TNT: We Made It

 

Ouf. The terrible summer is over. The temperatures have dropped but the humidity seems to have headed back up so it's not very comfortable to be out just yet. To avoid the worst of it, we are still walking Pup in the morning so my afternoons have been for stitching during these long, miserable months. I wish I had more to show on the Crafty Sampler this week but I'm outlining and I'm ripping out as much as I stitch. I did get one corner done. I'll tackle the other bottom corner this week.

I finished the bottom third of the needlepoint project. I'm never sure what to call it. I think it has a name. I'll have to check. 

Edited to say: I did check. It's called Patterns on Blue which is unexpected since all the backgrounds are not blue. 

Dear Jane is still giving me fits but I did get all the stuck papers out. I'm on the LAST big block of the Patchwork of the Crosses quilt but I still have the border and a lot of the smaller crosses to stitch. 

We celebrated the last day of summer by checking something off The Mister's bucket list. He's been dying to try the food at a new sandwich/ice cream shop near the boardwalk that opened up a few months ago. Pup and I shared some French fries while he had a double hamburger that he declared very good. Yes, those are napkins stuffed in his shorts so the bay breeze doesn't take them away. I've never seen anyone so fixated on always having a pile of napkins around. I pick them up from all over the house. 

I wanted to show my plant loving blog friends what the flower beds on the boardwalk look like right now. For the past two years they've filled them with sweet potato vines and it's pretty spectacular. I miss the color of the flowers but you have to admit it's wild to see a good half a mile of this stuff creeping out in every direction. 

Pucker Up

 

It's a good thing I've been ironing out each block on the Zig Zag quilt before I take it over to the machine because yesterday I found a wonky seam. There was a Zig that didn't Zag and it had a big pucker. Thankfully, it was near an end so I could pull the sandwich apart, rip it out and hand sew it back together. 

To be on the safe side, I gave it a discreet stitch in the ditch for good measure. Up until then I could say that this particular machine quilting adventure had been uneventful. I'm only doing one block a day to keep from getting tired and making ugly mistakes. I'm using a very fine machine quilting thread so mistakes are not quite so noticeable because try as I might, my default meander always turns out looking like obscene graffiti.

Chicken On Sunday

 

The striping on Spiral Chicken has been happening all week. 

And I think I like it. It's more fun to do than the solid gray so that's a bonus. It might have cost me a bit more money but I think it was worth it. 

It was a busy week since we had decent weather for most of it and we were out and about again yesterday. The Farmer's Market in the morning and the annual Taste of the Beaches festival down at the ball field by the marina. The Mister ate his weight in free sliders, shrimp and egg rolls while I.....

...had my usual free snow cone sitting in the shade listening to the band. Standing in line in the sun is not my thing but it doesn't bother The Mister at all. 

Taking a Hike

 

Now that the tourists are gone we can get down to the water without having to pay or make our way through the crowds. 

It's a bit of a walk to get to the beach that allows dogs but we just plop Pup in her stroller and off we go down the shady path. 

Since her hip surgery, she's not very mobile but she does like a good wander on the sand. 

It's good to have the place to ourselves again.

Friday Fluff: Canyon Camping

 

The spinning corner isn't going to see much action for a while. I'm all spun out but I did pull out the next bit of fiber that will be spun on the Ladybug. It's more Polwarth in the Canyon Camping colorway from Kim Dyes Yarn.

Before I could use the Ladybug again, she had to have some repairs. One of her foot pedals had come loose. She was limping along on those last few miles of the Vuelta. It was just some screws that needed to be tightened, thank goodness. 

She was a present from my kids the year I retired in 2010. If you are wondering why she's called a Ladybug, here is why. Every one of them has a hidden Ladybug somewhere on it. Mine is right behind the big red wheel. I think I gasped out loud when I saw the price of what they are selling for today. Yikes. She's a great wheel and I treat her with the most respect, only spinning the finest of clean fiber on her. Now I'm thinking I may need to take an insurance policy out on her. 

A Breath of Fresh Air

 

For the first time in months I was able to open the windows. Tuesday's high was 74 with only 51% humidity. I don't think I can remember such a long stretch of hot weather. The temperature starts to creep back up today but I'm very happy to have had a few days of being able to touch grass. 

Speaking of touching grass, look what I just bought. My old printer was giving me fits and as someone who HAS to enlarge every pattern or chart I really needed one that worked. Thankfully the weather and my mood was good when I had to go through the rather lengthy set up process. Talking to machines usually has me pulling my hair out but this little baby was very cooperative. I can even print from my phone now. Imagine that. 

Wednesday WIPs: Just Right

 

Too small. Too big. Just right. Getting the first sleeve the right size gave me fits this week after I realized the stitch count from the pattern wasn't going to work for me. 

Of course I made things harder for myself by being too lazy to unpack Bon Ami. That's the sweater I knit out of scrap yarn to see if I could actually turn the Chestnut cardigan into a pullover. Bon Ami was a complete success. It fits perfectly so I should have pulled it out before I started the Chestnut sleeve so I could get the correct stitch count. Since I always wear layers under my sweaters, I like my sleeves big and baggy and I should have remembered that. I'm on the right track now but it took several days and nights of obsessive knitting and re-knitting to get there. 

With all that knitting drama going on, none of my other projects got much attention but yesterday on a road trip to PetSmart I did start the Pimpeliesse using the newly spun Sunset Shaniko Tweed. It goes very nicely with a bag Cindy sent me. I've got a lot of fabulous bags that my blog friends have sent me over the years.  As someone who is obsessive about matching the project bag to the project and with NO talent for bag making, they all make me very happy.