The First Cut

 

I worked up the courage to make the first cuts on the Disappearing Nine Patch blocks. 

It helped to have a nice sharp new blade in my cutter. I need to remember to change it more often.

I am happy to say all the cutting math came back to me. Dad and I made plenty of these little quilts but that was a long time ago. We used to work as a team and I sure could have used his help and......

...his eye for color placement. We used to put all the blocks up on his design wall and play with the layout until we got something we liked. I've got no space and no color sense so this is going to be interesting. 

Slipping and Sliding

 

I have a great deal of empathy for the TdF riders who were all over the pavement yesterday. I almost fell several time while coming and going. It's a mess out there.

That's Laura sitting on top of us yesterday bringing us lots of rain and more muggy, hot weather. Yuck. 

My top of the driveway neighbors are on vacation and this is what they are going to come home to. The thunderstorms that preceded Laura brought a giant tree down on his work truck and crushed the entire back end of it. That's not a tree to the left standing up. That's the top of the tree impaled in the ground.  At least it didn't hit the house. It was close. Very close.

It was a good day to be inside watching the Tour and spinning. I finished the singles from the Streets of Laredo fiber. I'll start plying it today.

During the thunderstorm I hid out in the downstairs and painted a watercolor, hated it, scribbled all over it, then tore it up and made a collage out of it in my art journal. I am not sure where I am going with it but I gave myself permission to not like it. My creative brain is just not working well these days. I spend most days in need of a nap that I never take.

The one happy note is that I found this. I have no idea how I missed this charm pack in the package but when I went to look at the coordinating fabric for the Disappearing Nine Patch there it was. I've got plenty to work with now. All I need is a creative brain to figure out what to do with it. 

  

Le Grand Depart

 

You know I couldn't leave well enough alone. Yesterday's fiber adventure went back in the dye pot. Well not all of it. Just the places that turned out rather flesh colored. They got stuffed in a jar of orange.

It looks pink in the photo but I swear it is shades of orange. 

I was worried that I had fiddled with it too much and compacted the fiber so I got out another wheel to give it a spin. The band broke. I usually use elastic bands but I didn't want to wait to order one so I tied on some string.

It worked just fine, knot and all. Crisis averted.

Today is the long awaited first day of the Tour and I have to say I feel like I'm off to a very good start. 

Inspiration

 

Daughter sent me this photo of an Hermes scarf her hubby gave her for her birthday. You don't want to know how much it cost. You could literally buy a truckload of yarn. 

Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part that fall is near but I couldn't stop thinking about those colors especially the orange. Since the Tour starts on Saturday I thought I might dye something special for it using that scarf as inspiration using this striped BFL...... 

....even though I'm still working on the Streets of Laredo fiber. I still have a lot more to spin than I thought but that didn't stop me.

Out came my jars of dye. I really should toss them. They are very old. A little goes a long way.

I mixed up a jar each of Bright Orange, Burnt Orange, Salmon, Russet and Aztec Gold. It was so hot out I thought about sun dyeing but I really didn't want to go outside. I am so over the heat.

The whole time I was making a mess I thought about my new kitchen. Where am I going to make a mess when I have a nice new sink and pretty counters and cabinets? 

I am terrible at dyeing but I like doing it. It's instant gratification. 

Well, that's not what I expected. It's more pink than orange. It may just be going back in the dye pot tomorrow. 

There Ought to Be a Law

 

Unfortunately this is a familiar rant of mine. You are knitting along minding your own business when your knitting alarm goes off somewhere in the back of your mind. 

I came to a fuzzy place in the yarn and didn't think much of it until.........

...I realized that suddenly the stripes weren't matching up anymore. Knit Picks did it to me again. They spliced their Felici without giving the color sequence any thought. Grrrrr...........

See? The balls are smaller too. I think I got gypped out of some yarn. What's that saying about fool me once shame on you? You'd think I'd learn but I keep buying the stuff. I have no idea how I'm going to save my stripes and I'm too mad right now to think about it. There really ought to be a law.

You're Amazing

 

You're Amazing is the name of this Connecting Threads fabric collection. My two charm packs showed up yesterday. I had to order more when I ran out of options.

By options I mean colors and patterns. I had sewn myself into a nine patch corner.  This time I am making the blocks up one at a time instead of chain piecing them all and hoping for the best. Even though it's going to eventually be cut into a Disappearing Nine Patch I like to have the colors and patterns spread out.. 

I gave up after making only four because now I have to go figure out how many of these blocks I actually need. 

