Sitting By the Dock of the Bay

 

Greetings from the Chesapeake Bay! 

The Mister was all excited yesterday to show me a photo he took of me and Pup while we were on our walk. I had to take a break to stretch out my poor foot. I've been struggling with a nasty case of plantar fascitis and while it's getting better, too much walking makes it all tighten up again. I have to sit and work out the pain so I can continue. I had no idea what The Mister was up to while I was doing that but apparently he was trying to take some photos. First of all, I had no idea that my hair was that long since I usually wear it in a messy bun. Second, as you can see I may be an old Swiftie but Billie Eilish is definitely my spirit animal. The bigger and baggier the better. Yes, I walk around like this everyday. In public. 

Friday Fluff

 

I've got the Barbie's Dream house BFL on the Ladybug. I've had to order more to dye because it seems a lot of fluff doesn't actually get very far when you spin it. 

I do have a fluff corner finish this week. The Wonky Merino hat is done.

I played a very scary game of yarn chicken with it. That little pigtail is all I had left of the ball.

I decided I want a pair of mitts to match so I had some fun with my Merino stash and my drum carder.

I made one cute little batt that will hopefully finish up the singles I still had on the Ashford Traditional wheel. I'm thinking I may need to make another one since that crazy hat's been telling me it wants a pompom.

In Search Of....

 

We spent yesterday on the hunt for one of these. It's a wet saw. You use them to cut tile. We always borrowed The Mister's brother's saw but since he is no more we had to go get one of our own and it wasn't easy. Everyone wanted us to order one to have it delivered next week but The Mister wanted one right then and there even though the weather isn't exactly tile cutting weather.

It was all fine by me. I got another day of car knitting. I finally finished the corrugated ribbing on the Ski Sweater and started the bottom band of colorwork.

I also had fun in the nursery section of the hardware stores and came home with a potted yellow rose. I had planted one out in the front bed last year but the deer just ate all the buds off of it. I was really looking forward to it blooming this year. This one is staying in the pot right next to the front door which I hope will give the deer pause. 

Ditto for the little clump of daisies that I brought home. It's staying close too.

As for how that other new toy of The Mister's is doing....he said this morning if you want rain, buy a new grill. We haven't cooked a thing on it yet but the cover is sure getting a good workout. 

Wednesday WIPs

 

There ought to be a law. When I wind up yarn I try to be on the lookout for things like this. I don't like surprises but it seems I wasn't paying too close attention with this Static.  

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 

I finished the vertical row on the left and am now working a horizontal row across the bottom. I'm trying to squeeze in as much as I can before I have to shift the fabric.

I'm working on the X border for the Patchwork quilt. It's going to take a lot of them. I also need to make half Xs for that blank spot where the border meets the center. 

I finished one petal on the Funky Flower and am almost finished a second. Unlike cross stitch, stitching big spaces is much easier than stitching small ones. 

Dear Jane's D 12 looks like this now. Unlike D 11 this one is going to be a piece of cake because it's getting modified. I'm over teeny tiny points. They are impossible. 

And....here's the new Grandpuppy. He looks so big in this photo but he's actually a little thing. That's seven pounds of fluff. He was light as a feather compared to Pup who tips the scales at 15 these days. Pup was not at all impressed by his cuteness. He wanted to play but she wanted no part of it and spent the day in one lap or another. 

Shmokin"

 

Before the world was up yesterday I had a fire going, a cup of coffee and a lap full of knitting. This cool weather has been so nice to wake up to. 

When The Mister got up we seasoned his new griddle. That was crazy.You have to smoke it at least 3-5 times. I was expecting a knock on the door from the EPA at any moment. 

The first cook is supposed to be onions for the chemical reaction. It helps the seasoning oil adhere to the cast iron. It took forever to get all this done so by the time we cleaned it all up we were too tired to actually cook anything. At least it will be ready when we are. Maybe next week. Today we're going to go meet the new Grandpuppy. Squee.....

Punch Drunk Love

 

I had the day all to myself yesterday when the Mister took his sister to a birthday party far, far away. I thought I might spend the day in bed bingeing Netflix but decided to tackle something that needed some intense concentration instead. My punch needle project has been sitting here untouched for weeks. I needed some uninterrupted support from some YouTube videos and that never happens with you know who around.

I had been thinking that this might have been a big waste of money but now that I've had a chance to get comfortable with it, I do believe I like it. There are still lots of bugs to be worked out but it was a very pleasant way to spend my precious free afternoon. 

Sad Deserted Shore

 

Do you know that song by Judy Collins? It's Who Knows Where the Time Goes and I have it in my head a lot when we are walking the beach. It's usually in the fall when things are shutting down but yesterday it was in my head and it was Memorial Day Weekend Eve. The beach should be in summer mode but instead it was empty and part of it was shut down.

It was partly the cold but it was mostly because of the collision course the tourists and the horseshoe crabs are about to have. They crawl up on the sand by the hundreds to spawn and that's usually over by the time the beach opens but this year there hasn't been a horseshoe crab to be seen-yet. The end of their season is the full moon in June which means it could happen any day now. They had a sleepover on the beach a few weekends ago so you could watch for them but they didn't show. Sort of like the blue crabs. We're being told this is the worst season ever for them. I do remember recently the year that there were no jellyfish. That freaked all the scientists out. I'm hoping for their sake the crabs both blue and horse show up soon.

