Soooooo soft. *pets*

There were A LOT of weaving samples up at the show. I dutifully took pictures of all the rigid heddle ones I want him to make for me. *ahem*

Snaps from the top of the cliffs down the road from my house. Is there any better season than fall? I THINK NOT.

 

That is all for now. Super super super busy with bead orders this month. Tis the season and all. :)

Ta!

At last.

 An update! Well, this month has clearly gotten the best of me, as far as keeping up with stuff. Yeeesh. 

Part of that is that October is inherently busy for me. Fall is my favorite season and I like to take advantage of every nice fall day I can, hitting up the various festivals going on or just making time to sit on the deck when the weather is nice enough. (Anything in the 60's is fine. No lower than that though for Deck Time for me. At least not for sitting.) The other part is that I just stayed away for a bit because I was so sad to hear about Cathey. Reading through everyone's posts remembering her was like a kick in the guts. I don't know that I have anything eloquent to say about that (it's all been said so much better than I can fumble my way through it) but she will be missed and remembered.

I happily signed up for the newest L*K mystery sampler AND even managed to bang the first part out rather quickly this month. It's anyone's guess when I will get back to the rest but I'm quite proud to have finished the first part at least. lol

As charted, so far, except I left off some single 'snow flakes' near the pine trees in case I want to do them in beads (thinking a YES to that) and I think I have to change the parchment colored snowflakes on the bottom too. It doesn't stand out on the green at ALL. Boo. :(

I'll have to wait until more of that parchment floss comes up in the other two patterns though to see what would be a good sub for it. I don't want to have to change it twice, right? 

Seeing all the fall stuff going on though had me a little itchy for bright halloween colors so I did up a couple of quick small pieces from the latest JCS halloween issue.

(More pumpkins for Cathey? :))

Just short and sweet little ornament sized stitchies. I changed the linen on the block one from an ivory to this nice purple. It's not every day you can work a purple linen into a finish, you know? I started a bigger piece from that same issue too but I wasn't ambitious enough to drag it out and snap a pic of it. Heh. I'm about 2/3rds of the way done with it though so it might makes it debut some time soon. Maybe. (I put it away last week to concentrate on some knitting and have yet to get back to it. *sigh*)

My 'babies' are getting soooooOooooooOOo big! Almost five months old and Fitz is weighing in at over 5lbs now. Livvy is a full pound smaller - she can't compete with those boy genes! I let them out on my 'fenced in' deck and he likes to jump to the rail, dig a hole in one of the window boxes and take a nap. Dirty, dirty, kitty! lol

They still do everything together as a pair. Or almost everything. I haven't noticed any 'hormone' type activity going on with them......yet. Thankfully. My vet won't do the ole SNIP SNIP before they are solidly 5 months old so they have to wait a couple more weeks still before we are in the clear and I don't have to worry about THAT any more. Heh. :)

(And yes, poor Livvy got no pictures this time around but she's ALWAYS IN MOTION. ALWAYS. So I have the worst time ever taking pictures of her. Fitz is a fancy pretty boy lazy bum who sits and sits and is more camera ready.)

Ahhhh....fall.

 (not my pic but I couldn't resist saving it) 

October is usually one of my favorites months. I love the chilly weather and all the colorful leaves and fall festivals to attend. (It doesn't hurt that the Stitches East aka Yarn Mecca is also in October.) And, of course, there is Halloween.

Walk in Putnam, CT last Sunday.

This one is off to a bit of a slow start. I've been limiting my computer and crafty times because I've had a terrible case of trigger finger in my left hand for the past 4 weeks or so. It's caused (for me) by too much bead making. I can knit for an hour and have no problems but after 15 minutes of bead making, my middle finger starts getting tight and, another 15 minutes in it starts 'clicking' like an off/on switch, eventually getting so constricted I need to use my OTHER hand to straighten it out for the next couple hours or so. It's not particularly painful really - more annoying than anything else. Especially when trying to sleep. (You tend to keep waking up and having to straighten it out.) I kept it taped up for a few weeks whenever I wasn't working and that has helped. It's still bothering me when I'm working but it's settling down fairly quickly after I'm done for the day vs. being cranky 24/7. So that's good!

Biking here in town yesterday.

