Down Time

 This was the fourth do nothing day in a row. First it was rain and then it was more rain and then it was wind and yesterday it was The Mister's elbow. All that wood splitting and hauling took a toll on his arm so he's down with an ouchie. I spent the day spinning.

 All my spinning stuff is piled up in a crowded corner of the sewing room but I managed to dig out the California Red and this cotton.

 I listened to some true crime podcasts while I spun. Anything to take my mind off what was happening to that little retirement nest egg I have invested. It's been ugly. I've had to stop looking.

 I've got only this much more of this Merino/Silk to go. I really feel bad when I am not knitting with any handspun since I have so much in the stash. I guess I better go pattern hunting for something to do with it since that will determine how I ply it.

Sweating with the Oldies

 I couldn't ignore it any longer. It was time to do the shoulder shaping on the Tracery vest that I have been working on for more years than I care to recall.  I just want to knit ya'll. I hate that shaping business. I followed along on a Blueprint/Craftsy class I bought ages ago because just the idea terrified me.

 First I had to take all the shoulder parts and put them on a holder after binding off the steeks. That I could do.

 Then......I had to individually knit each of the four shoulders separately which means PURLING in colorwork. I was in a tizzy the whole time thinking about it. The video lady said I could just keep breaking the yarn and knitting from the front but that sounded like crazy talk to me. That's just too many ends flying around.

Well now, look at that....purling in stranded colorwork is actually not as hard as it seems. It turned out just fine. I wouldn't want to do a lot of it but for a few rows it wasn't so bad. Silly me for getting so worked up about it.

Mosi Madness

 Mosi hat number 5 is a done deal. It's the red one.For someone who never finishes anything I'm pretty impressed with myself. I am seriously thinking about digging through the stash and seeing if I can make a purple one.

The Mosi sweater is also chugging along. I am about an inch past the armhole divide. In case you are wondering, that is really my feet in the photo. I know I usually wear Crocs but is was raining today and we had just got in from shopping and I hadn't changed out of my Uggs yet. They are so comfy I forget I am wearing them.

 Speaking of shopping, we just finished loading up the pantry/aka empty Chewy boxes for what The Mister called the Epic Pandemic Trip. Daughter called this morning and scared the daylights out of me. She's friends with a lot of people in the international skating community and what's going on out there in the world is insane. This virus is no joke. People are being quarantined for weeks. Since I don't have much of a kitchen or a pantry anymore I thought it might be a good idea to go get some non-perishables and fill up the freezer-just in case. You never know. Our stores empty out if you even whisper the S word. I can't imagine the insanity if we were facing any kind of a quarantine.

Ditto for the critters. The Mister and I can live on ramen and canned veggies but the kitties and Pup-not so much. They also have ground chicken, turkey and fish fillets in the freezer-just in case.

I came out of Walmart with what you see in the photos above. This is what The Mister came out with. He couldn't imagine being locked in the house for a month without any......peanut butter cups? Really? I don't think he's taking any of this seriously. I hope he's right.

Home Cooking

 For one reason or another our cats decided to get the whole household up at 6:30 yesterday morning. The Mister was not amused but I thought it was perfect timing. I had beignets to make.

 I didn't have a lot of hope that coming from a mix they would meet my expectations but......

 ....they certainly did.

 Look at that. A puffy pillow of perfection. Just what you need with your cafe au lait as the sun comes up. Well done Cafe du Monde, well done.

 When your morning starts with beignets your day has to end with a pan full of dirty rice and collard greens....

....and some maque choux. If you have never made this before do it. Do it now. I had never even heard of it but it's sooooooo good. Even with soymilk instead of cream it was yummy. It's going into permanent rotation.

Turning the Corner

 I just turned the corner on two of my tiny needle projects. I finished a big blue flower and some vines on the sampler....

....and went around the corner on the hand quilting project. I can't wait to get this one done. Of all my quilts this is the one I want to take a nap under. We've bonded in a way I can't explain.

I also need to thank one of my soapy friends who sent me this box of goodies all the way from Montana. It was a never ending treasure. I pulled out one fabulous thing after another. Sock yarn, yarn bowl(!), stitch markers, candy and a copy of a cross stitch memories that sent me on a trip to memory lane. My mom used to collect those cross stitching magazines. I still have a few of them here and I leaf through them from time to time just to get a good case of the feels. She's been gone so long now that I have to spend time with things like this just to get a piece of her back. Thanks so much 57Pumpkins! You have no idea how much this meant to me.

And finally.....happy Mardi Gras ya'll! We've been drinking our chicory coffee for the past week or so already but today I'll be making beignets to go with it. Of all the places The Mister and I have traveled to our favorite has been New Orleans.  We've made that trip 3 times and if we didn't have all these gosh darn cats we'd be there right now. Laissez les bon temps rouler? Oui, cher!

