Gotta love that sun...

Well, summer vacation is finally here... ::deep sigh::

I wish I could say that I had a ton of finished yarns and knitted projects to share (it has been long enough since my last post), unfortunately, I don't. The last two months or so have been progressively more difficult as my youngest child has decided that she doesn't really like to sleep at night. About 2 weeks ago we discovered that she's been cutting 4 new teeth all at once, which does explain why her crankiness has been kicked up to a whole new level. Regardless of the reason, there's only so much sleep deprivation a parent can take.

So, a few weeks ago my husband and I decided that going without sleep just wasn't going to happen anymore, and since then we've been working diligently (or, at least as diligently as someone can work in a state of complete exhaustion) to get her room finished so she could move in. Last night was her third night in her new room and she only woke up once. I cannot tell you how awesome I think this is.

Hopefully, after a few more nights of sleep, I'll have more of this stuff to show you...

"Reckless" handspun sock yarn

3 ply - fingering weight

approx. 4.3oz and 400 yards

Other than moving the baby into her own room, the major change happening around here has been happening in me. I feel like I've finally overcome the mental hurdles that have been keeping me from reclaiming a better, healthier lifestyle. For the last month, I've been enjoying the benefits of changed eating habits, morning workouts 4-5 days a week and a long walk every night after dinner. I've lost my first ten pounds and I feel better than I've felt in over 5 years. I still have a long way to go before I reach my goal, but I'm very thankful that I'm finally headed in the right direction!

As for Etsy news, there's not a lot to share. The lovely handspun yarn shown above is currently listed in the shop. I spent yesterday working over my dyepots and today I intend to do the same. I still need to place another fiber order (I'm hoping I'll have time to do that today) and in the meantime I'm going to dye up the rest of what I have on hand. Fiber enthusiasts can look forward to a hearty update some time next week. In the meantime, enjoy the beginning of a beautiful summer. :)

Irresistible

It's been a while since I've seen this sight. It has been raining, snowing, hailing and misting under an overcast sky for months and months. To wake up and find the sky looking this way is just... glorious.

So far this week I've been working. There has been dyeing...

There has been spinning...

But today (and tomorrow, if the weather is still permitting) I'm forsaking my dye pots, getting the heck out of this house and enjoying some of that warm, irresistible sunshine.

Who could blame me?

Another Year

Another year has com and gone and the next is only a day away.

I have to say that I am not sad to see this year go. I have had a lot of stagnant time over the last 4-5 years, but this last year moved far too fast, and has included enough change to make my head spin.

In 2010 our family sold our home, and moved to a new town. We made it through having our 6 year old daughter break her leg during our move. We survived a very complicated pregnancy, the birth of a second daughter and the loss of a third. We experienced buying another home (much more involved than last time on account of the present damaged economy) and moved a second time. Finally, we have made it through the holiday season and juggling the time spent with the multiple branches of our family. 2010 is finally done, and I couldn't be happier about it.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm not grateful for the blessings that have come with all this change, because I'm am. Still, I'm glad that it's time for things to calm down for a while.

Today, I'm looking forward to 2011 and, like a lot of people, I am welcoming change with my resolutions in hand. Some of my resolutions for 2011 are...

1. Stop putting my body and health on the back burner and give it the attention and love it so desperately needs.

2. Organize my home the way I'd really like to (even if it means spending some money to do it).

3. SPIN DOWN MY STASH (yeah, I know. It probably wont happen, but I'm putting it here anyway.)

4. Spend a lot of time knitting throughout the year for Christmas next year.

5. Take on the huge project of overhauling both of the girls' rooms.

6. Plant and tend a vegetable garden this spring and summer.

7. Spend more time reading.

These aren't all of the changes I'd like to see, but for now the list will do. I'm feeling optimistic that most of them are possible, then again, I usually am at the start of it.

