Fleeced Again

My fleece washing days are coming to an end. As soon as those leaves fill in we won't have sun again until late fall.

 Saturday was a half decent day so I decided I better get moving. Amelia, the Jacob, was the next in line. She doesn't look very promising in this photo I'm sorry to say.

She looks much better in the bag.

 I set up pans and buckets of soapy water on the deck and scrubbed the morning away.

I call it my snowball method. I just grab a handful of dirty fleece, dump it in soapy hot water and squish it into a big snowball.

 After 2 washes and 3 rinses it comes out pretty clean. In that bright sunshine it dried very quickly.

I didn't get to card it because I still had Shetland to do from the last washing.

 Dirty Nora is now 8 pretty batts. Now I just need a free wheel.

Two By Two

 I seem to be working in pairs these days. I've got two dishcloths done. The one on the right has been through the wash several times to shrink it up. The purple one is just off the needles. Next up is the orange cotton. I want a pile of them.

 I'm working on two sleeves.

 Then there are the two socks being reknit.

I have two Dear Jane blocks to show. One done. The other is very fiddly. It's going to take a while.

Finally, I have two new art journal pages done. I learned to love washi tape with this one. I admit to being late to this craze.

 Those flowers are watercolor splotches with pen and ink doodling that I glued into the journal. I finished it with a stamped border. I wonder what it says about me that I can't ever work on just one thing at a time. Should I be worried? Nah...

Joggles

 I've been trying to get my hands on one of these fancy art journals for a long time but they were always sold out.

 That's what happens when well known You Tubers use your product.

 It's just a journal with watercolor paper pages that you can remove so you can use your gel plate with them. The only problem is that my gel plate is 5 x 7 and I ordered the 6 x 6 Joggles. Doh.

I've also been checking in with Etsy and Ebay to look for used stamp sets. This one was dirt cheap.

 I had lots of fun on my very first Joggles page cutting and pasting the cute little houses out of fancy paper.

 My little town is not glued down yet. I may have more to add or not.

I also want to thank Lucy for the sweet little hookie things she sent my way. Those bunnies are are just too adorable. Amirite? I can't do hooky things at all so I am always in awe when I get to see some sweet little stuffies up close.

And another big thank you goes to Valerie who sent me not one but TWO skeins of her gorgeous slinky cat, a very happy pile of material and some yummy maple candies. I can see a beautiful shawl in my future. Now to go pattern searching.......thanks so much!

82

 Mom would have been 82 today.

Since Daddio's departure I've thought about her more than I have in a while.

 In 1953 she was a young bride...

 ...and a young mother.

That's the beginning of a family that will soon include two more daughters.

 This is one of my favorite photos of her. She was always happiest at the beach.

My kids called her Granny and she took them down to the Bay every chance she could.

 Before she got sick we took her all the way to Maine one summer. We traveled through New England and into Canada so she could see lighthouses. This is as old as she ever got. She was my age when a frighteningly brief battle with leukemia took her from us. 

This photo I took of her when I was in college is how I like to remember her best. I was young, she was young and in this perfect little moment we both had our whole lives ahead of us.

Pansy Love

 I've been collecting pansies all spring.

 If I see one I don't have I buy it.

 I had no idea they came in so many colors and sizes.

 Right now my front porch pots are ablaze in color.

 It won't last long.

 As soon as the leaves fill in and we are in shade again the blooms will disappear.

I am going to miss all those sweet little monkey faces.

Tandem Fail

 I was heading down the foot on both of the two socks I have been working on and feeling very smug about it. I was already writing the FO post in my head.

 However, when I tried one on I realized in horror that I had forgotten to shape the heel. After working the flap I just picked up the gusset and knit on blissfully unaware of my ginormous boo boo.

 I didn't just do that on one. I did that on BOTH of them. Rip, rip, rip.

 It didn't take much time to fix the mess but it left me feeling really weirded out over this crazy error times two. I have knit lots of socks-I have 70 plus pairs in my sock bin alone, so how on earth did I do this-TWICE? That's a scary senior moment.

All's well that ends well but now I have kinky balls. I hate kinky balls.

Bits and Pieces

 The Mister wanted to go play golf yesterday so I had some time all to myself.

 I'm still working on Daddio's wedding ring quilt. I am now free motioning the rings themselves using Daddio's favorite thread. He had spools and spools of this variegated stuff. Every time we went to the fabric store he had to buy more.

I thought I would use it to do a continuous curve design on those little appliqued pieces which really need to be tacked down but it's turned out to be harder than I thought to get it right. Oh, well. On this one I am just going to embrace the wonky.

 I bought another smaller quilting hoop for his Dresden. I was having to work in a yoga position to get those borders done using my big hoop.

Bless you Amazon for always having just what I need to get the job done-and getting it here fast.

Fleeced

That lovely weekend of fleece washing bliss has not rubbed off. My little spinning corner in the living area has filled up in the past week.

 The Ladybug has this pretty pale green fiber going on.

 The Traditional is still working on Finley, the fleece that keeps on giving. I've been spinning this Shetland for three years. Three.

Here is that old Shetland I rescued last weekend. I couldn't be happier. It's turning out to be a lovely spin-and it almost went out in the garbage.