Wednesday WIPs

 

I'm on a roll this week with finishing things. The Gummiberry socks are done. 

I've already cast on another pair of Static in the Seascape colorway. It's been sitting in the project bag I brought home from the MDSW last year and since this year's festival is this weekend I thought I might actually get around to using them both for the first time.

The second Bon Amie sleeve is fixed and finished. 

Now I have to start weaving in all those ends. I still got a few inches left to do on the body so it's going to be my summer project. 

What I don't have to show off is a finished bathroom. We had a glitch in one corner that The Mister kept making worse because he's hard headed and wouldn't listen to my suggestions.

There's a big gap in that corner and he thought it would be a good idea to stuff the gap with wood shims. The only problem is that the shims bled through the joint compound. He spent days fretting over it and stuffing more stuff in the corner.

He finally gave up yesterday and just did what I've said to do all week which was to use an inside corner bead. I didn't make it up, I looked it up. Did I mention The Mister is hard headed and has to do everything his way at least a dozen times before he gives up and takes any advice? Men. Anyway, it worked so it’s back to work on the rest of it. 

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 

Woo hoo....Snort Stack is finished. Here it is surrounded by all it's critter cousins. I think I am at the end of this stitching jouney even though there are more critters in the series. Many more. I'm hoping to spend the long, hot summer turning these into little pillows as they are intended but I need to locate the tiny trim the pattern calls for first. The last time I looked it was out of stock.

The top right hand corner of The Garden of Joy is finished. Almost. I do need to put some doo dads on the outer border but I'm waiting for the whole thing to be finished before I do that. 

Look at this mess. I've got bobbin boxes but I've been lazy about doing any winding and sorting so this is what I get. I need a nice long rainy afternoon and a good movie and maybe a couple more bobbin boxes to be honest. 

And....I have to thank Lucy in Kentucky for sending me this year's Kentucky Derby pins and some stickers from Mammoth Cave. The Mister is always thrilled to get these as he takes them down to the mom and pop grocer and brags to his friends down there that he was actually there. They know he's kidding but it makes his day. Thanks Lucy!

Windswept

 

Saturday night we had a couple of big thunderstorms and lots of wind so we stayed in the lower level all night again. It's the only time I get down there these days so it wasn't all bad although sleeping on a noisy air mattress with a fidgety little dog wasn't a lot of fun. I did manage to start a watercolor from the book Cindy sent me. I'm really awful at this but had fun slopping paint around. 

While I was waiting for the masking fluid to dry on the watercolor, I watched a YouTube tutorial from Rokia Love on some zen art and tried to follow along. I didn't get it right either time but had fun with some alcohol markers and a Sharpie. I finally figured out what I was doing wrong on the second try so I'll give this a go again some day. 

I also added a few more "moons" to my lunar mandala. I've been working on this one forever but it so tedious I can only do a few sections at a time. I finally got to sleep at 3 am and then up again at 7 so yesterday was a wash. The Mister and I declared it "Do Nothing" day and that's exactly what we did. 

Eighty Nine

 

This would have been my mom's 89th birthday. Here she is sitting on the beach that I walk pretty much everyday. Those pilings behind her are still here. She isn't. Leukemia got her at 66. It was a brutal few months and then poof...she was gone. I still can't believe it and she's been gone 23 years now. She was such a force that her life energy still lingers, I fear. 

This is school age Mom at her family home. That's her brother. He's hanging on by a thread but he's still here. His kids just lost their mom to Parkinson's and now their Dad has dementia. I've been there and done that and don't envy their journey. It's a tough one. 

Young bride Mom with her mom on her wedding day. She had just turned 17. I'm in that photo too but you can't see me....wink, wink. She'd hate that I said that. Her mental health suffered her whole life from the stigma. No one ever let you forget your youthful indiscretions back then. It's worse now with the internet but it was still pretty brutal back in the 50's. Tongues wag. 

The happy family Mom. Soon I would be joined by two sisters and Mom would lock herself away for many, many years as she struggled with agoraphobia brought on, I'm pretty sure, from dealing with that charismatic but extremely volatile husband of hers. Oh, the tales I could tell but she would kill me. I've never been sure if there is a heaven but I'm not taking any chances.  As I said, she was a force. How many times do we say "it's a good thing Granny isn't here"...we all know what that would mean and it wouldn't mean anything good.  

Transferred

 

My needle punch project has been sitting here waiting for a free moment. 

It doesn't take long to trace the paper pattern onto the tulle and then trace over it onto the monk's cloth. I bought a pack of small squares to practice on.  

It took me longer to print out the picture I need for a color guide than it did to do the transfer. Printing out anything is always a challenge around here. I have a real hate/love relationship with printers.

The next step is to wind off some of the yarn I bought for it so I can get started punching but that's not going to happen until it doesn't have to cut into my late afternoon reading/blogging/nap time. By 2:30 every day I'm out of juice. If I don't get a brain break before having to start making dinner it wouldn't be pretty.

Friday Fluff

 

There wasn't much happening in the spinning corner this week. I worked only a few minutes here and there.

I did finish those mitts that had a measurement challenge and packed them away. 

