Of Mice and Monsters

Pretty flowers in the garden.



This is the new view from the upstairs hall window. Certain views make the reno look enormous, others make it look too small. Perhaps that means that it's JUUUUST right.



Walls being assembled on the second story.



Work is beginning on the rooftop. This is very tricky. The house has sunk a bit on one side (very common around here - did you know Winnipeg was built over underground rivers and an awful lot of swamp land?), every measurement has to be spot on if the reno is going to be level. All day yesterday and today there has been the sound of mad hammering and sawing and then silence as they get out their pencils and papers to calculate the next series of cuts.



Let's all give a round of cheers for professional carpenters who know what they're doing. Hoorah! Worth every penny.

I finished four characters from the Alan Dart Medieval series.



Three knights and the nursemaid.

Here's the nursemaid before:



and after:



Mum fell in love with these little mice and wanted to make them all for Thea and Aaron when they came to visit, but knowing that she couldn't finish them all before yesterday (when they arrived), she instructed me to make a few. Mum made eight, I made just the four. They were tons of work - sewing all those tiny pieces together! Quite sweet though. I've been instructed to send them on to Toronto for their return.

I also finished my creature I had mentioned in this post.



He's made with a wire armature and then a skin is knitted on to his frame (Gads! THAT was fiddly work!). I had had a vision of him in my head for a long time, and as he got closer and closer to being completed I liked him less and less.



Does that make me a terrible mother? If I think my little monster is ugly?

I keep putting him away, then looking at him again a couple of days later to see if I've fallen in like with him. It hasn't happened yet. He's still ugly.

Perhaps he needs bigger buttons for his eyes...I shall think on it...

So as not to dwell on this, I started a new Clapotis. This one is being done in Handmaiden Sea Silk in a colour called Stardust. It's a beautiful, deep, shimmering charcoal-petrol colour. I had ordered the yarn from Wolseley Wardrobe and it took weeks to arrive. They tell me it was specially dyed just for me.



This I know I like.

My Girl is Da Bomb

Elly has been back in town for a week and a half and she's making her presence felt. She's been complaining that she only packed "one" pair of shoes and is shipping the rest - however, the front entrance looks like a bomb's hit it. Those are all hers, people. She's like a nuclear explosion.



The reno has hit a standstill. After the de-construction of the old additions, the foundation and piles have to be poured before the re-construction can begin. Our concrete boys had another foundation booked this past week and we weren't scheduled for our work until late this week or early next. The weather has conspired against us though (rain through most of this week) and so the other job has no doubt been delayed, putting our work at late this week or early the following week. Must. Be. Patient.

I've been busying myself with knitting.

I bought some lovely Sublime Organic Cotton in pale, natural shades, and I've been knitting dishcloths (for my new kitchen, dontcha' know!) Cream, pale beige, cocoa brown and pale pink. They look like shades of gelato. Yummy.



Oh yes, and the Big Needle Wrap I mentioned in an earlier post, Ooooo, bad, bad, bad....I gave out bad instructions. It's not "increase one stitch each end, every OTHER row", it's "increase one stitch each end, EVERY row" Bah! It was knitting into a long skinny triangle. I had to rip it all out and start again. This "easy, peasy pattern", "takes only an evening or two to knit", has been going on now for weeks. Ack...

(looks pretty good now though).



I've also been distracting myself with knitting up a wee creature. This one is more of a, hmmm...let's call it a "work of art". Perhaps with the potential to become a "Work of Art". We shall see...