I Like #181

 I'm way late to the party this week, but better late than never I guess.  I had an unusual 8:00 am class this morning that threw off my Thursday routine.  It's a class on molecular genetics which I always enjoy, but lecturing for two hours through a mask is tough.

There are things to like:

We're in high early-fall flower season here now, the summer heat has broken (possibly temporarily but still yay!) and we've had a fair amount of rain lately, so the flowers are having fun.  

I loved this orange and pink blended zinnia.  In person it's even prettier.

Fall mums

The dahlias are doing well- this frilly one didn't produce many flowers in the summer but now is covered with buds and several are opening now.

These have shifted color, earlier in the year they were much paler, white with a touch of pink.  Now they're much darker and much purplier.

Blue and I went to hike around the lake again early Saturday morning, again no people so yay!  But very very muddy and it was strangely very foggy.  You can see Blue's head is wet from running through some wet grass.  I love the moisture, but I wish it were on the west coast, in colorado, in the northwest, everywhere they're so desperate for rain.

I did a bunch of baking this weekend, apple season is almost upon us and I realized I still have bags and bags of frozen apples, bananas, and zucchini to use up.  A friend from church does a Sunday-lunch outreach to the local homeless community, every week he packs 80 lunches to take around to people, so I figured I'd make some baked goods to send along this week. Banana and zucchini muffins and cookies for all. 

I made my embroidered mask this week.  I decided to try a new origami-pleated mask style after seeing it recommended by Elizabeth on Occasional Pieced Quilt.  The pattern is free on the Japanese Sewing book site here, and is easy to make and follow.   I did the embroidery before making it into a mask, using fairly heavy perle cotton for the stitching.  I really like the way it fits, and if I make any more masks for myself, I'll probably use this approach.

Here is Bentley just for fun.

I took this picture of the clear monofilament thread that decided to escape!  Apparently it was wound so thick and tightly on the bobbin that it broke the bobbin!  I came out to find the bobbin broken in half and this fun slinky springy coil of thread.  I'm kind of aggravated because good monofilament thread isn't cheap and that's a whole bobbin's worth that can't be untangled but it makes an interesting coil.

And just for fun, another different grasshopper.

I hope everyone is staying safe and not suffering too much from fires and bad air quality in the west!  Click over to LeeAnna's for more things to like!