I'm going to spend the last day of 2010 catching up on my housework, organizing for my taxes and baking a cake (today is my husband's birthday). I hope everyone has a great New Year's!

Catching Up

This has been one of the longest and shortest summers of my life. So much has happened but it feels as if only a couple of weeks have passed. My 7-year-old is headed back to school at the end of this week and I realized that the whole summer is almost gone and I haven't updated the blog once. It's disappointing whenever I let that happen, though this year I've had much better reasons for letting it slide than usual. Among the less important reasons is spinning. I've done a lot of spinning this year and here are just a few pictures of progress.

All Spun Up BFL/Silk

All Spun Up Merino

Freckle Face Fibers BFL

I have an embarrassing amount of yarn that has been done for weeks and never photographed. There's also a lot of knitting that I've finished, only some of which has been photographed but there's no room for the pictures in this post. Those will have to wait for another day.

The last several months we've been adjusting to the new town, which has been especially difficult for our daughter, Paige. She had a lot of challenging experiences this year. She had to move out of the only home she'd ever lived in, and into a new home in a new town. She had to change schools in the middle of the year (not an easy thing for any first grader) and make new friends while trying to hobble around in a cast on account of breaking her leg during the same week we moved. It has taken her a long time to adjust and even though a lot of time has passed since the move, she still misses her old school.

Thankfully, living in a small town isn't all bad. A week or so before school was out, her class had a field trip to the fire department. Unfortunately, the morning of the field trip Paige woke up sick and ended up not being able to go. A day or two later my husband was talking to a lady he works with (who also happens to be the wife of the fire chief) and he told her about Paige not being able to go on the field trip. She told him she'd talk to her husband and see if he could do anything. My husband figured they might be able to arrange a time when we could take her to the fire department to see the trucks and talk to the firemen. The fire department ended up going out of their way to give her an unforgettable experience. They brought a fire engine to our house to pick her up, took her and her dad for a ride around town and then to the fire department where they showed her around and talked to her about fire safety and then (again in the fire engine) brought her home. You don't often find that sort of kindness in a larger community.

They made a fairly crummy year much, much better...

As did this little angel.

This is Allie. Allie is the reason I've taken this year off from dyeing fiber and doing Etsy. (I'm glad I made that choice early on in the pregnancy because it saved me from a lot of unnecessary stress.) The pregnancy was long and complicated and I'm glad it's done with and that she's here now and healthy. I'm really enjoying having a baby in the house again and I'm currently trying to find where the new balance is now with two children instead of one. It's not as easy as some people make it look.

Now that we've had a little time to adjust to having a baby in the house again, we're looking at our next big project (and hopefully the last one for this year) which is buying our next home. We finally found a home we really like in the right price range and if all goes well, it should close near the end of September. I've been going through everything we have and giving away or throwing out everything that we don't want to take to the new house, as well as organizing everything so that packing and unpacking should be much easier this time around. I'm looking forward to this next move so much. Once we're in the new house and all settled, I'm going to return my focus to the dye pots (which I have missed very much) and re-opening my Etsy shop, hopefully as a full time endeavor.

I'm excited about re-opening the shop and have been brainstorming a lot. There are things which I'd like to do a little differently and new things I'd like to try. I'm looking forward to the next few months of work and will keep updating the blog on any new progress.

Birthday

Yesterday I celebrated my 30th birthday. It turned out to be a very nice day. In the morning my husband took our daughter to school so I could have a relaxing morning for myself. Throughout the day I received several phone calls and messages from friends and family wishing me a good birthday. Then last night my husband took me out to dinner (just the two of us -which rarely ever happens).

And even though it didn't come by my birthday, my birthday present finally came in the mail today...

Mmmmmm.... Mama Blue. It's a rare and special treat for me. I'm really loving this order, too. I managed to finally get a hold of a skein of Kale (the rich green one at the top), a gorgeous skein of Palomino (the color is the most lovely, buttery shade of yellow) and... a beautiful and coveted skein of Corset (not exactly blue, not exactly purple, but something in between with possible hints of grey). They're all Smart Merino Sock and they're all very nice. I'm thinking that at least two of them will become baby sweaters, but only time will tell.

