This Week Will Make My Autobiography Interesting

Real adventures usually get off to a rocky start. And this is the short version.

As you may remember if you have read my recent blog posts, we sold our home 18 days after we listed it for sale. That was the easy part, as it turned out. Our contract allowed our buyers to research our property up until August 10th before committing. They tried to get more money out of us by bringing in contractors who gave estimates on what it would cost to tear down our bowed back deck, which they knew about when they made the offer on our home. We agreed to pay for radon remediation and a small amount for a new water pressure valve, as showed up in the inspection, but not the amount they asked for. Fine, they said. All was well, except that we fell behind in packing our stuff. (Well, I had packed my stuff already, but DH had held onto lots of stuff he didn't have time to go through. Monday the movers came to remove everything we had packed.

They packed everything into what they called "vaults," similar to pods or U-boxes.

We all worked until 8:00 PM, when the boxes/vaults were full, they drove off to put things into storage for us until we find a house in Bend.

At the same time, we had a cleaning lady affiliated with the woman who received our piano and came back to help us get ready to move. She worked tirelessly, moving around as needed to accommodate our moving workers. She finished at 8:30. Everything was cleaned except the floor under the items left in the house: bags of food and cleaning materials not possible to include in our shipment.

We had decided to give our guest bed and the matching dresser to our buyers, if they wanted it, and they did. Here's the bed.

Here's the dresser:

(It needed refinishing. We did find the connectors for the mirror, and we left them on top. He can repair furniture, and I hope they will send us photos when he's done.) With all the other furniture removed, our plan was to sleep on the spool bed. That was when we found out that the trunks under the bed (now removed) had been holding it up. It collapsed under our weight. We moved the mattress to the floor to sleep.

We were expecting to have to be out by the end of closing day. However, a U-Haul truck showed up early on the day of closing with three U-boxes full of the buyer's stuff. Shortly after that, the buyer showed up. I had been moving everything to the garage to have the house clear, but the buyer said he had to have the garage clear for him to unload the boxes, and we had to accommodate them because his wife had taken off two days from work. We hadn't even closed yet. We wanted to do our part to help with the situation, so we offered to move everything we could to our storage unit, instead of going for our trailer and moving everything we needed to take with us into it. With almost everything in the storage unit, DH went to pick up the trailer to take it to our local RV campground. He had misplaced the piece of paper (never use paper in this day and age) that had the site number on it. The office was closed. In the process of turning around, he took the corner at a tight angle--too tight--and the corner of our 5th wheel removed the rear window of the pickup. I found out from another camper that they had a folder with the list of who had which campsite by the laundry. Whew! We settled in for the night there, and DH discovered that not only was the pickup stuck in 4X4, it wouldn't start up again. He took the Honda went back to the house, where he worked until past midnight, removing everything left in the house and putting it on the front deck. I had put everything from the refrigerator/freezer into an ice chest and four refrigerator bags, and that was now in the storage unit. Unfortunately, they close up at 10:00 PM. Of course, all the canned and packaged food was in the storage unit, too. I had one bottle of water for myself and the pups, and no way to get food or more water except by walking several miles in the dark.

When DH returned after midnight, we hadn't eaten all day. "Hey," I said. "We're homeless. There's a homeless packet in the Honda. Let's eat from it." (It's a plastic bag of food and other items we give out to the homeless we encounter while driving around.) We had chili beans and canned mixed vegetables from the homeless packet, and the bottle of water from the bag. We could have had the can of tuna, but we were full enough.

The next morning, we called the Auto Club to help with the pickup. They towed it two blocks up the street to the Chevy dealer, where it was determined that we needed a new battery. It seems that if the battery goes out, nothing works. That took two days, and then we needed to put in a new rear window. That meant we had no way to remove everything from the front deck, and the new owners were getting upset. It looked liked this...

...and this.