The husband is still building his brand spanky-new uber-big shed. Or was. Until he fell off the ladder last week. Broken rib(s). Hard to tell if it's one or two. (And one ass cheek that looks like a rotten banana. lol) So now he has a month off work to heal. (He offered to do a light duty position but they declined. Guess they only do that when you get hurt at work. Oh well. So much for trying NOT to be a '47% moocher'. Bring on the disability checks! lol) So he's pretty miserable at the moment. Can't work on his shed and can't go bike riding with me, etc. He's getting a lot of reading done. *snort*

Fancy-pants panorama from in town

It *IS* Walktober though so I'm still dragging him out of the house with me for some daily exercise. Even shuffling around for a half hour or whatever is better than sitting around the house all day. Between that and picking up all his chores, things are busy, busy, busy! Looking forward to taking a day off for the Stitches East show this weekend, I tell you WHAT. 

IMMA GONNA GET MY YARN ON.

Whew! Weekend overload.

That was such a crazy weekend I needed a few days to recover from it. Seriously.

First up was the crazy overwhelming and much-anticipated Stitches East show in Hartford. 

 

(Picture from last year because I wasn't brave enough to thwart security this year and try and sneak a pic. They are CRAZY SERIOUS about no picture taking inside the venue.)

God, this show is exhausting. I mean that in a good way - but it's so big and there is sooooooooooooooooooo much stuff. *fans self* A huge convention center full of knitterly goodness every which way you look starts shutting my brain down after 4-5 aisles, you know? DON'T WORRY THOUGH: I pushed through it and made it to the end *and* even managed to be coherent enough to buy something from all corners of the room. I take my responsibilities for propping up the US economy with my purchasing power VERY seriously. *cough*

I did collapse here in the hall for a bit though to get my sea legs before taking off though.

After a quick jaunt to West Hartford for an outdoor lunch (to enjoy the perfect fall weather) and a little shopping at stores that aren't around here (Penzey's) we made the long haul back to our part of state and had just a wee bit of time to freshen up and haul off to Foxwoods Casino to catch a Kathy Griffin show. A love her/hate her comedian to be sure...........but I'm partial to foul-mouthed broads. Not gonna lie. : )

I'd never been to the MGM Grand theater here before and it was quite nice.......inside anyway. I haven't been to Foxwoods Casino in a long time (I only manage a trip every 5-8 years, even though it's only 30 minutes away) and, yep, I still HATE the place with the burning passion of ten thousand white hot suns. Choking with cigarette smoke, drunk hootchie-mama women traveling in ho herds everywhere you look and the place is just waaaaaaaaay too big for me to the point of utter ridiculousness. And this is coming from someone who LIKES Vegas, mind you. (A Vegas joint is a 500 sq. foot NYC hole in the wall compared to the size of this place.) Anyhoo. I was so annoyed with the casino areas and the awful smell, per usual, that I forgot to play a few quarters in a slot machine 'just in case' I had some lucky ju-ju hanging around me at the moment. *snort* 

Oh well. I'm sure they won't miss my dollar. :)

 

Such a picturesque setting for a fall festival. Perfect!

We got home late late late but didn't let that stop us from heading out to the Johnny Cake Festival at the Kenyon Grist Mill the next morning. Johnny Cakes are, I BELIEVE, a distinctly Rhode Island thing? (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) They're basically little fried up corn pancakes dating back to the Civil War era. Crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside, with or without maple sugar and that sort of thing. The Kenyon mill has been grinding corn the same way since 1696. I kid you not. That's crazy, right? 

 Though the building they still grind in *only* dates back to 1886. ONLY. *snort*

 

Round and round the stones go, grinding corn and other things all day.

This was a great festival because EVERYONE had free samples to try and TRY I DID. We noshed on locally made chocolate milk, pumpkin seeds, chai tea, hot apple cider, bbq sauce, freshly made bread and, of course, those johnny cakes. There were lots of other vendors demoing their wares like potters, chair caning,  and broom makers, etc. Very fun to watch! Will definitely have to hit this festival up again next year.

Of course we had to take home some purchased goodies from here too. Tea, pumpkin seeds, two jars of honey (as if we need MORE honey in this house!), johnny cake mix (OF COURSE) and I liked this piece of pottery that looked like a beehive to me.

It was nice to get out and enjoy the weather before it turns nasty for good, that's for sure. They are predicting a nor'easter for this area this weekend so that might be that as far as 'enjoying' the fall goes. *sad*

(Don't worry - I'll do a post about my Stitches East purchases. I think I need a whole separate post for that. lol)