I'm excited that my birthday has passed. For me it usually signifies the beginning of warmer weather on the Olympic Peninsula. I miss blue skies, warm breezes and long summer days. Since we've moved I've felt lucky to see even 1 or 2 sunny days out of every week we've had. I'm even starting to daydream about getting in a short camping trip before my due date (and before it gets too hot).

Speaking of pregnancy and how it's been affecting life, I'm trying to get in both as much spinning and knitting as I can -while I still can.

The spinning has sort of hit a slow patch. While I have a few different spinning projects in the works right now, I've been working exclusively on one of them, pushing myself to get it done. It's approx. 20-24oz of baby llama. I agreed to spin it for a friend and at this point I've had it (still unspun) in my possession for way too long. It's taken me forever to get going on this project because the preparation of this llama is very rustic and to be honest I really just don't like working with it. Even so, I've been working on it whenever I feel up to spinning over the last week and I'm currently about halfway through it right now. I'm hoping that I'll have a very pro-spinning sort of weekend and that I'll manage to get through the rest of it by Monday. I really want to finish this project because I have such an exciting line-up of other things to spin when I'm done.

The knitting isn't super exciting, but I have been making progress. Right now all non-baby projects have been put on hold and stashed away in the closet. I'm somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the way done with baby blanket #1. It's a pattern called Lullaby and I've already knit it twice before. I love it because it's girly, without being too lacy (which for me equals not being durable enough for daily baby wear and tear). I also like the pattern because it's very intuitive and simple to memorize. After that, I think I might take a break with a baby sweater before I jump into knitting baby blanket #2. My only hold-up is finding the right pattern. Mama Blue is to precious to waste on a plain, unremarkable pattern.

Normal

After months and months of hard work, waiting and nail-biting stress... we finally sold our house. And if you've ever heard anyone talk about how things always get really, really bad right before you break through to the end of it -they were so not kidding.

In the last two weeks before closing we had to get new windows installed, get a new dishwasher, get a new wood stove for the fireplace and have lots of expensive work done on the chimney, have stress-inducing (and smelly) inspections and work done with our septic tank & drain field, all while cleaning, packing and battling with morning sickness. As if all this wouldn't be enough to push a sound, stable person to the breaking point, the Tuesday morning of our last week in the old house, I got a call from the school...

Another girl from Paige's class fell on her during a game of tunnel tag in P.E. After an ambulance ride to the hospital and a tear-filled visit to the emergency room, we found out that her lower-right leg was badly broken. Both bones, clean through. If you've never been around a young child with a severe injury like this, I can tell you it's heartbreaking. The first week was like a nightmare. Every time we had to move her (which unfortunately, because of our situation, was a lot) she'd scream. Every trip to the bathroom was filled with sobbing and tears. Every time we went over a bump in the car it was a small agony. Now, thankfully, her bones are starting to mend and she's not in quite so much pain. She's scheduled to get her leg casted this next Tuesday. It's still likely to be several weeks before she can return to school, but we're holding on to hope that at some point during her recovery she might be able to switch to a walking cast, which would surely make her life (as well as ours) much, much easier. Right now we're not really able to go out, and we use one of the rolling chairs from the kitchen table to move her around the house. It's taken a while, but we're getting pretty good at it.

Here at the new house (a rental) we're still unpacking, catching up on laundry and getting acquainted with the area. My husband knows his way around quite well as he's been working in this town for the last 5 years or so, but I'm still trying to figure out where everything is. One of the pluses of living in a small town is that figuring out where things are usually doesn't take very long. I've only been out of the house on my own once in the week that we've been here and I was able to find out where Paige's new school is, as well as the location of the grocery store, post office and public library. Those are probably the only places I'll need to go, so I'm probably set.

