Horse Update, June

 Lots of new this month:

1  New bell boots for Camaro because he AGAIN pulled a shoe off right before he was due to have a reset.  GRR.  Keep your fingers crossed this does the trick. Until April, he'd been very good about keeping his shoes on after I switched farriers back in Sept. 2020. . . 

2  Homemade bit wipes! Because my increasingly cruddy bit was affecting my self esteem even though I'd been in the habit of dunking it in his water bucket after every ride.  That quickie rinse just wasn't doing the job.  So I found an easy recipe online for bit wipes using shop towels, peppermint extract, and water.  Since DH has mulitple rolls of shop towels, and I have peppermint extract, and we have well water at home, this was basically free to make.  I did buy a set of lidded Rubbermaid storage bowls so I'd have a container to put my newly made wipes in, but I was in need of some lunchbox sized food containers anyway. . . 

These wipes work great!  And Camaro never hesitates to bridle up now.  Win-win!

3  Silicone seated riding tights, for me.  I'm really old fashioned, and I have bemoaned how difficult it is (as well as expensive) to find full seat breeches with real leather seats anymore.  Even the fake leather seats seem to be phasing out for the sticky silicone kind.  After many years of debating the merits of silicone seated riding apparel, I finally dove in and got myself a pair.  Seeing them mentioned on a dressage blog I follow, as well as a sale coupled with a discount code kind of tipped me off the fence.  Plus, I saw them in green, (GREEN!! my favorite color) and next thing I knew I was pushing the add to cart button.  

Hunter green full seats!  

*swoon*

I was really leery of 

a) tights, because while I'm not svelte anymore (middle age *cough cough*) I have never had hips either so I've been reluctant to buy tights for fear of them just sliding right off my waist and down to my boot tops.

b) that mysterious silicone seat.  Would I love it?  Would I hate it?  I've been not so fond of the not-real-leather seats in breeches the last decade or two (oh my, I'm getting old) and I'm just not a fan of plastics in general.

Well, they arrived, I tried them on, decided while looking like the lumpy aging rider that I am (never been curvy; I went from boyishly board straight through the lower abs and hips to lumpy) I do love the color.  It's even better in person than in the photo.  It took a few days before I got to ride in them, due to our oppressive heat and humidity for half a week running.  After their inaugural ride, I do have to say I didn't notice a huge difference in performance from my beloved old-school real leather breeches.  And, with a belt (they have belt loops, hooray!) there was no issue with them sliding down to unseemly positions.  So, I guess I'm a grudging convert to tights and silicone seats.

If you're interested, they are Esprit PRO tights, the old model which is currently on sale in limited sizes and colors (darn, because I decided I liked them well enough I wanted another pair in tan but when I looked my size was sold out in that color).

Riding wise, Camaro and I are making progress. Some days it's great canters, some days it's leg yield at the trot, some days it's more than 3 steps in a row of shoulder in at the walk.  We're also riding outside as weather permits.

Sewing and Stitching Update, June

 Sewing done in the past month: NONE

Stitching done in the past month: quite a bit on my Tuesday and Thursday Faline babysitting afternoons.  I have finished all the cross stitching on my Early Morning Santa, and just have a little back-stitching to do and then ALL the beading.  This one has a lot of beads. Everywhere in the picture below where it looks like I missed a spot, that's all going to be filled in with beads.  

Beading will get done at some point this summer, but I'm not setting a hard deadline on it.  That type of work requires a nice sunny day and for me to not be tired or have anything distracting going on around me.  Given all the stuff that goes on in the summer (gardening, etc) outdoors, it will probably have to be an unbearably hot and humid one for me to be in the house on a sunny day with nothing more pressing to do than stitch on teeny tiny beads.

Meanwhile. . . DD1, DD2 and Faline and I were in Shipshewana earlier this week. So of course, my fabric stash just grew some more.  It's impossible to resist getting fabric at both Lolly's and Yoder's Department Store. I brought home a whole lot of fat quarters, having told myself I was not purchasing yardage without a specific project in mind for it.

