Dog Days

A busy weekend with the grandkids ended at the beginning of the week, with (among other things) a trip to Lava Lands Visitor Center just south of Bend, where we did a couple of short hikes. Short, because it was very hot, and our granddog, Louis, was having trouble with his feet on the hot pavement and sand trails. 

I think poodles must have tough feet, because our dogs didn't seem bothered by it, but they were happy to drink a lot more water than usual. We had some beautiful views, and it was fun just being together.

The boys both wanted to hold Sandy's leash. I remembered the trick I learned with Therapy Animals of Utah of adding a second leash to the collar (or harness, in this case) so one of the boys could hold one leash and I could hold the others. They had to take turns.

After the visit, Louis decided he had had enough of being in the car, so he shredded his car bed.

On July 4th, the kids left to go home. I was singing in the Festival Chorus for the Fourteenth Annual Sound Fourth! Fourth of July Concert. It was a lot of fun, and the imperfect but charming performance by the Cascade Horizon Band brought back memories of celebrations from my childhood, where a small band performed on a bandstand set up on the shore of Jamaica Pond, where we lived then, just outside Boston. This was my view of the audience and our director, the only downside.

That night, I took Sandy out to our front yard to watch the fireworks, hoping the experience would inoculate him against fear of the loud bangs we're subjected to every July 4th. I held him up to see, and every time a rocket when up, I pointed to it and raved about how beautiful it was, and weren't we having fun. He seemed very interested and not at all frightened. (Photo from The Source Weekly.)

Later in the week, we took the dogs to the off-leash dog park at Pine Nursery. The meet-up group was supposed to have an event there during which dogs of participants could socialize with each other, followed by beer and eats at 10 Barrel Brewing's East Side location. When we got to the park a few minutes late, we couldn't find anyone, but the dogs got to have some off-leash time. While we were looking around, another person came, a lady with a silver miniature poodle a little smaller than Dusty. She was also looking for the group. We talked and decided it was late enough they must have cancelled. The three of us decided to go to the brewery and meet there.

We had a nice visit with Maggie and Asta. The dogs exchanged sniffs and we exchanged phone numbers. After we got home Maggie sent a text saying she received notification that the meeting at the dog park had been cancelled due to excessive heat. We had tried to sign up at the last minute but couldn't, so maybe it had already been cancelled then.

Sandy had another puppy training class on Sunday. Among other things, we got some tips on loose-leash walking. Sandy amused the class with his nonchalance when the trainer gave each dog a chew stick. Sandy played with it like a cat with a toy, then took it in his mouth and rolled around on the floor, stopping on his back as if he were just going to take a nap. One of the other dogs is pretty high-strung, and two others are a little nervous, so he got a lot of attention for being laid-back.

After the kids left on Tuesday, I got back to the quilts. I have finished all of the pieced blocks now. I'm using a pattern called "Disappearing Hourglass." You take an hourglass block, cut it up, move things around and put it back together to form a new design. This is an hourglass block, one I made for Johan's quilt to go with green.

You measure the block, divide the size by three and then cut it into thirds vertically and horizontally. After you rotate the nine resulting pieces and sew them together you can end up with this (but there are other variations):

Here's what the block looked like after cutting:

This is how the pieces were rotated before sewing them back together in their new orientations:

There's a YouTube video demonstrating the technique.

I had decided to put the blocks on point with setting squares. First I had to figure out how to arrange the blocks, because they are all different from each other. I gave up my design wall when we moved, but I decided I could do it on my computer just as well, so I took a photo of each block. Then I put them into a word-processing document and arranged them in rows, moving them around until I was satisfied that the individual fabrics and other characteristics of the blocks were dispersed. Here's a screen shot of what I ended up with. (They aren't very evenly spaced, because I didn't think that was important.) There is one block where I forgot to turn the center square. Can you find it? I think it make the quilt interesting, as do the blocks where the pattern just about disappears.

