Harris Tweeds for D



Got a FO to show, I finished up a pair of Harris Tweeds for the Oldest One in Kertzer On Your Toes 4ply in sage heather.  Started on August 31, finished September 23, they were knit on 2.75mm needles.  Cast on 60sts and followed the pattern.  I didn't make the cuff too high, he doesn't like high socks and will only push them down.  Ravelry details here.

 



Pumba likes my bucket.

 

And our wonderful luck has decided to kick in again - hopefully not for too long.  Weekend before last the Big Truck had to have some warranty work done to it.  It wasn't acting right when we picked it up, and the mechanic found four bolts that weren't tightened.  So Hubs brings the truck home, but the next day (Sunday) when he leaves for work he gets about an hour away from home, and the truck starts spewing prestone everywhere.  He calls the on-call guy at the garage, and he sends a two truck to bring him back to the garage, another guy comes to get the trailer he was hauling, then I go to get Hubs at the garage (which is a half-hour drive away).  They had broken a coolant pipe when they were fixing the valve, and apparently they didn't have it back together correctly/good enough (I think they forgot to tighten it), so it blew apart.  Luckily that was on the garage's pocketbook, not ours.  But he lost 3-4 days work. Then yesterday Hubs goes to work, and we should have known the day was off to a roaring start when he locked his keys in the truck. He found something that allowed him to jimmy the lock so he could get the door open.  But the icing on the cake was when he called around 8:30pm to say that he hit a moose.  Luckily it wasn't a huge moose, but still, it did damage to the truck.  Not sure the condition of the moose, he hit it in the rear end and didn't stop to look for it.  The windshield has a crack in it, the door has a small dent, the hood is all cracked, the grill is cracked, the mirror on the hood had to come off cuz it broke it and was only hanging by a bolt.... He was able to continue on, it could have been much worse.  Now he's got to get a couple of quotes on repairs, and we'll have to suck up the deductible.  Plus there will be some more down time when it goes to the shop for repairs.

Mini rant over.

Happy knitting!

Labour Day Weekend Part 2

So on the way home on Saturday of Labour Day weekend we stopped at New Ross Farm.  I've wanted to go there many times, I don't think I've been there since I was in grade two on a class trip so it has been a LONG time.  We got there late, do all the cool activities for that day were pretty much over.  They boys went to the school house first where they tried their hands at quill writing.  It was slooowww and a little on the messy side.  They each did the entire sheet, and I brought them home and put them on the fridge.

 

There were loads of babies everywhere, too.  Momma nearly crushed one of the babies when she flopped over to let them feed.  It's hard to tell in the picture, but she was really big.  The same building had a cow milking demonstration, and the kids could try, but there were so many people that my two moved along to other stuff.

 

Then they went on a wagon ride.  (In the winter they do sleigh rides if there's snow.)

 

And sheep, of course.  Had to photograph the sheep!

 

The boys got to do some leather punching and made keychains with their initials.

 

Then we made it to the house (which was lived in until 1969, I believe the lady said, when the property was given to the government to use as a museum.)  This is the coolest part I would have loved to have done - they did carding and spinning (also taffy pulling), but that was done for the day by the time we got there. But I took lots of pictures of the various antique spinning wheels.

 

 

More babies roaming around the farm.

 

I love baskets and barrels, always have.  There's an apple barrel building in the back.  The boys got to put some of the rings on a barrel in progress.  Again, it was like half an hour before closing, the man had put his fire out, so they couldn't do too much.  They have a tendency to not let people do too much other than put rings on anyways because the tools are so sharp, it's a safety issue.

 

So while the boys and their dad were learning about barrels I beat my feet for the store at the front of the property where they sell various sized apple barrels/baskets, and I had my eye on them.  I ended up with one of the larger ones with rope handles.  It's all just rough lumber, so I plan on lining it with some material and using it for a hat/mitten barrel.  The lining will be so it doesn't snag my knitted goods.

 

 

Happy knitting!

