Breaking the Back of Summer

July went out with a bang. Yesterday was brutal. We got up to 100 degrees here and it was even hotter than that down in Kalispell. The wind started blowing around lunchtime, with stiff, hot breezes well into the wee hours of the morning. It only went down to 72 overnight instead of the 50s. (I usually open the doors and windows when I get up to let the cool air in, then close them back up to keep things cool, but I can’t get the house cooled off this morning.) A new wildfire started south of us in the mountains on the east side of Flathead Lake, prompting immediate evacuations. Firefighters were able to jump on it quickly and get it out, thankfully, and people were returning home by nightfall. To top it all off, dispatch was having problems with outgoing communications to rural fire departments. I thought for sure we were going to get some big, devastating event. It just felt like that kind of a day to me.

ETA: The winds shifted overnight and blew this fire away from the first evacuation zone and toward Flathead Lake. More evacuations were ordered for that area and now we’re hearing that upwards of 20 homes may have been lost. The highway is closed. Pray for rain.

While we were baking in the heat, Spokane got hammered with heavy thunderstorms that caused downed trees and power lines and flash floods. We’re supposed to get some of that same weather starting tonight. Until then, we’re back up into the 90s again today.

The heat totally saps my energy. I don’t want to sew. It’s cool in the living room, but I don’t even want to sit and do handwork or read a book. Cooking is out of the question. Mostly I wander around muttering about how much I want it to snow.

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I organized all my knit fabric on Friday. One bin was set aside for scraps, which I’ll take with me to classes so that students can play around with the different types of knits. Another bin has larger chunks of leftovers that could be used for small projects, like baby items and headbands. I put half the fabric in one pile for winter tops, and the other half in a pile for a few more short-sleeve T-shirts. I’ve decided my next iteration of that Liz knot top is going to be in black rayon spandex—possibly both long- and short-sleeve versions—because a simple black top is so useful.

If the quilt store owner decides she wants to carry some knits, I am going to suggest she bring in some of the Robert Kaufman fabrics. I am such a Kaufman Fabrics fangirl. I have a huge stash of Kona and I am becoming very fond of their Laguna Cotton, a 95% cotton/5% spandex blend. It is my favorite for nice, basic T-shirts. Not only does it come in wonderful saturated solids, there are tons of great prints, too. On the rare occasions when I can find RTW shirts that do fit me, the selection is usually limited to muddy earth tones and ugly prints.

These are some of the prints that arrived this week, all cotton/spandex blends:

I ordered from Fabric.com. They don’t do remnants, so If what you order is close to the end of the bolt and less than a yard, they send you the extra at no charge with a note on the package saying, “Jackpot!” The pink and green circle print was a jackpot cut and included an extra half a yard. I like the red tree print, but it might lean too orange for me. There was a green colorway of that print, too, but it was only available in the quilting cotton.

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I picked the first tomato on Friday, which has to be a record. The second batch of peas is planted—we’ll see if they produce anything. I have more lettuce to transplant to the garden, but I am waiting to do that until it cools off (and rains) this week. The raspberries are just about done, so I’ll need to get in there and prune out those canes.

The track loader arrived on Friday, so the husband spent yesterday using it to clean up the area where he dug the water line. (The cab of the loader has air conditioning.) I think that is going to be a very useful purchase, much like the forklift.