Damp & Cool

After raining on and off from yesterday afternoon into this morning, it felt like camping as I put on my damp clothes this morning. I have socks on too! Two pairs, plus sweat pants and a sleeveless jacket over my t-shirt. To warm things up around here, I put the oven on self-clean for 4 hours. It was pretty dirty after cooking yet another yummy whole chicken last night. Plus it’s clearing up and there’s intermittent sun, so I’m feeling more comfortable. The best thing is sleeping better at night with all the covers on.

I was trying to get a picture tutorial on grafting (Kitchener stitch) sock toes. The way I do it is really easy and I don’t have to look anything up any more. I just have to concentrate a bit so I do it in the morning when I’m refreshed and not late at night. So many books and tutorials make grafting out to be so hard when it really isn’t. However, we’re all just going to have to wait until the weather is a little less iffy. Natural light is what I’m looking for here.

Meanwhile, I’ve been looking up potential shopping stops for our September vacation to the US. We may not get to some of them, but at least I’ll know how to get there if it’s possible. There’s our usual must-visits: Beads & Beyond (no website but a big favourite) in Bellevue, Frantz Art Glass in Shelton, and Shipwreck Beads in Lacey, WA and of course Powell’s Books in Portland. This time I’ve got a yarn shop in Portland that looks yummy too: Yarn Garden which even has a coffee/tea shop attached. And since we’re hoping to get to San Francisco, that puts us in spitting distance of Lacis in Berkeley and Dharma in San Rafael. Also in SF proper there’s Artfibers and Britex for perusal. That should put a big dent in the MasterCard huh? Are we the only people who shop for craft supplies and books on our holidays instead of clothing, knickknacks, and souvenirs? We also stop at wineries, grocery stores. and state campsites! Other tourist traps? Not so much.

In crafty news, I’ve put together a heap of papers that hopefully will become my holiday journal. Spectrum, my study group, is coming on Saturday so we can practice the Coptic Stitch binding technique again. I need to get my covers and signatures ready by then.

I’ve got some dark charcoal Sisu sock yarn for the Almost-Son-in-Law’s belated birthday socks. They will for sure be conservative enough for him! I have cuffs done so far. Plus I’ve cast on one of his sweetie/My Darling Daughter’s socks but I’m not expecting to get too far on them yet. The colours she dyed though are fabulous and bright: mostly red and orange with a smidge of green and brown. Good thing her socks are quite a bit bigger than mine or I’d have a hard time giving them to her when they’re done! Too pretty! Other things are still sitting around waiting for me. Good thing they’re patient little inanimate objects, eh?

What else? Oh yeah, I went to see my audiologist yesterday and I'm good for 6 months with my hearing aids now before the next check. I also got lots more batteries and some of the little rubber thingies that go inside my ear canal. I almost lost one of them the other day, so I need some spares! Plus they do wear out eventually. I'm still liking these things a lot and don't even notice them in my ears anymore. I do wish they wouldn't eat batteries as if they were Pez candies though.