first batch of rainbow tea towels!

my first batch of tea towels is complete! they're so pretty and i was not at all done playing with color, so we made a new warp in the same color palette. 

i say we, because i am very fortunate to have my own personal weaving mentor, who gave me her loom and who is helping me every step of the way. 

to start off with, i played with some yarn i had in my stash - love the tweed effect of the nubbly yarn. i did enough to be able to make a little bag and now i've begun on the next set of tea towels. 

 

the prodigal molly returns

i hadn't seen molly dolly since before we went to arizona back in may. she wasn't here when we came home and she seriously didn't show up again until two days ago - july 10 to be exact. my last photo of her before that was april 6, though i am certain that i saw her on may 3, the day we left for arizona. at first, i wasn't worried - she can easily disappear for a few days and maybe a week, but i'll admit that eventually i thought something had happened to her. 

i was just sick about it, but couldn't even bring myself to speak it out loud. i would go out in the garden and talk to her, both out loud and just in my head. i was so sad to think that i might not know what ever happened to her. but now she's back, like nothing happened. i wonder where she was? billy, her grandson, does this all the time - he clearly has another home and lives there most of the year, only coming home for a few weeks every summer. but molly's never disappeared for more than a few days before this. she must have been angry that we left for 10 days. 

she's 12 years old now - yes, it was 12 years ago that we brought that tiny grey kitten back from our trip to minnesota and south dakota. 

at long last

after going all this time without ever having covid, it has finally caught up with me. so much for my theory that i hadn't gotten it because of my b-negative blood type.  i think it was last week's travels and i think husband also had it last week. thanks to 4 vaccinations, it's like a bad cold/flu. i have a fever, a headache, a very sore throat, aches all over my body and a weird revulsion to fish. husband was eating torskerøgn for lunch and i couldn't even look at it. i had some avocado toast. it must be the new flirt variant - they try to make it sound fun, naming it that, but it's not fun at all. 

an abandoned house in belgium

do you ever just want to give it all up, buy a falling down house to fix up and move to belgium? me neither. though this house near gosselies was rather tempting. tucked in the undergrowth along a cobblestone street, windows open, quietly falling into disrepair, yet strangely appealing. i peeked in a window. it was like the people left it from one day to the next, taking nothing with them. i so found myself wanting to know the story. what happened? was it elderly family members who died and the family didn't want the house? was there a murder? have i been listening to too many true crime podcasts? could i learn to speak french?

i don't really know what to make of belgium. i've been in brussels a few times and also to ghent. this was my first trip to the french-speaking part. it felt like entering a pocket in time. quiet, slow, and maybe a bit abandoned and forgotten, like this house.