I just love Fall!!!

We're having a great October here so far. The weather is perfect! :)

This week the city had its annual Trunk or Treat fun night for local kids. Joshua went with his daddy. He was a dragon this year!



They both had a great time. This year for the first time there were rides. Joshua rode a ferris wheel and a couple other rides with his daddy and really enjoyed himself! :)

I just realized today that I have never blogged a picture of our other kitten, Babie. She doesn't really like having her picture taken, so generally you have to snap her photo while she's distracted by something else, or asleep.

Here she is sleeping in her basket:



Actually she was asleep until she heard the whirrrrrr of my digital camera lense moving into place. Then she opened one eye to let me know that she knew I was in her face with the (*&^ camera again. :) She is half siamese, so she thinks she can have that snotty attitude. :)

Babie and Gracie have a new evening sport. It's called "Eat the Moth.'' Our computer sits right next to a window and the screen is loose at the top. Moths see the light from the computer and sneak in. Babie and Gracie wait for them, and then run themselves silly chasing them down to catch them. And then, gross as it sounds, they eat them. Uggo.

Here they are just waiting for one to fly in through the screen.



The only problem with their favorite sport is that they don't watch where they are going while they are running all over chasing moths. They knock things over, step on the answering machine (I've had to get up in the middle of the night twice to stop our messages from playing....I thought someone was in the house until I realized it was the stupid phone!), and just make a lot of noise. Silly cats!

And here is Gracie. She loves boxes. She sits in them, sleeps in them, plays in them.....



Doesn't she looked peeved??? It's like she's saying "Hello....I'm trying to enjoy my box, and you are bothering me.''

And here's Joshua without his Dragon costume on. :) He wanted his picture taken, so I obliged.



And yes....he does have a bald spot. No, he didn't do it himself. I did, by accident. lol. I was cutting his hair with clippers, and it was tickling him, so he moved his head. His head bumped the blade guard, which fell off. So Josh had a nice clipper size bald spot right in the front. Boy, didn't my husband tease the crap out of me. "I leave to go pick up our other son, and while I'm gone, you shave Joshua bald.'' LOL. :) I guess that's why I knit and don't cut hair. :) That's been a few days ago now....so it's grown in enough to cover it up. Thank God his hair grows fast!!

I'm still knitting on my shawl. I've gotten all of the beginning border done, and now have to insert a lifeline before I start the charted lace border. I'll post a picture tomorrow of my progress after I slip in the lifeline tonight. :)

Beginnings!

I received a copy of "Folk Shawls'' by Cheryl Oberle in a book swap at PBS (paper back swap) this week! I was so excited! I've wanted this book for a long time and just never got around to ordering it for myself. Lori, my partner, also sent me 7 skeins of Knit Picks Shadow laceweight in Sunset (a pretty heathered burgundy), and 2 balls of cotton linen.

I've been wanting to make a lace shawl for myself for months! When I first opened the package I snuck a peek in the book and the first pattern is the Litla Dimum Shawl done in laceweight. It's a very pretty design, so I decided to start with it.



I think the yarn is just gorgeous! It took me forever to cast on 421 stitches using the cable cast on...but I got through it, and counted them twice to make sure I had the right number. I've only knitted two rows on it so far so it's at the bare beginnings stage still. This is my first attempt at a lace shawl....so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't screw it up. It's a bit intimidating.....but I know if I stick to it and get it done and blocked, that the 2nd shawl I make will seem so much easier. :)

For anyone wanting to try their hand at Lace Shawls, I really recommend Folk Shawls as a book to start with. I bought Traditional Lace Shawls by M. Waterman first, but it was too advanced. Traditional Lace Shawls basically gives open work instructions for all sorts of different lace patterns, but doesn't give any instructions for how to make a basic shawl utilizing any of the patterns. It's for a more advanced lace knitter who knows where to put all the increases/decreases and who can create their own basic pattern around the open work look that they want. I'm not at that level yet, but I will work up to that!! Folk shawls has 25 patterns for all sorts of traditional shawls from all over the world, and gives the complete instructions (typed out and charted). That way I can learn the basics of where the increases/decreases go depending on shape....and build up to being able to design my own ideas.

I thought I'd post an updated picture of Gracie. She's gotten a lot bigger since the last picture was taken (see post below this one). The older photo was taken in August. Here's Gracie now:



She gets bigger and fluffier every day almost. She's part Maine Coon and is now bigger than her adopted sister Babie who is more than a month older than her. Amazing how fast kittens change isn't it!! :)

We had a guest in the house the other day. I took a picture before I helped him outside. Just gorgeous!

DIY....Our Big Project

We've had an ongoing project here at our house for the last 2 months. We pulled the carpeting out of our front room and livingroom, painted the walls, installed laminate flooring, and swapped the two rooms around. Now our former livingroom is a dining room, and the front room is our livingroom. :) We're still dealing with odds and ends to finish -- wallpaper border for the livingroom isn't up yet, surround sound speakers still being installed in the livingroom, caulking and shoe molding isn't all installed yet, and there's a couple thresholds that still need to be installed. But we're mostly finished!!

I will take some "after'' pictures once we have the rooms totally finished, but here's some "In progress'' pictures.

We did the front room first....

First we tore out the carpeting and pulled all the staples out of the floor:



Then, my teenage son and I painted the room.



Hubby and his brother John installed the flooring. It was laminate flooring that clips together, rather than the sort that uses glue. It was relatively easy and quick to install. We got a color called "Antique Oak''. It was the color that looked most like real wood flooring.





The kittens were very curious. Gracie liked the smell of paint (notice the paint on her ear....)



After we got the flooring down in the front room, we got a new sofa and an HD large screen television and turned that room into our livingroom. :) I'll post a picture of the finished room as soon as we have the wallpaper up and the pictures back on the wall. ;) Here's a picture of the kittens sleeping on the new sofa. :)



Then we moved on to the other room....it had been our livingroom, but we wanted a dining room. So the carpet was pulled out, and we painted over the 1970's dark paneling on the walls. We primered it, and then painted it. Worked great! Here's hubby starting to put flooring down in the hallway. It gives you a good look at the colors we picked out. :)



You can see the color of the paneling before we painted in the left edge of this photo. Our kitchen is still paneling (until we decide what we want to do to update our kitchen). The green and brown paint we chose made the dining room look SO much bigger, and the colors really draw attention to our red brick fireplace. The dark paneling made the house look outdated, plus it made the room seem small and too dark. Painting it made all the difference!

I'll post photos of both rooms when we're all finished and have curtains and pictures up, etc. :)

It was quite a project, but it really updated the look of our house! And we all had fun pitching in to help!







I'll take some "after'' pictures of the dining room after I have curtains up. :)