All of the osprey nests are pretty deserted too. This time of year there is usually one of a pair sitting on some eggs. 

What has returned is the snack shack. You can smell those funnel cakes frying from every direction. Happy summer ya'll-even though it feels more like October right now. 

Friday Fluff

 

The Maine Lobster corriedale is finished. Since I'm terrible at splitting fiber evenly I had to make a plying ball to use up every last bit of singles. 

We were dodging rain and thunderstorms all day so I didn't get to give it a soak and a good thwacking yet. It would have never dried. When I do get to finish the processing I hope that it will become a more cohesive skein. It looks a little under plied to me right now. 

I did work on the pile of handspun granny squares but had an issue with the other ball of BFL yarn that I wanted to use to make up for running out of the Barbie's Dream House colorway. It seems it's thicker and makes a bigger square as you can see. This could have been a catastrophe but....

Look what I found. A box full of Barbie's leftovers. Now that the Ladybug is without a project I'll get to working on this and see how far it gets me. 

Paperwork

 

We had a very rainy day yesterday so cutting tile on the deck for the bathroom floor wasn't going to happen. Instead we ran errands and then I spent some time in the downstairs craft room making a card for The Mister who's going to a birthday party for a great niece on Saturday. 

This Lawn Fawn stamp set may look familiar to some of you. I used it ages ago when I was sending cards out with my soap. I thought it would be perfect for an eleven year old girl. 

While I was down there I also worked on my next paper quilt project. I needed a variety of paper strips that looked like fabric so I watercolored and then stamped.

This one is going to be a log cabin quilt. I've never made one out of fabric but I've always wanted to.

But...the best thing I did all day was to make this carrot cake. It was inspired by one of your posts last week. I'd never made one before. I don't think I've ever even tasted one but I gave it a try and it was GOOD. 

Wednesday WIPs

 

I said it was going to be the summer of socks and it's already begun. The two at a time Static socks on the right are past the heel. The Miss Babs MDSW in the middle has just begun. The two at a time on one needle Regia are my travel project at the moment and are only growing slowly. We've got errands today so they should see some progress.

They are not the only socks on my needles. The Cozy Quilt socks are also in the works. This is such a fun project and that itty bitty 10 inch Skacel Rocket needle is making the colorwork fly-once I got the hang of it. It's also making a nice stretchy fabric so it's just possible it may fit my foot. So many fails before. 

The only other non-fluff project on the needles is the coorugated ribbing on Kelly's Ski Sweater from the Knit Picks kit. It's a slog but it's almost over. Another inch and half, I think.

And.....Valerie, you were right. It was the Lime Sienna that was mislabeled. Here are the two side by side and you can really see the difference now. I am really itching to get these cast on but there is a such thing as having too many socks on the needles. Right?

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 

Don't ask me how I get anything done on any of these projects this week because I can't tell you. It's been one thing after the other. I did get six more blocks done on the Garden. I have one more row of them and then the entire top half is finished. 

Goat Load got put in time out until fall. I just wasn't feeling those fallish colors. 

I finished the white ring on the Funky Flower and I have to admit this thing is growing on me. I embraced the wonk so the pressure is off. 

Speaking of wonk, with the tiniest of needles I finished block D 11. Those tiny diamonds were almost the end of me. Jane's actual diamonds are much bigger. If I had noticed that before, I would have modified the kit pattern. 

All the blocks of the Patchwork quilt are now together. I'm starting to wonder if I should add one more row to the bottom to make it more rectangular. 

And....if you want some more tree drama, we started the backyard clean up yesterday and look what we found. This monster went across our yard and into the neighbor's yard behind us. The hole the roots left in the ground is enormous. We never heard it come down that night but we sure heard the branches hitting the skylights.

There's several more trees down back there but none as big as that one. Here are the branches that broke out of the tops of the trees that I showed you last week. You can barely walk around out there with all that debris down. It's all just going to have stay there because it's too much to deal with. Since the storm we have heard nothing but chainsaws going all day behind us so we went to investigate. Three more houses with trees through them. Stuff's getting real and storm season has only just begun.

Mother's Day Haul

 

Daughter always sends me a Knit Picks gift certificate for Mother's Day and since they were having a sock yarn sale I turned it in for plenty of sock yarn. To use it all up I added some sock yarn fiber to dye and spin and a bag of stuffing for those critter stack pillows I intend to make. 

The details on the sock yarn are: Felici in Country Roads, on the left, Hawthorne in Kenton Multi and Hood River Tonal, Static in Bookhouse Boys and Stroll in Red Wing Blackbird. I think I see a pattern here and it's sure not summer colors. I'll have a lot to keep me busy come fall.

I did have some winding drama while I was winding up my Mother's Day gift to myself. That Miss Babs yarn in the MDSW colorway got stuck in the gears of the winder not once but twice. I had to break it in two places. There's 143 grams still left so it's not a catastrophe but it is annoying. I do believe it's user error. I need to slow down. 

And....if broken yarn wasn't bad enough, my swift broke in the middle of all that cursed winding. It took me a while to get it all sorted out but it's done.