Scallops and Stars

A yarn haul!  Knitpicks has their annual sale right before Thanksgiving, and I always take advantage of their great deals.  I spent $50 and got ALL THIS YARN!

The back row is going to be a slate blue fair isle sweater with a mustard, red, grey, tan, cream, and green yoke.  The grey yarn in front on the left is going to be a shoulder-covering cowl.  The rest of the yarn is fingering weight.  I bought it because I like the colors (a little more subdued than appears in this photo) and they'll be great for hats and other stranded projects.  Hooray!

I finally got to wear my recently-knitted mittens in Missouri last week and I love them.  They're my favorite mittens ever because they're so snug and warm. 

Every night I've slowly been working on a scarf with scalloped wedges.  It's knitted and purled through the back loop on BOTH sides of the project, so I won't be done any time soon.  It's all right...I'm not in a hurry.

I haven't done a bit of quilting in the past 2 weeks...no time.  Before my trip, though, I did select a pattern for my new quilt and did a sample block with "junk" fabric.

It's a star within a star.  I'm going to be using peach, cream, sage green, and mustard colored fabric.  I can't WAIT to get started!!

The weather has been cooling off here, and the leaves are beautiful.  This is the view from my home office window:

I admire it daily!  Todd and I were out in the yard this weekend and I took more pictures of beautiful leaves. 

Borga kept an eye on things while Todd moved loads of dirt for a project he's working on.

Red berries!

An early camellia!

And still, more acorns than I've ever seen in my life.

We've finally turned the heat on, which means that we've gone from having 3 pets to having 1.  The cats stay under the main couch in the back living room and soak up the warmth from the floor vents.  They only venture out when I open a can of cat food.  ;)

It's been a bit of a sober few weeks at our house.  Todd and I have been disheartened over this election and all the ugliness that it's uncovered.  We're both committed as Christians to protecting the disenfranchised groups that are being marginalized by the Trump train, but reading the daily rhetoric has been so discouraging.  This will be a poignant Thanksgiving for us as we reflect on our blessings and see how we can move forward with our social justice aims.

Have a great week!

Attack of the 43-Foot Rooster

The trees were beautiful, the weather was great, so it seemed like the perfect time for a November road trip with Todd, my brother, and sister-in-law! 

First up...the "most haunted" hotel in America...the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas!

Built in 1886, it was first a fancy hotel...

...then a college for fancy young women.

Finally, it was turned into a sketchy hospital that purported to cure cancer "with no x-ray, operation, or radium."  This is the original sign!

Norman Baker was the proprietor and a fascinating character.  After his cancer-curing venture failed, the Crescent eventually became a hotel again...and with such a storied past, it's got a few ghosts!  Is it just me, or do the hallway fire hoses look exactly like the ones in The Shining?

We went ghost-hunting with specialized readers, but alas, no nibbles!

Still, I loved the beautiful windows and all the original woodwork...

 

A great place for outdoor parties.

 

How can you not like a place that honors their cats in this way?

Next up, still in Arkansas...a 67 foot tall concrete Jesus that weighs over 2 million pounds!

Here's the view of it from the Crescent Hotel.

 And...who would think that I'd be able to see an actual piece of the Berlin Wall...in Arkansas?

We stayed in super cute tree house cabins.

Last stop in Arkansas was Thorncrown Chapel, a church in the woods that has over 6,000 square feet of glass!

Hello, Missouri!  Home of the world's largest rooster (43 feet tall)...

Beautiful lakes.

We went to a fish hatchery.  Trout!

On to Silver Dollar City!  Lots of shopping...

Christmas lights...

 

Local artisans...

 

 

There were roller coasters (I did a baby one, but was too chicken for the big boys) AND a singing train ride. Win-win!

We stopped by the College of the Ozarks to see the campus, the architecture, and, oh, the chapel where Boyz II Men filmed a video in the '90s!  Oh yeah!

 

Now we're home and slo-o-o-o-owly getting back to the old schedule again.  Tabitha is disappointed that we aren't going anywhere else this month...she was very involved in the packing process and was fairly sure that she was going to get to take a ride in my suitcase!  Maybe next time.

Have a great week! 

Peach Swans & Zombie Cats

With days in the 70s and nights in the 40s, the leaves are finally really changing.  We have 5 or 6 trees in the back yard that are all turning spectacular shades of red and yellow.

I bring in big fallen branches and put them in vases.  I think it's a great way to "bring the outside in."

Todd and I spend as much time in the sun room as we can.  It's warm in the late afternoons and we can open the windows.  We eat on our little homemade table and have long talks about this awful election.  Somehow being wrapped up in an old plaid blanket and looking out at the trees makes it seem a little less scary. 

I've tried to take the cats outside as much as I can.  I joked with Todd that we didn't need Halloween decorations on the porch...we could just prop Bosewichte up with a sign that said ZOMBIE CAT.  Give him a little sun and he slumps bonelessly against  the deck with a hypnotic stare that would make any zombie proud.

Tabitha prefers to do her sunning indoors.

I've had time to do a little exploring.  I found a persimmon tree at the edge of the woods that still had some late-season fruit.

In our side yard I found an owl pellet, the avian version of a hairball.  See all the fur?  Some parts of mice and other prey are too hard to digest, so owls will vomit up a mass of the leftovers.

I poked it apart and found some tiny bones.

Todd has the sharpest snake-sense of anyone I've ever seen, or maybe the worst luck.  He stumbled into this little garter snake, curled up in one of our side shrubs.

Totally harmless!

Meanwhile, although I haven't gotten around to basting together my first quilt quite yet (this week, I hope!), I'm already picking fabric for the second one.  It's so odd.  Normally I just like earth tones, plaids, very traditional and natural fabrics.  But for some reason, since starting to quilt, I've been drawn to odd things, like mint fabric with snails.  I'm building my next quilt completely around peach colored swans (Swan Fabric).  I can't help it...they're so whimsical and pretty!  I'll get this out of my system and then go back to plaids.

Have a great week!