Loomy Thoughts

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Ugh...

So this is what happens when you're in the middle of a loooong heat wave:

That blew on the hottest day (predicted, 106F; actual probably 104F).  Luckily, the weather started cooling off a bit that night, we kept the house closed up so it didn't get too bad inside, and the a/c tech was able to fix it early the next morning.  Whew!

This past month I've been participating in the Tour de Fleece.  I of course didn't get my wheel project finished, and not even quite half finished as I didn't get a lot of weekend-spinning-time as I had planned, but it's beautiful stuff.  It's a gradient from Corgi Hill Farm that I'm spinning on the antique Finn:

I'm thisclose to finishing the first braid (I have two).  I *love* spinning on the Finn, even though she's a rattle-y old girl. :-D

I also practiced spinning cotton on a bead spindle (best way to do it, imo):
And started spinning some lovely tussah silk from Corgi Hill Farm on my tibetan:

On the first rest day, I built a kick spindle. :-D
And on the second rest day, after a couple of minor tweaks, I spun on it at Spin Club:
It's pretty fun to spin on, once you get the hang of it. :-D

TdF ended so I did some celebratory spinning on a Tilt a Whorl drop spindle:
This is a really fun little spindle, it has pinwheel vanes! :-D

I got some really pretty merino/yak fiber in the mail from a friend:
 and Corgi Hill Farm had a 'fire sale' as she's moving, so I got a couple more braids that I didn't need. :-)

And I decided to participate in an unofficial team for the Ravellenic Games (used to be Ravelympics, but the U.S. Olympic organization got their knickers in a twist over a bunch of knitters using 'lympics' in something they weren't involved in :-P).  I decided to knit a Hypernova shawlette to learn charts, though as many times as I've frogged and restarted the first 5 rows I'm thinking that might not have been a prudent choice (I'm really glad I decided to not use my handspun for it).  I did finally get through the first (tiny) chart though, and I'm hoping I've figured it out:
The hours I've spent on this tiny bit... sigh.  I'm using my one skein of Woolese Sport Strawberry Twist, and probably don't have enough for the pattern but if necessary I could probably finish it with some Blueberry Twist - I have a *lot* of that.

I'm also cleaning and reorganizing the stash/wheel room because it's been a disaster ever since I brought the last two wheels home.  And I've made some progress - I now have a spot for the small Reeves and can actually walk to the Wall o'Fiber without having to move anything. :-)  I've been following this blog for inspiration, and it's working pretty well - I even worked on my kitchen some this morning!  You folks with i-Phones/i-Pads can even buy an app for it, which looks really handy, and she's working on getting an Android app out which I'm really looking forward to. :-D

And... I see I've missed a pooch.  Boss Dog coming up!
She was trying to stay awake, but just couldn't do it. :-)