Some of the fat quarters are the same, so I do have a yard of this or a half yard of that to work with on some ideas for future things like a sun dress for Faline, and some cloth napkins for DD2.  By and large, the fat quarters at Lolly's are fabrics they no longer carry on the bolt, so sometimes buying multiple fat quarters (if you can find them in the infamous boat) is the only way to get a particular fabric that catches your fancy.

By this time in July, DD1 should know what the gender of the coming grandbaby is, so I will start official fabric pull and cutting for that baby's quilt in the coming weeks. I all ready have several fabrics in mind if it's a girl, but no backing yet.  If it's a boy, I don't have quite as many fabrics chosen but I do have a backing that was purchased the year DD1 and Honorary Son got married (a fabric she saw and loved, and I secretly bought and put away for their future son). Anticipation!

Knitting Update, June

Happy June, everyone!

Time for my monthly knitting update (a la Ginny's Yarn Along style).

Last month, I mentioned that I had finished my Destination Unknown socks (3rd pair from left in photo below) and wasn't sure what I would do next knitting-wise.  There's a Christmas stocking to knit before Thanksgiving for upcoming Grandbaby #5, but I really didn't feel quite like starting it in May to set aside until such time as the child has a name to be knitting into the stocking.  So I decided to do some mending.  

What I thought was 'some' mending of a few pair of socks that had gotten holes worn in the heels or balls of feet--or both--over the last couple years since I'd last darned hand knit socks ended up being a whole lot of socks!  The photo below shows them all mended, washed, and hanging on the clothesline to dry.  Also shown are the fingerless mitts I knit early this spring, and my pair of Destination Unknown socks finished in late April/early May.  

Everything in that line up, with the exception of the purple and green socks 2nd from right (which were a pair I received in a hand knit sock exchange pre-2016) was made by me since I learned to knit in January 2013.  In fact, my very first pair of socks is the 4th pair from left.

I was a little astounded by the number of socks on the line.  Those are just my socks, knit for myself.  Plus there were about 9 more pair in my dresser at the time (including 6 pair of short anklet type socks).  That's a lot of socks!  And when I stopped to tally up all the socks I've made and gifted to others in the last nine years, well, that's a whole lot of socks!! At least 30 pair of socks total probably closer to 40 pair. 

Guess I'm kinda partial to knitting socks.  

Darning all those socks took my knitting time for about a week.  During that time, I decided that before I start on that Christmas stocking, I wanted to make a pair of socks for Faline's (and this new grandbaby's) other grandma, who is a friend and often admires my socks when she notices me wearing them. 

I chose some Felici yarn in Ever After from my stash to use for her socks, and am making the Trickle pattern found on Ravelry.  I think she's going to love them. Unfortunately, the picture doesn't do justice to the colorway, but you can see the stitch pattern pretty well.  The first sock is knit through the heel flap currently.

It's that time of year when there's lots and lots and lots more outdoor work to be done, so I expect my knitting time to slow quite a bit. My goal is to work on these through the summer and have them ready to gift in mid-August when she and I resume Tag Team Grandma babysitting Faline for the coming school year.

Reading has also slowed down. In May I read one book.  I didn't finish Braiding Sweetgrass before it had to be returned to the library--there are lots of people who have it on request.  I will have to try again to get it in the winter when I have more reading time again.

The book I did get to read all the way through was Her New Story by Laura Bradford.  It's ok. Nothing tremendous, but good enough that I read the whole thing.  Light, easy reading, but too much trying to just generally throw modern women's topics into the Amish fiction genre and not enough real substance for me to rate it as really good.

Right now I am about halfway through Sold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris.  I had read a book by this author last year, and wanted to read more from her.  This one seems a little slower to me; it's just now picking up and just in time because about 20 pages ago I was thinking I might set it aside and read something different. Now, however, I'm wishing I had time to sit down and read straight through to the end.