It being eleventy billion degrees outside, and having nearly expired from heat stroke at the Farmers Market, we decided to jump into the Eno River this morning. We almost didn’t go because we assumed everyone else in Durham and Hillsborough would have had the same idea (being that the Eno is free, refreshing to jump into, and a mere 20 minutes from either downtown), but no, we pretty much had the river to ourselves except for a few kids who stopped in briefly to splash around.

I retained my unbroken record of not falling into the water and drowning the camera, so go me! (This is tougher than it sounds, because the river bottom is covered in smooth slimy rocks that move around a lot.)

It was such a gorgeous morning, despite the heat.

The first few times we came here, we had to coax Griff into the river. Nowadays he drags us into the water and tries to go out over his head. No fear. Very scary for his parents.

We saw lots of cool stuff today. Snails, bugs (lots of damselflies), fish (all pictured below), along with a bunch of butterflies and a sunning turtle.

Plus lots of plain old pretty.

‘

On a totally different topic, I finally took the plunge into sewing knit fabrics today. If you don’t sew, you probably have no idea of the scary reputation knits have, but plenty of otherwise very experienced sewists won’t touch them. Over 50% of Griff’s wardrobe consists of knits (t-shirts, stretchy pajamas, etc), and I can only make him so many quilting cotton shorts and flannel jammie pants, so I figured it was time to jump in.

My first project (Fishsticks Designs’ Charlie Tee) was a t-shirt for Griff made from an old unwearable shirt of mine that I cut up, so I wouldn’t be upset about wasting “good” fabric if I screwed up royally. (I used new fabric for the neckline ribbing.) I have to say, it went way better than I expected. I still have some issues to work out with the neckline (Griff has a huge head, he puts on shirts rather violently, and he’s so far managed to pop out a few stitches on all the variations on the neckline hem I’ve tried so far) but otherwise, I’m very excited and pleased that it looks like an actual t-shirt! After re-reading my machine’s manual and chatting with other folks sewing this pattern, I have some new tricks to try tomorrow.

Neckline closeup!