Now all I have to do is sew them together in diagonal rows, with the blocks in each row of my screenshot in the same locations, only on point. I hope to get that done this week.

While the kids were here, Johan found a beetle that had a body about one inch long and striped. He said it hissed at him. When we went to look, the beetle had run off. However, a few days later, I found this fellow in the dog water dish. I "rescued" him and left him on the rail. He was there long enough for me to get a photo. Peter looked him up and learned he was a Ten-lined (hissing) June Beetle. Perhaps I shouldn't have saved his life, because the larvae feed on roots of grass, bushes and trees, but I did, and he left after he dried out.

In other dog-related news, we found another one of Sandy's teeth, this time on the mat the dog dish rests on. We now have two souvenirs of his early puppyhood.

I've continued to experiment with using the pressure cooker to heat food that normally would go in the gas oven, since our new trailer won't have one of those, just the microwave/convection oven that needs electricity (shown below, with the sticker on the door).

We will have the gas cooktop, so if we are camping where we don't have electricity, we should be able to heat things up in the pressure cooker on that.

Here's what I have to work with, shown here on the stove in my house kitchen.

This is a Presto 6-quart pressure cooker with several choices of racks. I found a silicone "sling" online that can be used to put around a dish or bowl in the pressure cooker for reheating. I'm also getting a springform pan I can use. As I've done with the plastic food storage containers, I can line it with heavy-duty foil and freeze a casserole. The springform pan will be easy to remove from the frozen meal and then replaced for cooking, so I can use the same pan over and over. The square containers will not go into the pressure cooker, obviously, so I will need to put the food on a metal rack.

I have bought new sheets and a new duvet cover to replace the old ones, which are worn out. 

Now I'm knitting a new dishcloth with some of the yarn I used for warp for the rugs I made for our fifth wheel. 

I decided that grey, aqua and teal will be the mail colors in the new trailer. The woodwork is grey, and the upholstery is an exciting beige. The rugs have grey and beige in them, but also some aqua. I can probably only use two of the rugs at a time in the new trailer, but it will be good to have a spare in case one gets muddy.

We hope to be able to pick up our new camping trailer next week.

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil and Mariah, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Kultainen käki cardigan and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating), but also the dishcloth.

What's on my loom: I only made a few picks on the placemats.

What's on my sewing machine: Still the quilt, but ready to put the blocks together.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In Reading Things, Mandy reads her knitting, but also other things.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Die Unendliche Geschichte by Michael Ende. I'm really enjoying listening to it in German at .7 speed (70% of normal). 

What's in my wine glass: Bodegas De Olmo Garnacha 2019, from Spain. Very...Spanish.

What's my tip of the week: I should have worked back from a finished size for a block that was an even number, such as 10" or 11" instead of 10.5", which is what I got starting out with an arbitrary 7" square to make my original half-square triangles. When you divide a finished block size by 3, it's nice if it's something you can measure accurately with a ruler divided into eighths and sixteenths instead of decimals.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 

Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is available from BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. The stories are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Nesting for Winter

Why is my yarn stash in guest room?


This isn't even all of it. Not all of the yarn is in view. I would need a wide-angle lens to get it all in.

Back to the question: A few months ago we discovered we had moths, originating in our Navajo rugs in the storeroom. While I was sad about the rug damage, I was frantic about my stash. I began freezing it in batches in our deep freeze. As each batch came out of the freezer, I would throw it onto the guest bed. I'd been planning to reorganize my fiber studio, so this seemed like a good time.

Here's my stash of Knit Picks Palette, before organizing by color and putting it all away in a cabinet:
I just dumped it all on my cutting mat. Here are the upper cabinets organized. The quilting fabrics are on the left. Yarn for specific projects is on the right. Sock yarn (which doesn't count as stash) is on the top shelf of each of the cabinets on the right. A friend pointed out that I could store yarn in that suitcase on the top right, but I had to explain that the suitcase holds my thank-you notes for all the people who give me...ahem...yarn, spinning fiber and quilting fabric. (Hint, hint! Wink, wink!)

