Beating The Heat!

Those of us on the Easty Coasty have been experiencing incredible heat indexes over the past week.

I even gave up on my morning driveway walks because by 10am it could be 80+ and I just wasn't feeling it.

This is so uncommon for us in the mountains....usually our HIGHS don't go above 85 mid afternoon, but this was definitely over the top.

And the thunderstorms my weather app kept promising?

Fizzled.

Barely made the pavement wet if there was anything, and it was dry 5 minutes later.

When it is this hot out we just stay in and sew!  How Hazel is dealing with all of this fur, I have no clue.

She has "free range" to go outside during the day time, and I bring her in when it is time for me to head home in the evenings.

(Actually, bring her in is a misnomer.  I call her, she comes running.  She knows treats await!)

But I can't even get her to want to go outside with this heat.  And thus was our holiday weekend.

My fourth of July attire!

Picked up this t shirt after a trip to Scotland, got one for my dad, too.

By evening time we were at our mechanic friend's place.

Every fourth (sometimes the fifth - it depends where the day of the week falls) He and his family host a customer appreciation cookout complete with so much good food, friendly conversation, lots of kids running around catching fire-flies and of course fire works.

The temps had cooled off once the sun went behind the mountain and we really enjoyed ourselves.

You won't catch me going to a big city fireworks extravaganza....who wants to deal with parking and getting out of there at the end?

But this small neighborly thing?  Love it!

Loved it so much that I didn't take any other photos of our night than these burgers on the grill.

Yesterday - Sunday the 5th.  I took a day to putter in the studio and do a bunch of cutting.

A couple of hours in....that spot between my shoulder blades roared back into angry pain and I shut it all down and returned home by early afternoon.

And I WAS feeling better.  I guess too much rotary cutting exacerbated the whole thing once again.

I spent the rest of the afternoon evening on the couch with the tens unit attempting to calm everything back down.

Rotary cutting.  Between the shoulder pain.  Lightbulbs are going off.

I spent a lot of time over the past many months doing a lot of paper piecing, which means a lot of unit trimming before removing paper.  Could that be the culprit that started this whole flare up??

I'm looking at YOU Hello Gretchen quilt!! (*&@#$(*&@#(*$&  I think it all started there.  I really do.  Because it was when I was loading the Hello Gretchen into the long arm and reaching for the take up roller that I felt that first twinge of "what the heck is that pain?!"

Breaks.  I need more breaks.  I need to stand up and move in between rounds of sewing, trimming cutting - I need to minimize the marathon trimming of 1000 units activity.

So it was this last night.

Please notice.  Tula is half on my leg.  Not quite in my lap, but she chose to just lean on my leg.  YAY!

This motif is FINISHED!

Only two more to go -

The beginnings of one that looks like fourth of July firecrackers.

And I admit it.  I'm thinking of starting another one.  I'm playing with hexie graph paper - because sewing these in the evenings has been so enjoyable.

I don't have anything I want to hand quilt available right now.

And I'm going to need a travel project by the time I head to India in September!

There are still some openings in our Christmas Market Tour through  Switzerland, France and Germany in November, right after Thanksgiving. I'd love to have you join me.

I'm also looking forward into 2027 with a tour to Thailand in JANUARY for my birthday! (I'm going to need loads of hexies for this one.)

I always try to go somewhere fairly warm for January - it makes a great winter break. Have you ever wanted to visit Thailand? Let's go!

I'm returning to Bali in July of 2027 on a fantastic batiking expedition.  Are you interested?

And yes, we are going back to Scotland in September of 2027.  Where are my Outlander fans?  It's going to be an exciting travel year.

Today? More taking it easy. Time out to rest, stretch, relax.

It doesn't give me as much progress on anything to share here, and besides the continuing blocks for my Romania quilt - I really NEED to find that sewing machine stitchery I finished just as we were learning about Jason's brain tumor issue in October.

I put it away, in a fog. I don't know where it is...and it needs to be the travel project for our 2027 trips!  WHERE IS IT?

Send all of the good juju you can so that it turns up somewhere and I can add borders to it and finish it.

What's up for you today?

Are you continuing your holiday into today, or is it back to the grind for you?

Quiltville Quote of the Day -

Can we extend our 3-day weekend to 4 days? 

And did the 3-day weekend go Friday Saturday Sunday, or is that Saturday Sunday Monday in which case I'm still on my weekend? 

Have a good Monday, however you spend it -