The new owner had told us we could leave it for the MS pickup on Saturday, but his wife apparently nixed that. (I don't know for sure, but he said it was OK, and then it wasn't, so I'm guessing.) I got on the Facebook group "Park City, Utah, Online Yard Sale" and said I was ISO someone to cart everything off for $50. I got a reply right away, but he wanted $100. We met him there the next day. I noticed the tarp was off, and the stuff had been picked through. Peeking through the front window, I saw some of the things we had left to be picked up, so it was clear that the new owners went through to see what they would like. I wouldn't have minded, if they had been more tolerant about our leaving the stuff on the deck. 

They also demanded we remove some items from the side yard. DH went back and picked that up to take to recycling, and we were done. 

My takeaway: They were not legally permitted to start moving in before closing. We did everything we could to accommodate them and allow them to move in early. Doing so created a number of problems for us and eventually caused us some difficulty in removing everything from the property (although some of that was caused by our problems with the pickup, not entirely because of them). When we were not legally allowed to have things on their property after closing and could have used some understanding, there was none. Things work better when everyone is cooperative.

The pups were happy to be able to lie down in the trailer, after spending so much time sitting in the car.

Of course, Jolena would be the first one to stick her head out of the bag to investigate her surroundings.

We had planned to go down and pick up another U-box on Saturday, but that had to be postponed until (because of the long weekend) Tuesday. 

While all this was happening, a new "Chosen" doll (limited to 250) was due to be released by My Doll Best Friend. I was only mildly interested, because the past Chosen dolls had been on the market for a few months before selling out, and I had no idea what the new doll would be. Lo and behold! the new doll was a nonwhite doll called Mariah. Of course, I had to have her to add diversity to my stories. So there I was, with no real address in Bend other than my BILs. I thought I would wait until I got there to order. Here she is:

Well, as the hours went by (I had nothing else to do, right?) it was clear, that I could miss out. I decided to order her and have her sent to my BIL's house and deal with whatever complications arose. Within hours after I ordered her, they were all gone. 250 dolls gone in 36 hours!

DBIL will be out of town for a few days later in the week, and we may not be there yet, so I may have to recruit our real estate agent to pick her up, unless I can reschedule delivery. I believe it will all work out. Our current plan is to leave on Friday, if nothing else goes wrong.


Fortunately, I had scheduled the stories through the middle of September, and the latest one came out on Friday.

On a bright note, we have been wondering what happened to DD's dolls. We found this lovely treasure trove in the storage unit on Sunday:

And Pumpkin and Bye-Bye saw the light of day for the first time in decades. (Bye-Bye needs new eyes to see, but I'm sure he felt the sun on his face.) Pumpkin wears a size 1 and had our DD's baby bonnet on when we found her.

We're now scheduled to leave Salt Lake City on Friday. Stay tuned. Next week's blog should be interesting.

What's on my needles: Still the Kisu Cardigan for Jolena, and still att the BO for the neck. Also the Coastal Skies shawl for me, no progress this week.

What's on my Sparrow 15: Packed away in my Honda.

What's in my hoop: Still the Spring Flowers quilt, no progress this week..

What's on my wheel: Stanzi is still waiting patiently. 

What's on my iPad/iPhone: The Innkeeper of Ivy Hill by Julie Klassen. No chance to listen this week, but when we hit the road, it will be my entertainment.

What's in my wine glass: Bota Box. (Does a box wine have a vintage?)

What's my tip of the week: Get rid of stuff when you buy new. Life is too short to spend a week going through things and tossing them out or giving them away.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

Antiques, Old and New, Young and Old

This photo summarizes my week.

Do the girls look tired? I think they're picking it up from me. Let me put together why this photo is a summary.

I was in a hurry to get Zachary Jr.'s birthday present in the mail, along with another package for Daphne's birthday, so I wouldn't have to mail two packages. (Zachary Jr.'s birthday is June 1st, according to Zachary.) This was the outfit I sent him, along with an apron, because boys like to cook, too.

(Carter is acting as my model.) I made the shorts and apron, but not the shirt, which came from here.

While the sewing machine was out, I wanted to put together a dress for Vroni. 

