Eye candy

We need to start today with some eye candy, aka The Carrot:

Considering the glacial pace of my knitting lately it was a shock to discover

I'm almost out of caked sock yarn! 

Two pairs of socks left and then I have to get out my ball winder and set up with some more. Also I think I might finally be running out of Vesper Sock Yarn, which has been my go-to for fifteen years, give or take. Not sure when it will ever ship to Canada again. Not panicking... but I also heard this week that Kleenex will no longer be sold in Canada starting soon, so, stability breached. 

Anyway I gotta cake that sock yarn, but I've been writing so hard the last few months all our horizontal surfaces kind of piled up. You know how you put stuff onto a table so your hands are free and you can put it all away where it's supposed to go? It's a lot like that here, except more like when it's three weeks before you have time to do the putting away part. Or in my case.... h'mmm. I've lost count of how many weeks. 

So this weekend, I am CLEANING. Or at least, tidying. Yep, all weekend. 

Gulp. We need more eye candy.

Also I might have had another Paris Breakfast today to cope with the whole concept. As usual on such a day, it's sunny and gorgeous out. There are so many things I'd rather do, but I figure if I don't try to write or play or read or knit for two tiny days, the house can run on autopilot again for ages. And I can cake sock yarn while watching a movie on TCM, always a favourite pastime.

 

Traditionally, Labour Day Weekend is when we do projects around here, so I could have saved this job for that. I don't know why we're not always off barbecuing with friends like other people on such weekends, except that Pete and I are both pretty driven with this sort of thing and any long weekend automatically pings as three days to get through something big, rather than three days to sleep in (though, let's face it, in my case the sleeping in usually happens too.)

To that end, I have set out my must-do-on-Labour-Day project gear out in a decorative way, hoping to recapture the magic of my sock darning pile. And when I say 'recapture' I'm talking about the moment when I thought, if I just put it all out there in plain view, I will actually pick up a sock and darn it randomly through the day, and before I know it, all these socks will be completely free of holes and weak spots. 

Do I know how to make paint stripper and sanding paper
look glam or what? I should totally get a hardware store stylist job.

 

The reality of my darning design was several bowls of dusty socks, because I didn't factor in how busy I was going to be with writing (slammed, in fact) or messy the living room was getting as a result, and how not thrilling it was to curl up there with a darning needle and an audiobook. I'm hoping once I finally start stripping the paint off our mini nightstand from the cottage, the way I expected to do back in July, I'll be excited to finish and ready to paint it up in some fun way. 

Meanwhile, here's something I'm already excited about. A big wooly dust mop! It is true. And it is something I never, ever expected to say. But check this out:

And now for the closeup:

the STRIPES!! and also, the colours!
Seriously, they match our decor. It was meant to be.

 

This is the Big Wooly from Sladust, who I really wish was paying me in kind (the dry dust mop kind) for this product endorsement. Actually I can't speak to whether it works. But it's washable, biodegradeable, and much prettier to look at than popular landfill-clogging alternatives so I want both the mop and duster. Maybe more than one of each even. Maybe for Christmas? 

(that was not scarcasm, btw. I may hate cleaning, but I love wool. And I'm pretty sure I could come to love shaking out a dusty mop from the back deck, if I got to look at stripy wooly bits flapping in the breeze.)

 

Okay I had better get moving. Fingers crossed that next week I am sharing all sorts of elegant photographs of dust-free shelves, attractively staged with yarny treats. For now let's just hope you're having a funner weekend than me!