The tidied-up fiber studio still has a lived-in look:


And another view:

My cutting area is ready to be used again, now that the pile of Palette has been put away.

The cabinet was an old bathroom cabinet, rescued after a replacement was installed. It's also useable as a light table. We had a glass company cut a piece of 3/4" plexiglas to the right size and frost one side. DH took the "decorative" fronts off the part that used to house a sink and put a shelf in to hold two under-counter lights, shining up under the plexiglas. I used this light table a lot when I was working on my Delectable Pathways quilt.


The design wall hides a closet fitted with shelves for storage. For the design wall, I took a queen-size Warm and Natural quilt batt and sewed battens onto the top and bottom. the ends of the top batten slip onto a couple of hooks on each side of the closet.


I can place single blocks on the surface, and they will stick to it. As long as there isn't a breeze, they will stay put. Larger sections of quilt top need to be pinned, though. I can roll it up and store it, with or without my project. The curtains underneath are the same as those in the window. On the design wall are the house blocks fellow quilters made for a quilt for Habitat for Humanity. It's going to be auctioned off next month. I got the last two blocks yesterday (not shown). The fabric on the right is what I expect to use as sashing.

I'm now ready to tackle the weaving/spinning area. The corner with the little Jøtul gas stove doesn't look too bad.

However, the rest of that part of the room leaves much to be desired. I plan to replace the futon-type sofa bed with the nice sofa-bed couch I bought at IKEA on Saturday. It will be delivered next Saturday. If we have good luck assembling it, I can post a photo next week.

You can see my antique quilting frame between the couch and the chest of drawers. The drawers to the old entertainment center are sitting on the bench in front of the sliding door. The main section is outside, covered with a tarp. We have to get rid of that huge piece of furniture. The kumihimo "loom" (covered with a white bag)is going to the weavers' guild. A friend asked me to find a home for it, and I thought the guild would like to have it. I'll post photos of the finished area when it happens.

I did get some projects worked on this week. The big ta-da of the week was my finished Delectable Pathways (aka "Peggy's Sistine Chapel," so named because of how long it has taken) quilt top. I'm going to hand quilt it, and my friend Julie, the professional machine quilter, has it now to baste for me.


Joanie and I were only at Common Threads for a little while on Thursday, because I drove her to her doctor's appointment in Salt Lake City. (Her other friends and I take turns driving her places.) We did stop in and have some coffee and something to eat at Georgette's before I took her home. I didn't get any photos, though. Now that Joanie doesn't drive anymore, she likes to have friends come and knit with her on Friday, so I got some work done on my Johan socks. I'm ready to start the gusset:


The big family news for this week was the special viewing of "The Boxtrolls" for Laika employees and families, which includes DS2, his wife and the two boys. Our son does special effects for Laika films. Everyone needs to go see this movie and give me a full report!

Johan greeted the new adventure (his first 3D movie) with his usual exuberant enthusiasm.

What's on my needles: Some progress on the Johan Socks socks. Some progress also on "the elusive Mr. F." (from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austin) One leg to go.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness, from Audible. Outstanding read! Now listening to A Thread So Thin by Marie Bostwick. Still reading Joseph Lallo's The Book of Deacon from Book Bub.

What's my app of the week: Goodreads. I can find out about a book I'm thinking about reading or listening to before I buy or check out from the library.

What's in my wine glass: Trader Joe's Coastal Syrah 2012. "Moderate tannins and lingering oaks." Yep, that describes it!

What's my tip of the week: Yellow Finn or Yukon Gold potatoes can be microwaved (according to your microwave's instructions) and cooled. Then the skins are easy to peel off with your fingers. You can cool them off under cold water if you're in a hurry. The pups love the peels!

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.