Friday Fluff

It's been fun watching everyone get ready for this year's Tour. It starts on June 29th this year. I had no idea what I was going to work on until yesterday morning when I noticed this basket of cotton fiber I had stashed in the living room of all places.

I bought it a few Tours ago but lost interest in it. It's slow going on a spindle so this year I am determined to learn to spin it on a wheel. It's fiddly but as long as I don't expect perfection it should work. I haven't used my Ashford Traditional in a long while and it was nice to get it back in business. 

The Corridale I dyed for the handspun socks is off the Ladybug and just look at it. It's some of the nicest spinning I've ever done. Too bad it's going in those ugly socks.

As for the floor, we tackled the closet. That little bit took all day. No fun there. 

Today will be trim day so off we went to the hardware store for more of it. It's so long we have to hang it out the window. It's my job to hold on to it. 

Instead of doing my usual crafty stuff, I spent yesterday afternoon painting that trim instead. Soon we'll be tackling the big room and I told The Mister that we'll be working two days on and one day off for that part of the adventure. Three days in a row of all this fun is too much. Too, too much. TGIF.

 

Beat

 

All the crawling around and the up and down has really taken a toll on this old body. I woke up at 5 am yesterday and started to clean the house and then said the heck with it. I made myself a cup of tea and a fire and had a nice long sit down on the deck while the rest of the world was still asleep. We've had some unusually cold mornings and I decided to take advantage of it. The mess in the house could wait. 

After taking Pup for a short walk, it was back to the floor. We've got most of the second room done now. Today we should finish it up and start getting the new trim cut and painted.

Yesterday wasn't all miserable. I had a package from blog buddy NYPeaPod who makes the most amazing jams and preserves. I've been too beat for meals so The Mister and I are living off of anything we can pop in the toaster so this was most welcome. 

And....look at this. This has got to be one of the world's smallest puzzles. I'm fascinated by it. I've got quite a collection of some the greatest puzzles ever now thanks to you guys. I can't wait for life to slow down again so I can play with them. There's a spot in my brain that likes to be tickled by things like this. I think it's my old brain trying to tell me something. 

Thanks again, Ruth! It was most generous of you. 

Wednesday WIPs

 

My WIPs are looking pretty boring at the moment but I do have an FO. Riddari is done. It's sharing its mugshot with a stuffed alpaca. I couldn't find any of my many sheep stuffies. I think I packed them away downstairs. 

I'm not sure where Mr. Alpaca came from. It might be Daughter's from one of our MDSW trips. I always took her when she was a kid. When I was a kid I had this. The talking Push Me Pull You.  I loved that thing but it didn't age well being white and all. I'm sure Mom must have tossed mine at one point. Too bad. 

If you were thinking that I should have modeled my new sweater, I will in the fall. Right now it's packed away with my others. It's too darn hot. I can tell you that it does fit but the sleeves are too long. That won't be a big problem because pulling them down over mittens when it's cold out will be a good thing when the temps drop. Right now I'm basking in the AC. No way am I putting that thing on until November.

And....I've got new yarn. It's Malabrigo Rios and it's for a sweater but that's all I'm going to say right now. I've got two gray blobs to finish first.

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 

After a long and very busy weekend we are back to doing floor work again today. Yesterday we got the second room ready to go which means more clutter and more mess. Over the week I managed to finish up both sides of Village Quaker. I've got some big motifs to stitch in the corners of each side before I can go across the top so I'm far from being done-but I'm closer than I was.

I didn't have time for much else last week but I did finish the bottom border on Patchwork Ete yesterday. I think I've got a plan to get all four of these seasonal Patchwork projects done in the near future. I'm really tired of looking at them so I think I am going to get them all out and takes turns with them from now on. A different one each week. The problem has been that when I finish a repeating section I have no interest for the rest of the season to pick it up. Maybe switching them up will cure that. We'll see. 

And...I hope to be able to show off at least one finished Dear Jane block every Tuesday this summer. This is my tiniest needle work as I use an itty bitty quilting between sized needle so I don't prick the paper while I stitch the pieces together.

I know I won't get too far with this one but I did get tired of just sewing on the lattice so I started an entirely new block. The first in row D. With everything else I have going on around here this is plain nuts but it's stuff like this that keeps me sane when everything around me is in disarray. 

Playing Chicken

 

I spent yesterday cleaning up the layer of cat hair that covered the house after the kitties spent a night alone. You'd think they'd just relax and enjoy the time to themselves but it looked like they hosted a dance party in every room while we were gone. Yesterday wasn't all bad. I did come home to some packages that were fun to open.

I kept taking Spiral Chicken off the shelf and then putting her back away because I just didn't like the colors I had. Two orders of new wool came over the weekend so I'm hoping to get her back in business soon.

What you want is a nice hodgepodge of radiating similar colors in the background and I''m hoping these mixed grays will do it. If not, I'll just have to keep looking. 

Off to the Races

 

SIL's flight home from Chicago was on time so he was home by 11:00 which meant if we hustled home we could get to the last hour of the dragon boats races. Thankfully the DC Beltway was moving in our favor and we got there just in time for the race finals. Here are the boats with their fancy heads on. They only show up on race day. I suppose they would be too tempting to be left on all night alone on the beach.

It was a bit overwhelming to wade into the Technicolor sea of revelry after a weekend of quiet baby play. There's lots of loud music and announcements being made. First stop, beer truck. 

Each team is a different color and they dress up to represent whatever name they came up with. The boardwalk was a living, breathing (and sweating) rainbow. This was the Corksman, a viking themed team who had a amazing booth. I wish I could have musseled in to get a photo but I was too worn out by then to fight the crowds.

Pup never sleeps when we are not at home so I do doggy duty all night so The Mister would be able to drive. I plopped myself on a rock in the shade and watched from the koi pond while The Mister ran up and down the boardwalk getting the full experience. 

The local CrossFit studio won again this year. I think they always win. It was an upside down year for us as we usually go early and leave before it gets too hot but this worked out perfectly. There was plenty of shade since the sun was behind the water and the finals were fun to see. I think we'll do it this way again next year. 

Yes...

 

For all you that commented that babysitting was better than standing in the hot sun watching people paddle boats....

....yes. Yes it is. We're having a great time.