I wanted to be sure the translation of the French Back-to-school Cardigan was going to work, so I made one for Vroni to go along with her dress.

Now I'm making one for Lukas for Soren's birthday present. We're going to be there next month, so if I have everything finished, I won't have to mail it. I hope to have a hat, two pairs of pants, the long-sleeved T, like Zachary Jr.'s and three sweaters, including a Fair Isle pullover/cardigan. We'll see.

Once I had the girls attired in summer dresses, I decided it would be fun to put together a vignette of the four of them pretending to be fancy ladies at a summer resort and for Carter to be the waiter.

Sometimes sewing for dolls can be too much fun.

I was able to make it to Vintage Stitchers on Thursday. Julie was there for the first time in several weeks. She's making this quilt for a relative's wedding. She had the engaged couple pick the fabrics, which she said was fun.

My friend Joanie and I missed the Acorn Antique Fair in Ogden last year, so we didn't want to miss this year. There was lots of interesting stuff, including the china tea set the girls are enjoying in the first photo. This year's collection had some great quilts, and I didn't even get to photograph all of them. Here's a selection:

We had breakfast and lunch out, and Joanie's caretaker/assistant drove, so I was able to knit. One fun discovery at the antique fair was this live goose. She sat in her stroller and made comments from time to time about what she was seeing. She allowed me to pet her (I asked permission first), much to the surprise of her "Daddy." She had some kind of safety harness that kept her from taking off on her own.

We had some nice weather this week for a change, and we made two trips to Run-A-Muk Dog Park, which has 1 1/3 miles of hiking trail meandering through scenic woods and over babbling streams.

Our second visit was on Mothers' Day, which turned out to be a good day to go, because there were lots of dogs to meet and greet, and often to play with. We all got lots of exercise!

So I think I'll just pull up my own, human-adult-size Adirondack chair and sit down with the girls and a pot of tea.

What's on my needles: French Back-to-school Cardigan for Lukas. Still sewing the binding on the Kaleidoscope binding.

What's on my Featherweight: More doll clothes, now for Lukas.

What's on my loom: Still waiting.

What's on my wheel: Stanzi also still waiting.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished Sleep Tight by Rachel Abbott from Audible. Excellent mystery. Now listening to Ties that Bind by Marie Bostwick. On the Kindle app, I’m still reading Dying to Read, The Cate Kinkaid Files Book #1.

What's in my wine glass: Foxhorn Vinyards Merlot. Always nice.

What's my tip of the week: Going away this summer for a week or two? You can keep your plants watered by using a wine bottle filled with water and a Plant Nanny.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.

The Groundhog Lied!

We drove through the rain this week to reach Vintage Stitchers, which met on Thursday.

We had lots of show-and-tell. Here's Carol's 1600 quilt. Here's the backing.

Kaffe Fassett fabrics usually manage to liven up a quilt. 

Diane got this quilt back from the quilter. I think this design is by Kim Diehl. 

It will be a great quilt to usher in springtime...coming earlier than usual this year, with Barbara's crocuses coming up already. 

Rebecca is working on this bunny cross-stitch on even weave. 

Diane is working on another appliqué. 

While everyone was quilting, I was finishing DH's Christmas Waffle sweater, a WIP of more than a year. I won't repeat the whole story. You can read it in my previous blogs. But ta-da!

Here is His Nibs trying on the sweater before blocking. He took off his glasses to try it on, in case you wonder why he has a dazed (nearsighted) look. He's still pretty cute, if you ask me.

I'll try to get a photo of him wearing it after blocking. It's still damp as I write this. I've picked up my Dogwood Blossoms again, and it's moving along. I discovered a hole close to where I stopped knitting. Moths? I didn't see any other holes. It was fortunate that all I had to do was rip back a few rounds and reknit. Maybe I shouldn't leave my knitting so long in hibernation. A lesson learned. 