One of the downsides of being in the smaller town is that there really aren't any great places to go out to eat, but the plus side of that is that we'll probably eat much healthier (I'm still holding on to hope that it will be easier to not put so much weight on during the pregnancy because of this). We'll certainly save a lot more money not going out to eat.

Besides, home-cooked foods really are so much better. They can taste so much better, too. To help get in the spirit of cooking at home, I started out with a freshly baked loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread. This took a long time to prepare, but it ended up being so worth the effort. The recipe is from the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook. I don't really follow Martha Stewart, and I've experienced a handful of Martha Stewart recipes that were pretty terrible, however a friend gifted the book to me a few years ago and so far, every recipe I've tried from it has been a winner. The recipe for this cinnamon-raisin bread was no exception.

I'm also happy to report that my morning sickness is beginning to taper off. Now, it's just morning sickness most of the time, rather than feeling sick all day long. This new improvement is helping me to get a lot more done during the day. I've even been feeling like knitting and spinning again. I've managed to finally finish the Pigeonroof fiber I've been slowly working at for the last couple of months. It's resting on the bobbin, and as soon as I get the motivation to sit for a prolonged period of time I'm going to chain ply it.

It's amazing how after going through so much you appreciate just having things become... normal again.

When it rains...

It pours. A lot.

I'm a little sad not to have posted in so long, but I definitely want to explain a little of why there isn't anything in the Etsy shop right now and why it's going to stay that way for a little while. Life (somehow- even beyond how life was early last month) really became overwhelming. Not bad, though. Just a lot of really big, good stuff all at the same time.

In the last month our home, which has been on the market since this last summer, got a solid offer. We're working through the final closing stuff right now and expect to be moving out by mid-January. We've also found out that we have a second child on the way -which was a HUGE surprise. Right now I'm around 11 weeks, and for the last month I've had pretty nasty morning sickness. It hasn't been as bad as it was with Paige, though it still usually lasts all day long. It's made work a much bigger challenge for the last four weeks, but I only have to muscle through one more week of work before I begin staying home full-time to pack for our move. When I was pregnant with Paige my morning sickness stayed until I was about 16-18 weeks (it's been so long I don't remember exactly), but I'm trying to stay hopeful that it will be done earlier this time.

So, with all this new stuff going on I haven't knitted a thing. I've only sat down at my wheel for 15-20 minutes a couple of different times in the last month, and I don't really expect to be doing anymore knitting or spinning until after we've moved. Though once we have moved, I expect to be doing a lot more knitting and spinning, as I wont be working and there is nothing to do in Forks during the winter, unless you hunt and fish.

I'm glad that I'll have a comforting activity to keep me occupied. My husband and I went out to the new town a couple of weeks ago to look at some rentals, and I ended up leaving with a very dismal feeling. I'm trying to keep things in perspective, though. I know I'm experiencing things through a lot of pregnancy hormones right now, and that can really mess with your point of view (if it didn't, we wouldn't start crying when our husbands tell us we're not going to the restaurant with our favorite salad bar). I'm just going to keep hoping that things will fall into place, and that when we do start looking to buy a home in Forks, we'll find just the right one for us.

So, to get back on track, what does this mean for the shop? It means once we've moved and I get over the morning sickness (I'm thinking early this next spring) I will start adding handspun yarns to the shop. It also means (and I'm sorry if this comes as disappointing news) I will not be doing any dyeing for the duration of this pregnancy. For me, dyes are too toxic and potentially hazardous to work with during pregnancy, and I'm sure that any well-balanced person would agree that it's okay not to take chances when it comes to the health of your babies. You have to do what's right for you.