My New Piles

I've got piles of stuff everywhere. Stuff I'm knitting, stuff I'm quilting, stuff I'm stitching and cards I am working on but nothing compares to the piles of wood I've been making all week. This is the pile I made Friday. I not only stacked this one, I split it while The Mister worked with the chain saw on that giant tree.

 We don't like to use the noisy chain saws on the weekends because of the neighbors so we spent Saturday and Sunday quietly splitting and stacking.

I could watch The Mister split wood all day. By the time I've got one wagon full loaded and hauled he's got another two logs split. I can't keep up.

That's only ONE log's worth of split wood in case you're wondering. We have a regular assembly line going. He splits it. I haul it over to the tree, line it up.....

....climb over the tree and fill my wagon. We're working in a different area now. It's all downhill but I've got to maneuver around the last two big trees we have yet to cut up.

 Here's my new pile. It used to be the patio where my picnic table was until...

....Hurricane Irene. You can just see my poor picnic table under the giant tree that came down on it in 2011. The trunk of that tree is still in the yard. You can see it sprawled out in the photo above. It was a black walnut and we've been trying to cut it up for years but it's not budging. That's some hard and heavy wood.

For those of you not in the least bit interested in wood (and I don't blame you) here's Pup in her sweater. She spends the day pouting while we work. Little does she know in this photo that as soon as were were done she was getting a dreaded bath. She was covered in sawdust-and so was I. For future reference, NEVER wear fleece pants out to work with wood unless you want to toss them in the trash. I spent all night picking sawdust out of my favorite comfy PJ bottoms. Lesson learned.

My Little Herd

 I have to admit that when I went looking for goat themed stamp sets I was disappointed by what I found. I really didn't like this set.

It just goes to show you that first impressions are not always right. I think it's the cutest thing ever now that I am about 14 cards in.

You can even dress them up. Happy birthday goats? Yes, please.

Sew Sew Friday

 I had a rare day all to myself yesterday. It was The Mister's sister's birthday so he teamed up with some family to take her out to lunch. All I wanted to do was get in the sewing room and get some work done. I had one more block of the snowflake quilt to get done and I was determined to get it done before spring.

 It was cold out but sunny. The sun was pouring into the windows making it a perfect sewing day. I set up an assembly line and........

 ...and in no time that last block was done.

 Now I am going to pack it all away until next winter when it will get sashed and sandwiched.

 I still have a pile waiting to be machine quilted. I was so close to finishing the Dresden but just as I thought I might be crossing the finish line disaster struck.

I had a bad seam. It had popped open after I had stippled the block and I just spotted it when I was coming down the sashing which made a terrible pucker. I had to rip out all of the machine quilting, rip open the seam and hand stitch it down applique style. I machine quilted the beejeezus out of it and hopefully it's good to go. It'll teach me to check those seams better. This is not the first time I've done this.

Friday Felines

Hoover doesn't just love boxes, he loves paper. He has a ball with the paper filler that comes in the Chewy box every month. He rips it, tears it, drags it around and finally..............

.......gets it just right. Right enough for a snooze. If your main daily activity is making a comfy place to take a nap I'd say you're winning.

I Knew It

 If you had that I was going to rip out that wonky sock ribbing on your bingo card congratulations. I said I wasn't but I did.

 We had to go to the dump and then do some shopping so I took advantage of car time to do it-again. This time I counted and counted and counted again. Twelve rows. That's all I needed how hard could that be? I am hoping the third time is the charm.

My punishment is to have to work on my travel project while I binge watch whatever thing I am watching on Netflix. Right now it is You which is the worst thing ever but totally addicting. I will get to the next season of The Chef Show but right now I'm on a roll with my diet so food shows are completely off limit especially on You Tube. I'm looking at you Babish.

Cant Hook

 No, this isn't a post about me not being able to crochet. It's about a cant hook. This is a cant hook. I can't hook but that's a story for another day.

This is what it does. It grabs onto wood so you can drag it around and then it holds it up so you can saw it without hitting the dirt with your chainsaw. It was my Valentine's Day present to myself and I love it.

 Even The Mister found himself borrowing it for his big stuff. We took down what was left of that big limb yesterday. What a job. Pup was supervising but not at all happy about it. She wanted to go for walk. She got one later.

Ta da.......the fruit of my labor. It's not much but it's a start. I've got plenty more where that came from.

See what I mean? We get one thing done and then it's on to another. After this monster is gone we'll only have two trees out back to do and one in the front.  I would have started with the one laying across my front yard but The Mister is not seeing it my way.

Last year's Valentine's Day present is also getting a workout. That's my new maul. I've been splitting while The Mister is sawing. I've got quite a pile.....and quite a backache.