Valentine's Day brought my latest Knit Picks order:

Sock dpns (the whole 6" Sunstruck set), Stroll fingering in Bare and Stroll Tweed fingering in Flagstone Heather, enough of each for a pair of socks. 13 skeins of Andes del Campo HW in Brass Heather (sale item), enough for a nice cardigan. Great Valentine's Day present to myself!

I want to use the Andes del Campo HW for this great cardigan:

I may do this cardigan first, using City Tweed HW in Romance, which is in my stash. 

I also need to make a new sweater for Rocky, who feels the chill in the winter. I have enough Swish DK left over from the Christmas Waffle sweater and Daphne's bunny suit to make this sweater for him. I'm thinking about this one in two colors.

That was Friday. Saturday some friends and I drove (well, I drove, and they rode) up to the Acorn Antique Fair at the Weber County Fairgrounds a few miles north of Ogden. It was about 50 miles each way, stopping in Morgan for breakfast on the way there.

We saw some great quilts, like this 9-patch:

Anyone know what this is called? It looks like a four-leaf clover or a shamrock.

Then we saw this Grandmother's Flower Garden. 

Also an interesting variation on the Flower Garden. 

There was also this Churn Dash:

My only purchase this time was this set of bunk beds for Daphne's dollys. I'll make some nice bedding for them and send them to Wisconsin in time for her fourth (!) birthday. Her Bitty Twins will have their own beds to sleep in. Wanna bet they still sleep in her bed?

We had lunch at the Union Grill at the train station, as usual. Then we went on to The Needlepoint Joint.

Joanie picked up some yarn and buttons for a baby sweater for a friend's grandchild. I nabbed some Eucalan to wash my delicate knitted items, and this wonderful book I've been lusting after for more than a year. 

DH is half Finnish, so we have an interest in all things having to do with that ethnic group. (And now I know I have some Finnish, too.) I find I like weaving rugs more than any other type of weaving. Kay found a nice sweater pattern in the sale bin. The whole day, we left our coats in the car.

In adorableness news, Soren's mom posted this photo of him wearing his Green Pastures Cardi:

It's good to know its wearable but slightly too big for him. He'll be able to wear it for a while. 

The Bees' Knees cardigan I made for Daphne a couple of years ago is now worn by Zachary, still holding up after many washings.

What's on my needles: Christmas Waffle sweater done and blocking. Finishing Dogwood Blossoms. "Green Tea" socks, second sock coming along, working on the foot. 

What's on my loom: Christmas present scarves, moving along slowly. I'll try to get back to it after the Olympics are over. 

What's on my Featherweight: Piecing the second I-spy quilt, this one for Soren. Planning a sewing day for Wednesday.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman, a story about an Australian lighthouse keeper and his wife living on a remote island after WWI. I just learned that it has recently been make into a movie. Just started The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer, also from Audible. Almost done reading Yours Affectionately, Jane Austen, by Sally Smith O'Rourke. Also listening to the Fiber Hooligan podcast and the Knit Picks podcast, as usual.

What's my app of the week: My credit union's eDeposit. I had to take a disbursement on an annuity. I used this app to deposit the check by email. So easy! So quick! No stamp needed! You just take a photo of the front and the back, and voilà! It's in your account within 20 minutes. Ain't technology wonderful? (When it works, at least, and it did this time.) I've also been getting some use out of the NBC Olympics Highlights app. 

What's in my wine glass: A white for a change. Fisheye Chardonnay 2012. It isn't going to get any better during storage. Might as well drink it.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.

Winter Already?

On Wednesday a snowstorm hit. Not some wimpy October snow that melts as soon as it hits the ground, no!

This was a regular, full-blown snowstorm.

We went out early in the day for a get-together with friends we met during the presidential campaign last year. We went to Kneader's at Kimball Junction for breakfast and caught up on everything our friends had been up to. 

We had tickets for Wednesday evening at the Pioneer Theater, but decided to stay home. The snow was reason enough, but we would have missed the World Series game, and I had a feeling it would be the last game, since I was wearing my red "Fenway Pahk Sox," and every time I wore them during the Series, my team won. When I didn't wear them, they lost. See, Red Sox? It wasn't the beards after all!

