Pictures!

First, some shots of what I haven't been doing (not so much, anyway)

This is 3/5ths of Bevin's quilt. That sounds so much closer to done than 72/120ths. I like this more and more the bigger is gets. The blocks are 7", it'll be 70x84 when I get there. Unless I have a zillion extra strips, in which case it might get bigger. Or I might get a Halloween mudroom quilt out of the deal. There's a thought...

Next!

Katherine's scarf progresses slowly since I only work on it at the band concerts. Tomorrow's the last one of the summer, and there's pie and ice cream - I suspect there won't be much knitting. Summer's winding down already. The pool closes Friday, Saturday's Vergennes Day, and school starts a week from Wednesday. Tori mentioned she hasn't even been to the A&W this year! Scandalous, we have to remedy that. Soon!

Next!

This is why I haven't been knitting or sewing. The patio project continues. After hauling out all the 1" mixed (the technical name for the dusty foot slicer stone that was on there) we started working on the grade in prep for the 2 yards of 3/4" clean and 2 yards of topsoil that will be delivered tomorrow. My suspicion that this house was built by not-too-bright monkeys continues, though I suspect that the excavating work was contracted out to gorillas. I understand that when you backfill a foundation, you sometimes fill with different stuff than you dug out, Here in Clayland, that makes some sense. But. filling with large rocks? Leaving huge water holding voids that could, potentially shift and compromise a foundation with any sort of seismic activity? The New England area isn't as seismically active as the west coast, but we get occasional small rumbles. It's not really so much of a concern, but it annoys me that like so much else with this house, things just weren't done with care.

That area we've finished is maybe, maybe 12' square. We went down only 7" by the step, and gradually less as we worked our way this way. And THIS is what came out of there. That's some rock pile! And goes a long way to explaining my numb fingers and sore back this morning. Back to it again today, and tomorrow. Perhaps by Wednesday the grading will be done and the new stone can go in. Then a 2" layer of fines (rock dust) and the bricks on top of that. This is the back-breaker, it's downhill after tomorrow. That is if we got the grade right...