Tiny Needle Tuesday: Too Hot to Handle

 

I don't have much to show for this week. I've pretty much lost the will to live. The weather is making me stabby. It's still so hot and humid out that I feel like a prisoner in my house. I swear there isn't enough oxygen anymore. I even got a mold alert on my phone. A mold alert. Let that sink in. 

I did get one block done on the second row of the sampler. 

I work on this one at night propped up in bed watching The Gilmore Girls for the umpteenth time. You can see it's received a bit more love. There are two deer now and a few more branches.

I've gotten the center of the nine patch quilted. It's starting to look nice and crinkly. I am very anxious about putting this one in the wash as it is made up of a whole lot of Dad's wonky square paper pieces joined by my very bad whip stitching. 

I had the same reservations about my rings quilt and it came out just fine. In fact, I love it now and use it all the time. It was a Frankenstein while it was being worked on but it bloomed into something beautiful and very comfy. Pup agrees. 

One Bag Full

 

I finished another pair of socks yesterday. With the reel socks I barely had any yarn leftover but with these Opal socks it looks like I have almost enough for another small pair. 

The contents of the Christmas gift bag looks like this now. That's more than a pair a month-but I guess it's not like I have anything else to do these days. 

The two at a timers got their heels turned. I watched several videos and read several tutorials on how to do this right but I ended up with a tangled mess again and had to take it all off the magic loop and thread it back on.

I noticed that I don't have many man socks in the gift bag so the next pair up will be made of this. Look at that cute little spool of reinforcement thread. I haven't seen that in ages. I wasn't even aware that it was tucked into the ball until I  went looking for a loose end. 

Food For Thought

 

The Mister and I did something very brave on Friday night. We got take out Chinese-enough to last the weekend. I couldn't cook one more thing. I am broken. He was very happy to find that the place we go to has built a Plexiglas booth between the cashier and the patron. There is no indoor dining so it seemed like a safe bet. We'll see. 

Speaking of food, the quail egg in the cat food got a lot of questions. Yes, the cats liked the food but I gave the egg to Pup who really enjoyed it. 

It's Tiki Cat food for those who wanted to know. Honestly, this cat food looks good enough for human consumption. The sardine cutlets are very tempting.

I've been in search of a cat food Hoover would eat. I'm afraid he's fading and I want to make his last days happy ones. He's gotten very finicky. He LOVES this dog food I got for Pup but I can't seem to find it anymore.

I bought an expensive case of their kitty version but no one likes it. 

Right now he does like Sheba with a splash of Lactaid milk. I've also been cooking him chicken. He likes  me to hand feed him the broth. Poor old guy. 

I also had a question about blocking the Pimpeliesse. I spun 3.5 ounces of fiber and chain plied it for this one and it blocked out to 77 inches. I am assuming that when I block the last one that came off the needles that it will be the same since I started with the same amount of fiber but who knows? We all know how knitting can be. 

Eek...a Double Steek

 

I was nearing the top of the Lofoten yoke and discovered there was a surprise waiting. 

A double steek. There is one hole at the bottom and I just had to put in another one at the top. This supposedly is going to shape the neck but the whole idea is starting to scare me. There is a lot of fancy stuff going on around the neck. Things I have never done before. This should be interesting. 

In other knitting news the latest Pimpeliesse is this big now. This is a two ply handspun that's pretty much all the same color. It's not much fun to knit but I think I am going to like it. 

Wash Day

 

The Mister went to play golf yesterday and I spent the day doing laundry.

I can't do laundry very often when he's home. This is how close his craft table is to the washer and dryer. He hates the noise so anytime I get him out of the house I take advantage. I had loads and loads to do. I did all the towels, the sheets, my clothes and even the big terry cloth robe that hangs behind the bathroom door. 

I am sad to say that my socks didn't look any better after a wash. They looked so pathetic that I didn't dare put them in the dryer. These sad things are NOT going in the gift box. I'm stuck with them.

I also had to wash a project bag AND a project. I've been having some sleeping issues and ages ago I had stashed the beginning of a sock project in a bag in the closet in my bedroom just in case I needed a middle of the night knit. When I took it out to use last night I had a sneezing and coughing attack from the dust that must have been on it so it get a careful spritzing and patting dry. It won't be going back in the closet. I'm going to put it in a clean bag on the nightstand. I don't seem to be able to sleep much anymore so I might as well be knitting. 

And in some Friday Feline news.....in my Covid isolation I've pretty much lost all sense of reason and have been ordering expensive cat food off the internet on a fairly regular basis. So why was I surprised when Chicken and Quail Eggs turned out to have a ........quail egg in the can? How crazy is that?