Here's a reminder of how they started. This is a case of looking better in the braid than they do being knit up but that's the fun of spinning, I suppose. It's hard to predict how these things will work out.

I only knit four rounds on the Pi shawl this week but I did get to change colors which keeps my brain from falling asleep. 576 stitch rounds are a bit of a slog.

And...the bathroom got another sanding and a final coat of joint compound from The Mister. I sat this coat out since I'm so terrible at it.  One more sanding and then it's paint time. That'll be all on me. 

In a Bind

 

I had an open window of opportunity yesterday morning when The Mister hauled one of the kitties off to the vets. Our one remaining indoor/outdoor kitty needed her yearly supply of anti-vermin meds. We've all had mange before and we're not doing that again. Being allergic to cats, it's a chore I let him do all on his own.

I used my free time wisely and got the binding on The Big Crazy started. 

 I also put a few more of the Patchwork blocks together.

That meant I needed to do a bit more of this. I've run out of doo dads to applique on the corners.

After spending an hour and a half and almost $600 at the vet's, The Mister was in no mood for sanding that last coat of drywall so we went to the beach instead and let Pup run in the sand. No complaints here except for that vet bill. Yikes. 

Wednesday WIPs

 

This was supposed to be my big reveal of an almost finished Bon Amie but once again I made a dumb mistake. 

Um, yeah...I don't even know what to say about this. You would think I would have checked the other sleeve to make sure they matched or even looked at the pattern where I had clearly written where I had ended the first sleeve. Now I've got to do some un-knitting and I HATE un-knitting colorwork.

We're still slogging away in the bathroom with the big bucket of joint compound but I did learn a trick that is making things a bit easier. We've always worked out of the original bucket but if you take some out and whip it up with a splash of water it goes on much easier and much smoother. I knew I was keeping that old hand mixer for something. 

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 

Snort Stack has a new member this week. Piggy number two climbed aboard. 

It might be possible to finish the right hand top corner of the Garden of Joy if all the stars align this week.

Look who's back for a visit. Daughter tried to frame him herself and it didn't go so well. I've brought him home to re-do it for her and to also add a border around him. I had thought about a border but gave it to Daughter without so she could decide and now she wants a border. 

Today's bathroom update is a yucky one. This is one job The Mister and I have no business doing because we are terrible at it but Mr. DIY or Die refuses to call in the experts. I even volunteered to pay in order to avoid the frustration of it all but no....

One coat and the taping is done but that's the easy part. Getting the final coat to look right never seems to work out for us and I have the wonky walls to prove it. 

Weekending

 

The Mister and I had a pretty busy holiday weekend. On Saturday we had the first of the town Farmer's Markets to go to. 

There wasn't much in the way of produce but there was.....

....plenty of stands with plants. People were loading up their cars. I came home with one bunch of asparagus. I'm not ready for planting.

Easter day started out bright and early. We met one of the Grands on the soccer field for practice and then went back to their house for a lunch and an Easter egg hunt with the little guy. 

We were missing the two Grands who were at home in Michigan dyeing eggs and the two Grands that were in Spain all week participating in an international futbol tournament. Somehow they ended up in London on Easter day. I'm sure they'll have some tales to tell about that when I see them again. 

Easter Greetings

 

Wishing you an eggsellent day!

No See Ums

No sooner did I get my finger working again when my eyes went wonky. Allergy season is migraine season for me. I used to be an itchy, sneezy mess when I was a kid but after puberty it was ocular migraines every spring. I had my latest block in progress laid out yesterday but I never did get around to stitching it. Napping is a critical activity once the eyes start to go. 

Before I hit the couch I laid out the blocks I have finished to see how the whole thing is progressing. So far so good but getting those little pieces appliqued on where the bigger blocks meet is going to be a challenge. The Mister is going to have to share the puzzle/dining table again, I fear. It's getting big.

And....speaking of The Mister, we did indeed finish putting up all the drywall yesterday. The installer guy did call us back yesterday morning at 7 am to give us some ideas on how to deal with those gaps that were driving The Mister literally to drink the day before. For those of you keeping count-he did indeed go get another bottle. That's three so far for one little bathroom-and we've still got a very long way to go. 

Friday Fluff

 

I was having a very nice morning over in the Fluff Corner. The sun was shining and I finished one of the four fiber nests from the Maine Lobster braid. 

Then I finally made it to round 48 of the handspun Pi Shawl and did the increases. I'm over 500 stitches on each round now. Yikes. 

Then disaster struck. I finished the second Thermal Mitt but as you can see, I started the top ribbing too soon. I needed one more pattern repeat. Today I'll be ripping that out and re-doing it. I'm also not sure why the bottom of the first mitt is flaring out like that and the other isn't. That's worrisome. 

Then real disaster struck. We thought we were heading down to the finish line with the shower drywall when.....

....we ended up with some serious gappage. The shower panels are bowed down where they meet so the drywall, which has to sit neatly 1/8 of an inch above the top of the flanges, won't. There's also a hole where they meet which would be a perfect place for water to go. We've got a call into the installer to see what's up with that but being a holiday weekend, he never called back. 

That's our second bottle btw and it's probably going to take at least a couple more before this particular nightmare of a project is done. Even when you pay other people to do the hard stuff it never goes smoothly. It's always something.