Snow Day 2!

It's been snowing all day long. We're supposed to have 18 inches by the time it's done. And I think it'll get there!

We're warm and toasty in our house with the new boiler but we had to take advantage of the snow some as well. Can't let good snow go to waste. I saw a sled in an antique store window down the street yesterday but it's closed for the season so sledding will have to wait a little bit longer. In the meantime, we made snow cream (Patrick had never had any before!) and snowpeople on the roof outside the study window.

Car Knitting

As I have a 2 hour commute now, you know that I must have some car knitting to go along with it. There are only so many collapsing barns along the route for photo-taking entertainment.


My first car project is the Welsh Blanket in a mosaic stitch from the Debbie Bliss Fall/Winter 2009 issue. The mosaic stitch is new to me and it's like magic! Only one color is knitted at a time, in 2-row sets, slipping the stitches that are to be the other color. Kind of like double-knitting only it doesn't wind up being double-sided. It's slow going on size 6 needles but I have the time!

The best thing about the blanket-knitting so far is that I'm using some of my yarn from Sheep and Wool last October. Sheep and Wool yarn is always tough to break into (I still have some I'm hesitating over from 2008!) but always fun to actually use. The blue is Brooks Farm Willow, 70% wool, 30% bamboo and the cream is Louet Riverstone, 100% wool. I've never used either yarn before but I love them both.

The blanket is about 8 inches long so far. I'll post more (and better) photos when it gets a bit further along.

Snowed in

All of the trees looked like they were made of snow when we got in last night. Several were bending almost to the ground. We're staying here today!

Day 15

This is indeed the same time of day as all of the other photos but, for the first time, it was actually snowing in the morning (rather than just in the afternoon). Although it was only raining in Brooklyn, it continued to snow in Sullivan County all day long. By the time we got home, everything was buried under about 8 inches of snow. We had to shovel our car into the parking lot at the top of our street!

Day 14

Painted Panelling, Part 2

A photo of the panelling painted and a little bit of furniture in the room! It is terribly difficult to take a photo of a room made up of four impossible walls -- one has a huge window in it, one looks through to the mess of the kitchen, one is covered by the television and its inappropriate "stand" (dresser found on the street in Williamsburg) and mess of wires, and the last looks through a door with glass windows onto another huge window. So here is my edited version of our "tv room", complete with painted panelling. We still want to paint the trim ("cottage green") but this room is largely finished!

I feel that it is impossible not to point out our new lampshade, purchased just yesterday from a jaunt to anthropologie in SoHo. You know how new purchases are.

The eponymous tv of "tv room" is, of course, what the sofa is looking at. You can feel free to imagine how lovely it is, sitting in its stand that Patrick built for it (which doesn't yet exist). It has cabinet doors picked up at some great local antique store (they've yet to be found).

A Bit Under the Weather

There will be new house updates soon. I've just been a little under the weather for the last few days and so haven't made many new house updates.

Day 13

Day 12

Day 11

Painting the Panelling

During our initial house-hunt last year, we noticed one sure constant in houses in our price range -- wood panelling. Wood panelling everywhere. We even saw a house with wood panelling in every room. Don't get me wrong, wood panelling can have its time and place. Just not in a dark room in an already dark house. Which is where it came in in our house.

The panelling is only trying to take over 2 rooms but the house is fairly dark even in the rooms without dark brown walls. The panelling had to go. But, without a budget for gutting rooms and putting up new walls, we decided to go with painting. Which was actually far easier and had a more pleasant result than I'd expected!

All we had to do was to wash the walls (we used Murphy's but I'm sure there are all sorts of things they could have been washed with)

Prime with Smart Prime, latex acryllic primer

and paint our chosen color which, due to the darkness, was "Pearl". Here I can't help but be reminded, every time I mention the color, of Mrs. Blandings and her request for "not a cold, antiseptic, hospital white. A little warmer, but still, not to suggest any other color but white."

In the end, I surprised myself by actually liking the painted panelling. As in it is a look that I might have chosen to have, rather than just dealing with it out of necessity. Patrick agrees.

These photos are a few weeks old -- this room no longer has blue carpeting and it has some furniture in it. I promise to take some new (and better) photos soon to post here.

Day 10

at MoMA

1. with Frida Kahlo, 2. Jeanette(s), Matisse, 1910-16, 3. Mobile Matrix, Orozco, 4. Sculpture Court, 5. Goat, 6. Tim Burton

Day 9

After being snowed into New York City on Wednesday, I missed 2 days of barn photos but all was back to normal by today. Thank goodness for the wonderful snow plow system in the New York City area!

Bedroom Curtains

The house was festooned throughout with 3 layers of rotting, 1970's frilly, flowered curtains. Which would be okay if the house were not also covered on almost every side by scrubby bush-trees and on the side of a mountain. It was really dark in here. Some of the windows have just had a layer or two removed but, for the bedroom, I decided to finally splurge on the beautiful vintage fabric I'd had my eye on at Brooklyn General (which, luckily, I still work near and so will not have to give up) and make new curtains. They were inspired by this photo from Wiksten on flickr.

I just seamed the fabric and the lining inside out, as if I were sewing a pillow, but left about an inch and a half open at the top of each side seam. I pulled the fabric through to right-side-out through one of these holes, sewed a line straight across from the bottom of one hole to the bottom of the other hole, and put the curtain rod through the tunnel created. Simple!

Also, in honor of finally having a bedroom large enough for 2 nightstands after our 6 ft x 10 ft bedroom in Brooklyn, I purchased my own alarm clock!

Day 6

Valentine Swap

Although I've not been blogging for such a long time, I've been in high gear on swaps. They're just so much fun! This time I'm working on Valentines for the Crow and Canary swap I found through the BPS. I won't put the photos of the finished cards here so as not to ruin the surprise for my swap partners but I will post the directions I worked out to crochet hearts for the valentines (just a small hint won't hurt their surprise -- I hope!)

These instructions could be used with any gague of yarn and its corresponding hook although I used a very small hook (I found it in my house -- left by the previous owner, Elsie -- so I'm not sure about what size it is) and white crochet cotton. The fun though is that it doesn't matter what size the heart turns out to be -- it doesn't have to fit anyone!

ch 5

sc in 2nd ch from hook

skip next 2 ch's

3 dc & next ch

without turning, ch 3

2 dc & last dc made

3 dc & same ch as 1st 3 dc made

without turning, ch2

dc 8 evenly across triangle side

turn, 5 dc in top of 2nd dc from hook

sl st in 2nd dc from hook

5 dc in top of 2nd dc from hook

sl st in last dc space

Day 5

Day 4

We commuted last week, for our first week, from Tuesday until Friday. Patrick and I have to be at work (in the City) at approximately the same time, so we are "carpooling" to work each day. He drives in the morning and I drive in the evening. Mostly because in the morning I can see to knit in the car. And I can take a photo of the beautiful collapsing barn we pass each day. Taking photos with our slow camera from a moving car has proven a bit more challenging than I expected but, by day 4, I finally got a shot of it! Hopefully these photos will improve as I practice. It's an exercize, anyway.

A False Start

Well, after a year and a half, I've decided to finally start the blog again. Last time I felt uninspired, likely due to a lack of direction but now, with the purchase of our first house, I have a lot to write about! Our house is in New York State, was built in approximately 1920 and has been unoccupied for the past 10 year. I have my work cut out but at least it makes for some fun in blogging!

As an added "bonus", as a condition of moving Upstate from Brooklyn, where we lived for the past 4 years, we are now commuting approximately 2 hours each way. More on that (and the usual crafts), to come.