All right, it is summer here! With temperatures hovering above 40 C for most of the days and some nights our outdoor time has been reduced to a few minutes here and there. Any other attempts – a four-hour golf game in the morning or a longer than expected walk from a bus stop – and one is in for the risk of headache, overheating and heat stroke. Even with drinking plenty of fluids, trying to stay in the shade as much as possible and a little breeze it is pretty much impossible to escape the heat. It is like walking in an oven. This has an curious impact on our activities and seems almost to mirror what effect a winter in Canada would have: one spends endless hours inside with a lot of sitting and eating, interspersed with a little walking. Luckily, this is a time as well that allows for a greater focus on all my crafts. To keep my motivation up I try to go to the crochet and knit meetings and I signed up for “Tour de Fleece”  (TdF) with the “wool n’spinning” group which is a fibre spinning event running during the Tour de France. The group members motivate each other with posting pretty photos of their current spin and finished yarns. My goal is to spin through all my cotton (about 140 gm) in earthy colours of natural dark green, white and brown. I had hopes for a more consistent and thinner result, but am ok with the rather rustic thick-and-thin look of the dark green 2-ply braid in a heavy fingering/DK weight. The white pima cotton I just started to spin behaves even more obstinate with the fibres trying to fly away and not liking the long-draw/woolen spin. Figuring out which draft (a supported woolen, may be?) and which uptake will work best will challenge me for the next little while.

organic white pima, dark green and brown fifo cotton

dark green cotton single

Finished dark-green cotton 2-ply

In preparation for the Tour de Fleece my motivation soared and one day I finished cleaning all my bobbins – resulting in two mini skeins -, a 3-ply cat hair yarn and a pair of socks for my husband. I don’t think I have finished so many different items in one day and was proud to have three (small) skeins of yarn and a knitting project to show for it.

3-ply cat hair from hand-carded rolags

Auburn brown 2-ply BFL

Sun-yellow 2-ply silk/merino

Socks that rock for my husband

Another group I want to sign up for is “Stashdash” run by the ladies from the “Knitgirllls blog”. It is a group event where one is trying to get as many items finished between May 26th and August 20th and post about it in the Ravelry group. Almost everything in spinning, crocheting and knitting counts towards it as long as a few rows or meters of the finished item have been done in that time frame. Since one can sign up for different levels starting at a 1,000 meters and going up to 15,000+ meters I am quite busy knitting on my blanket and my cardigan. The latter could have been finished a few weeks ago if I weren’t distracted by making sure I spin every day for the TdF and not being able to lug the cardigan around with me as easily as the blanket squares. I have not declared my level, yet, as I am hoping to finish with 5,000+ meters and one can declare a few days before the deadline. The blanket will account for about 2,900 m, the cardigan for 700 m, the socks for 300 m and the spinning for about 1,000 m by August. It could be possible….:)

8 squares framed, 4 more to go

I-cord along the edges

new free-style lace shawl

The blanket and the cardigan will be finished by the deadline for sure. But to keep hope alive that I might even be able to reach the 7k-mark I started a free-style half-circle shaped lace scarf which could add another 600 m to the goal. Who knows how much spun yarn I can add to the total – and voila!?!

As much as I love to sit and knit, spin and crochet I sometimes miss a bit more of a mental challenge and to keep things going I am continuing my Arabic lessons. It is a smaller class this time and I think it will be more effective as it runs twice a week for 8 weeks.

I hope you are having the most beautiful and crafty summer in your area of the world! Thank you, for reading my blog.    Maike