Labour Day Weekend Part 1

Backtracking a bit here, I'm going to post some pictures from Labour Day weekend.  But first here's a pair of socks I knit for Hubs.  They are Escalator Socks knit in Kertzer On Your Toes 4ply in blue heather.  I had to buy a skein of it from fellow Knitterpudlian, knitweir, but it's a different dye lot with quite a bit of difference.  You can see the toe of the second sock is clearly a different color.  It's not so bad inside, but outside in the sunlight you could really see the difference.  These socks were knit on 2.25mm needles and started on August 1, finished on the 31st.  Ravelry details here.

 

 

On Friday night we stayed at a hotel and took the kids to some cars races.  They had kiddie rides, so the boys got in line to hop in a car a do a few laps around the track.  The Oldest One has been to local drag races before, but neither has been to stock car races.

 

Cheap night, nearly four hours for $28.  The Littlest One got a bit bored after about three hours.  There were lots of accidents, they raced four or five different kinds of races, well worth the money.  And the track is right next door to the hotel so it's a five minute walk.

The next morning we went to the aviation museum that is on the other side of the hotel.  We were there several years ago when it was actually closed, but there was a man there who took us inside and let the boys into several different aircraft that people normally aren't allowed to get in.  This is just a simulator that kids can get in and pretend to be pilots.

 

This is an actual tire off of one of the space shuttles autographed by an astronaut.

 

After the museum we went to Shubenacadie Wildlife Park.  We haven't been there since the Oldest One was about two, before the Littlest One came along.

 

There were lots of babies around.

 

One of Momma's babies went under the fence to the other side of the pen.  She wasn't long flying up and over to keep an eye on her little wanderer.

 

Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur... well, BIG ball of fur, lol.

 

Swift fox.

 

Red fox. (No, not Redd Foxx!)

 

A marten.

 

Gray wolves.

 

An arctic wolf having a spazz attack like Jewel and Maggie have.  She was rolling all over the place.

 

Peacocks have such a beautiful blue color in their feathers.

 

There were several little turtles sunning themselves, but this little guy was off by himself.

 

The minks were too cute, but according to the worker who came to feed them they can be super nasty and kill for sport.  They heard him coming in his little four wheeler thing, and they were running all over the place, looking in the direction of the sound.  It was still cute.

 

Oodles and oodles of ducks, geese, and swans (mostly ducks) who were everywhere the 25 cent corn feeders were.

 

 

I had to look close to make sure this guy was still breathing.  He was very sound asleep.

 

It was a good day for Shubie, it was a sunny but cooler day, so the animals were pretty much all out and about.  We also stopped at New Ross Farm on the way home, but I will save pictures of that for next time as I have a lot of pictures from that stop to show.

Happy knitting!

First Day of School

Today is the first day of school for the kids in our area.  The Oldest One is off to junior high this year, grade 7 French immersion.  It's an earlier morning for us - he has to be in his classroom at 7:45! It was either the excitement of starting junior high or he was still sleepy, but I didn't notice til after he was gone that he didn't even wear his new school sneakers that he was so excited about.  He grabbed his old ones, lol.

 

He got up at 6:50 no problem this morning. I expect things to change once the excitement of a new school wears off.  He walked with one of his friends.

 

The Littlest One's bus comes around 8:30.  He could have slept in longer today, but he was up at 7.  The bus driver gave the mothers a notice this morning that on the 17th her route is changing, so she will be picking the kids up around 8:40.  That's the way it used to be about 5-6 years ago.  This street was always the last stop on the route, the school is just around the corner up the next road. 

 

No worries about this one forgetting his new DC sneakers and DC backpack, lol.

 

So all is quiet this morning.  The dogs are kind of in a funk, they hear the busses and know what's going on.  Think I'll go do a bit of housework and head out for a walk.

Happy knitting!

Yucatans

I just noticed that I didn't seem to post these socks on my blog.  They are plain 60 stitch vanilla socks, heel over 30sts, toe to 20sts, started July 21, finished the 31st.  I made them for me so they are a ladies size 8.  The yarn is Fortissima Socka Mexiko in the yucatan colorway.  Ravelry details here.

 

Happy knitting!