Bye Bye July

Look what I got. I've been itching to make another pair of two at a time on Magic Loop socks and my timing couldn't have been better. Knit Picks had Felici on sale and lots of colorways to choose from. I also stocked up on some Mighty Stitch. I'm not sure what I am going to do with it but I wanted it. 

I'm finally out of the mountains with Lofoten. I'm into the snowflakes which are a lot more fun to knit. 

My socks are languishing.....

....as is Pimpeliess. I was knitting away like crazy every night on them while watching Ozark and I've run out of episodes. I have also been wilted by the evening from the record breaking heat we've been putting up with. This is the time of year I curse the ancestors who thought it would be a good idea to get on a boat and come to the new world. I'm much more suited to the weather in the UK than I am in this tropical nightmare. I need clouds. I need rain. I need a hot cup of tea.

30 Days, 22 Hours, 40 minutes and 59 seconds

That's how much time there is until the actual Tour begins. At least is was when I was writing this yesterday. I'm getting excited but not too excited. That's a long time and more virus stuff can happen between now and then. I'm still getting my little spinning corner ready. It's in the middle of the unholy kitchen mess.

I've been working on the Streets of Loredo fiber but it's going too quickly. I love to spin while I watch TV but I don't really need anymore handspun at the moment. 

What I need to do is dig out last year's unfinished Tour projects and put some work into them instead of just peddling away on the Ladybug every night.

What I also need to do is finish Trinidad, the California Red. I carded all those batts back in March and then let them just sit. I've got two finished skeins already and I'd like them to be a pair of socks one day.

I've also got plans for some cotton I started two Tours ago.

I managed to ply this much over that time but I need more. Lots more if this is going to become something one day. That's the problem with spinning. You aren't done when you're done. Something always needs to come next. 

Delivery Day

Yesterday was delivery day. I have to say I've learned a lot about food preservation through all this and some of the practices I intend to keep. Produce lasts so much longer when I take the time to clean and prepare everything before bagging it up and putting it in the fridge. I used to just toss'em in the drawer the way they came right from the store and always ended up throwing half of what I had away from spoilage. 

We did okay with produce again but we couldn't get any lunch meat or cooking spray this time around. I did get toilet paper. I have quite the collection of it now and I'm not ashamed. Having only 6 rolls to get us through the 6 weeks of lockdown was no fun. I don't ever want to do that again.

I did get some hominy for The Mister. I have put it on every order since the lockdown began and never could get it. We got two different kinds which is good. The Mister loves this stuff. Not sure why.

After all that early morning excitement the only thing I was good for was finishing my latest little puzzle. All that grocery excitement gave me a terrific headache. The flower puzzle was not only hard, it also had some drama at the finish. I was missing a piece. I was just about to throw a temper tantrum when I found it on the floor. Crisis averted. 

Up next is this one that just came in the mail last week. My little puzzles have been the best part of this whole pandemic experience if there is a such thing as a best part. I am completely addicted. 

Tiny Needle Tuesday

In spite of sewing a hole in my finger this week I have very little to show for it. I only managed three of my 10 by 10 green squares on the sampler. I had hoped to get one done a day. Nope. No excuses. I just didn't feel like working on it this week.

I'd rather be working on the hexie quilt. I've been sewing the patches down in the intersections and it's been more fun than I thought it would be. I had the idea it was going to be fiddly. It's not. 

I have one more block quilted on the nine patch. It doesn't look like much at this stage. I'm hoping a few more blocks will make it look like all this work has been worth the trouble. Not that's it actually been trouble. This is still something I really like to do and that's saying a lot because right now I am so sick of being in this house and doing the same thing day after day that I could just scream. 

Christmas Fishes

When I saw this stamp and die set I knew it had to be mine. It was a 2019 release from Lawn Fawn called Christmas Fishes. 

I've been looking for something to keep me occupied down in the lower level craft room. It's been a sad place lately. No fall soap to wrap. No cards to make....until now. 

Everything was going swimmingly until I dropped the black stamp pad right onto my finished front panel.

Mr. Blue Crab took the brunt of it. I was beyond mad at myself. I usually stamp on a separate table but had gotten lazy.

Other than being ticked off at my stupidity it really wasn't much of a catastrophe. This is just the sample I'll use to make my cards this year. I figure if I make a few a day it'll keep me purposefully occupied in the evenings. I never usually start this early in the year but you know how it is. There's a lot of hours in the day to fill these days. 

Pizza!

Pizza.

That's it. 

That's the post. 

 If you had on your 2020 bingo card that I would be doing cartwheels over a mediocre, no contact delivery, Papa John's pizza you would be a correct. The only good thing about it was that I DIDN'T HAVE TO COOK IT. It was our first take out since way back in early February. 

Two Birds, One Stone

I've knit and sewn a hole in my finger this week. I had to get out the electrical tape. It was a rainy Friday here and I was glad. I woke up at 5 am and couldn't get back to sleep. I spent the whole day in a daze.

