This and that.......

These skeins are the latest off the wheel - the mystery batts I was spinning. Not my favorite kind of spinning since it's a bit lumpy bumpy and it's medium soft, not something I want next to my skin, but I am determined to spin from my stash. I'm not sure what it will become, maybe something knitted and felted or if there's enough maybe a blanket.....will think on it a while.....quite a while.....

 

 I started knitting another Morning Surf Scarf as seen in Spin-Off magazine's Summer 2008 issue. The first one I knit was fingering weight handspun. This is out of a commercial yarn by Universal Yarns - Classic Shades Sequins Lite - can you see the little green sequins in it?  It was a fun yarn a friend and I bought last fall. I wish I had made the scarf a bit narrower but after doing a couple inches decided not to rip it out as this yarn gets very fuzzy with taking out stitches.

 We spent the past few days at the beach cottage - we'll be starting remodeling soon, we'll do all ourselves (except kitchen countertops) to keep the cost down.  Above you can see the tile wall behind Sam's chair (more on that in a bit) - the former pellet stove sat in this location. We took it out and gave it to a friend as the room is so small it would heat us out of there not to mention sitting just a couple feet away from it in the other chair and couch.  The closet door to the left will be taken out and drywall put up - we'll be opening that area up to the kitchen on the other side of this wall - the kitchen is woefully short on storage space.  That tiled wall behind the chair will be opened up on the top to see through to the kitchen - I'm thinking of hanging an old window frame in the opening for decor.  We thought about tearing out the entire wall and closet area but the house is so small we'd feel like we were sitting in the kitchen if we did that. So, back to the chair - we went out looking for a chair, I was thinking a used vintage cottagey small chair and ottoman to fit with the rest of the décor, an old chair that I'd slipcover - this electric leather recliner is what we ended up with - remind me not to go furniture shopping with Sam.......but he does love his chair.

 Here is Sam knocking that tile off the backer board.  Bailey and I supervised.

 Here it is with the tile removed - so much better.  Painting won't happen until after the closet door area is drywalled over but it already looks better.  The tile on the floor will stay until we get to replacing the carpet, the very dirty smelly carpet, we'll be putting in wood flooring, maybe one of the new engineered floors.

 The rest of our stay was spent relaxing and walking on the beach. This is the river inlet beach leading to the ocean, it's where we find most of our treasures.  Here's Bailey running at breakneck speed toward me.

 Just caught him in the corner of the frame - that is one happy dog.

 This is as far as he'll go into the water, who ever heard of a water dog that's afraid of water, he's our second Golden afraid of water. He's after that rock, every walk he's after that particular rock, not sure what he thinks it is. We were there at a very low tide so it won't ever get closer for him to get to without going deeper in the water......which won't happen........

 Treasures on the beach - snail shells that the hermit crabs grab when they need a bigger home. I'm sure there are agates somewhere in those rocks but I can rarely pick them out, even with my little agate cheat sheet.

 Small cockle shell on the beach - these are a dime a dozen

 I love the way the sand looks as the tide goes out - would make for a nice woven design, wouldn't it?

 I'm not sure what this is but I call it sea spaghetti - or it could be my hair after a windy day.

I have no clue what this little orange plant is - does it live in the ocean? or did it float down river from something on the land?  Don't know.....maybe I'll find out in the future......