Rustic Warmth...

I just finished this guy last night.



Just over 400yds of handspun and dyed merino, lightweight 2-ply sock yarn (that's a mouthful). I just listed it in my etsy shop this morning. It weighs 3.1oz and has beautiful colors. Mmmm... yummy.

Busy, Busy

Yesterday morning, when I was browsing through etsy I looked in one of my favorite shops, AllSpunUp, and saw this. I lost control. Before I even realized what was happening, I was ordering. It came in the mail today. I'm excited. A little sad though, too. I have a lot of things in line ahead of that one that need to be spun and listed, so I'm afraid the beautiful 'treat' roving is going to have to wait to be transformed into a pair of my socks.

In an effort to help myself feel better, I dug out the last 8oz of undyed merino and spent the afternoon dying it up.

This one is so colorful, it may be difficult to part with.



This one is also very pretty. It reminds me of a desert sunset (not that I've seen many, but I did see a breathtaking sunset once in the high-desert country one time when I was on my way to visit a friend in Oregon- anyhow, the colors were very similar).



I'm excited to see how these will spin up for me. I hope they'll make beautiful sock yarns for the etsy shop. I really need to get off my bum. At the very least I think I ought to be able to get two yarns in there per month, but it's been hard to do lately. I think I'm going to navajo ply my 3-ply sock yarns for a while, (I know that it's really all the same amount of spinning but it seems easier somehow) and do some two-ply sock yarns as well.

I will probably not have anymore yarns in my etsy shop until the beginning of next month. I have so much work to get done around here. I still haven't even gone outside to work at all (and to my dissappointment I've heard that we may get snow here this weekend). On top of all this, my husband has officially been given an excellent job about 50 miles from where we are now, and has given his old job notice. Now we must begin the job of selling our home and moving. I trust God, and I know this will be a good move. Still, being the sentimental type, this is going to take an extra measure of His grace.

Shame on Us...

For months now, the yard has been getting worse and worse. Until just the last couple of weeks, the thought of going outside to do anything has been entirely out of the question. For not really getting more than a couple sad dustings of snow, winter has been hanging on entirely too long. In fact, just at the end of March we had a brief couple of hours where it was snowing (but not sticking). That just isn't normal around here.

The last week or so, though, I've noticed that Boone- our Jack Russell Terrier, has been having an unusually difficult time finding a 'safe' place to pee in the back yard. The grass, in what seems like just a week and a half, grew to be between 12 and 15 inches tall.

So yesterday, my husband pulled out the lawnmower and got to work. Considering the height of the grass, his chore was not a pretty sight. I witnessed him unloading a torrent of obscenities at least once, as he removed Sadie from her chain on the back patio and 'escorted' her inside. It turns out that as he was passing by his beloved hound with the lawnmower, she playfully decided it was time to run around him in a circle (winding her chain around his legs) and tripping him, bringing him to the ground. In his attempt to catch himself he'd firmly planted one of his hands in a pile of her crap.

I'm not a very nice woman, I laughed so hard I almost peed when he told me that story.



As you can see the grass was crazy long. We really ought to have been out there sooner. I'm planning on getting out there at least a couple of days in the next week. There are many, many weeds to be pulled and a lot of plants that need some pruning.

I also have a lot to do in the way of indoor improvements. Most of my heavyweight chores still involve organizing and tossing, as well as deep cleaning and painting. I should have done so much more by now, but I've been so deeply involved with the wheel and finishing my seriously long-term works in progress that always seem to still be on my needles. At least I'm nearing my finish with these. I have one sock out of a pair to finish for the Vintage Sock KAL, one sock's worth left of roving to spin and knit to finish my homespun pair, and then there's finishing my Christmas sweater, then restarting the Henry. Then I'm free to start anything I want to.

I've been very good about not starting new projects, except for this little one. I knit this for my daughter this weekend. If only it were this easy to knit clothing for myself.

Done

The second half of the marine-colored sock yarn is finally done. It really shouldn't have taken this long to finish, but it just seems like every time I've tried to make time for it something else has come up. I think I have settled on the name Marina. It will fit this color. Originally I wanted to call it 'seaworthy', but I just can't say that word without feeling like a pirate.

I've just finished giving the yarn a bath to set the twist. Now I just have to wait for it to finish drying so I can take pictures of both the skeins together before I list them on Etsy. They should be listed in the shop by 10:30 Monday morning.

A quick rundown on this yarn:



Together the two skiens make 440+ yards of 100% merino, hand-dyed and hand-spun, 3-ply sock yarn. Together they weigh around 3.5 ounces. I haven't measured out the WPI yet, but it's a little finer than the Indian Valley. I'm guessing it will be around 18-19 WPI.

I faced serious temptation to keep these as well. The entire time I was spinning them, I kept thinking they'd be perfect for a pair of Cookie A.'s Pomatomus socks.