I did get the last row of the hexie top together That's probably why I have a hole in my finger. That was a lot of appliqueing but I really want to see the end of this. I've got something important to start work on and this thing is in the way.

I haven't actually sewn the last row on yet because of that being in a daze thing I had going on. I just knew it was going to give me fits. I was fretting about it when I thought that instead of fussing over the rows not lining up perfectly, I could just disguise the intersection with another paper piece.

That would solve two problems since Daddio left me bins of them and I was wondering what to do with all those leftovers. I don't see another hexie quilt in my future.

Since serious sewing was not going to happen, what I did do to speed the finishing process up was to cut out pieces for the sashing. That I could do. I'm going to need a lot. It's a good thing he also left me packs and packs of charm squares. They make the job so much easier than having to cut yardage. 

Making Mountains

So I've been knitting along on the yoke of Lofoten and I've come to a section of the pattern I just didn't understand. I thought it was ugly blotches. I thought it was maybe a mistake. I almost rewrote it so it looked better.

Then it dawned on me yesterday. They are mountains. I've been working on this since 2017 and you'd think I'd have figured that out by now since they are also on the sleeves that I finished last year.

Here's the photo on the pattern where you can clearly see that it's a mountain range which Lofoten in Norway actually is. Now that my eyes can see it, it's pretty cool. 

The Cure

I mentioned yesterday that The Mister and I were taking turns this week being grouchy. Tuesday morning he had a complete meltdown over being cooped up for so long so yesterday morning I packed some knitting and we hit the road.

He thinks I am being overly cautious. Everyone else is going out and getting on with their lives but us he claimed. That's not true. It was just the cabin fever talking. Luckily, a work friend of his called that afternoon and asked us to go pick from his garden while he was away in the mountains. We do it for him every year and a day out was just what The Mister needed.

One of the deals I had made with The Mister to soothe his pique was going to be to let him go INTO the grocery store and get me some onions. I had ordered some but didn't get them on my last delivery. I can't live without onions so it would have been an acceptable risk. No need. The work friend had a bunch of big beauties we could pull. 

He had rows and rows of sunflowers this year. That was new. They were lovely to see and the sound of the bees could have put you asleep. Pup wasn't fond of it though.

Their Susans seemed to have escaped any deer attacks. They were spectacular. 

All that was fine and dandy but the big event of the day was that on the way home we went through the Dunkin drive thru. It was the first non-delivery food we have had since mid February. We had to drive up to Anne Arundel county to do it. They have 6,105 cases now compared to our 503 but I bit my tongue and off we went. 

It didn't seem worth it to me to take the risk for a donut but who am I to judge. It was important to The Mister so we did it. I wrapped the box in a towel and home we went where we transferred them into a safe container. I have to say, I had a jelly filled and it was GOOD. 

I also have another sink full of produce to cook this week. I see fried green tomatoes and eggplant parm in my future. I am going to bake those overgrown squash like a winter squash using a recipe I found for them on the internet. It was a good day and I suppose all good days come with some amount of risk. 

I totally admit that I am more freaked out than most over this virus thing but I have asthma. That feeling of not being able to breathe scares the you know what out of me on pretty much a regular basis anymore. My asthma got notably worse after my bout with H1N1 back in the day so I really, really don't want to tangle with this virus thing. The way my sister described what she and her husband went through when they had it still keeps me up at night. It's one nasty bug.

 

Too Hot to Handle

My refrigerator pickles turned out to be delicious so I was happy to see the cucumber plants are still making baby cukes in this horrible heat in spite of looking so dismal. 

I actually found a good looking one today.

The tomatoes are starting to get some color. Trying to keep them going in this heatwave has not been fun. I have to carry gallons of water out to them regularly. 

How happy is that? I didn't get many Black Eyed Susan blooms this year thanks to the deer eating half the plants but what I did get was most welcome in this dreary time. Cabin fever has definitely set in. We are both taking turns being grouchy this week. 

Speaking of deer, I now have a long path down the front walk of sad half eaten stalks of Hostas. The Mister always complains about them taking up the sidewalk. Not this year. That's just pitiful.

The Hydrangea has taken over the end of the sidewalk. This is the best year it's had in ages. Look at that color. When this nightmare is over I'm going to rip up the front beds and plant more of them. I don't think anyone can have enough Hydrangeas. 

TNT: Still Counting

The dark green part of my sampler is turning out to be a real pain. I hate stitches that touch other stitches on all sides. No matter what I do I can't make them neat. I also lose track of where I am. I don't usually use the grid lines on a pattern but this time I am. I am doing one 10 by 10 section a day. It may take forever but I will keep my sanity.

My other tiny needle was busy getting two more blocks appliqued down on the hexie top. Three to go. Mercifully, this is the last row.

You can't really see it but I have two blocks of the nine patch hand quilted. I was worried about using different colored thread for each block but it looks fine to me.