It pays to be able to knit socks. I've made some progress on the "Green Tea" socks. Socks are so easy to grab when you're going out, and a couple of rounds here, a couple there, mounts up. The yarn is Panda Silk from Crystal Palace Yarns. It's 52% bamboo, 43% Superwash merino and 5% silk. The pattern is "Broad Spiral Ribbing" from Charlene Schurch's More Sensational Knitted Socks.

This week's Thursday was the fifth Thursday, no regular meeting time, but Janet decided to host a special meeting at her house. We enjoyed seeing Karan's quilt top finished. She and Julie talked about how to quilt it.

Here's a nicer view of Karan's quilt top. 

Margareth was helping Jean learn to do needlepoint. This is one of the nice things about our stitching groups. When you need help with something, there's almost always someone who know how and is willing to help. 

Joanie came and was still showing off her Halloween gear. She was finishing up a scarf.

Friday I finally found time to finish warping the floor loom for the waffle scarves. I had a hard time, because the brake wasn't working. After some consternation, I figured out that I must have dropped a couple of links from the brake release lever, so when I put everything back together, it was if I were stepping on the brake release all the time. Then I had a couple of warp threads break and had to rethread two new warp threads to replace them. 

The yarn is some over-spun sport-weight yarn a friend bought me several years ago. It couldn't be used for knitting a sweater, but just for things like hats and mittens. However, it could be used for warp and weft. I was not yet a weaver when I received it. The friend must have been clairvoyant.

Joanie, Margareth and I were planning to go to the Acorn Antique Show in Ogden on Saturday, something Joanie and I do at least twice a year. When I drove by Gorgoza Tubing Park on my way to pick them up, I saw that they were already making snow at Gorgoza. It was 29° at my house, so it was probably colder than that at the tubing park. 

We were really lucky to get our trip in between snow storms! It was a lovely day for the long drive.

We had a great time at the antique show. Here's a lovely butterfly quilt one vendor had. There were many quilts, but this was the best one. It was clearly from the 1930s and in almost perfect condition. At $170, a steal. I wished I could have snapped it up. 

Joanie bought a basket, a yellow ware bowl and a primitive milking stool. Margareth found a painting with a nice frame at a good price. I saw lots of things I could have bought, but the things I really would have liked were too expensive for me. We finished the day with lunch at the train station in Ogden and a visit to the Needlepoint Joint and Shepherd's Bush. I bought a couple of pullover patterns and two skeins of yarn from the sale bin, and two cross-stitch patterns. 

Sunday it snowed again. Yikes! Next weekend, Margareth and I will be driving to Salt Lake City each day for our rug-weaving class with Jason Collingwood. I sure hope the weather is better then!

What's on my needles: Dogwood Blossoms, Christmas Waffle sweater and Green Tea socks with a few more pattern repeats finished. I've ordered yarn for a couple of baby/child sweaters, so I'd better get finished with the sweaters. 

What's on my loom: The aforementioned warp from you-know-where for more scarves for Christmas presents. Also need to warp the table loom for my rug class in a couple of weeks. The linen carpet warp arrived from WEBS for my class project. 

What's on my wheel: Full Circle Roving in "Wolf". First bobbin finished. No progress this week. 

What's on my Sewing needles, Featherweight: Delectable Pathways, piecing the Delectable Mountain block panels. Appliqué panel #3, Making progress.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: listening to The Power of Six by Pittacus Lore on the Overdrive app. Reading Cry of the Peacock by V. R. Christensen on the Kindle App, purchased through BookBub. Listening to the Fiber Hooligan podcast and the Knit Picks podcast.

What's my app of the week: VK Knit Buddy from Vogue Knitting. Margareth had a question about how to do raglan decreases to get the effect she wanted, and I was able to find photos of the K2tog and SSK decreases in the app to help her decide what to do. 

What's in my wine glass: Nathanson Creek Cabernet Sauvignon. Lovely!

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.