So, having said that, I'm really looking forward to the New Year. I'm excited to finally have the end of this torturous home-selling experience in sight. I'm excited for the new life that's growing (and I'm excited to spin and knit for that new life, too). I'm excited that once we move, I'm going to have 3 extra hours a day of having my husband around because he wont have to commute anymore. I think that as scary as all of this change is, we're going to be a very happy family once it happens.

Here's to everyone having a safe and happy new year! Cheers!

Still on Earth...

...And this is really the only fiber(y) sort of thing I've accomplished in a few weeks.

It's my Angel Lace Shawl. I knit it with some merino/silk handspun I received in the Funky Junkies Handspun Swap. The yarn was perfect for this and I had very little left over (there was no way I would have been able to squeeze in another pattern repeat so I'm glad I didn't try). I did finish my pumpkin pie merino (585 yards!!) but it took me over two weeks to finish it and I still haven't photographed it.

The very same night that I finished this shawl, I got a phone call sometime after 10:00 pm from my grandmother, because her house was on fire.

I went, taking her a coat and a sleeping bag (this was a bad time for me to realize that we actually don't have any extra blankets in our house) and a few woolly things as well, and stood with her and my granddad as they waited outside -in the rain- for the fire department to get things under control. After about an hour, the fire was out and the firemen had started chopping out large chunks of wall, ceiling, paneling and anything else that might have been dangerous left inside.

The house didn't burn to the ground, but it's currently uninhabitable. Even though the attic and the very center of the house is where most of the damage and fire was, most of their possessions were destroyed by the smoke. I wouldn't have thought that smoke (on its own) could be so destructive, but it really permeates everything. Not like plain wood smoke at all.

I'm very grateful that my grandparents were still awake. As it turns out, even though there was smoke billowing out from the ceiling, their smoke detectors, complete with new (and tested-out) batteries did not go off!!

This knowledge is leading me to search for the best smoke detectors that I can find and to test the batteries very, very often. I hope that this post will remind anyone who may have let this little important bit of home maintenance slip for a while, to go check their smoke detectors and replace anything that may need to be replaced.

Since the fire, I've been trying to help my grandmother whenever I have time, as she and my granddad get settled in their new rental. I have so much sympathy for her. Going through something so stressful would be a challenge at any age, and at her age it's very, very difficult. To add to her stress, my granddad suffers from senility/memory loss and he keeps getting confused. About every twenty minutes he forgets why they're staying somewhere else. He doesn't remember the fire at all, even though he was there when it happened. It's extremely frustrating for my grandmother. I'm glad, though, that he still remembers who all of us are. If he didn't, I can't even imagine how much harder all of this would be.

So, that's where I've been and what I've been doing. I just hope that things settle down soon. Today was the first day I've had available to be alone in my own house, and to be doing what I choose. I chose to spend time with my dye-pots. I'm not having an update any time soon (sorry) but I'd had a few more special requests for rovings that still needed to be taken care of, so that's what I've been doing today. If you've made a request for something on Etsy, you should be hearing from me soon.

Wish me better luck with December.

Today

Today is exactly the kind of day that makes you appreciate being wrapped up in warm wool.

The sky outside is an unrelenting grey and the hum of drizzling rain and rustling leaves can be heard from inside the house. I really enjoy this time of year. I like how the darkness comes early and leaves late. It's cozy.

This is the first of my two days off this week and I'm going to spend it doing laundry, knitting and spinning. I've been doing rather well on my monogamous knitting kick. I do have two projects on the needles at present. Though, it doesn't feel like cheating because one of them is my Angel Lace shawl and it's almost done. I'm not even going to bother with trying to photograph it until it's entirely finished and blocked. To me it's like photographing a woman with no make up (against her will). It's kind of insulting.

The second project is a new pair of socks for my husband. I like taking socks to work with me. It's good, small knitting and seeing as I haven't knit anything for my husband in a while and in this time I've stockpiled 4 different skeins of yarn to make socks for him, I thought I'd better get moving on it. Besides, as much as my husband gives me a hard time about my knitting, he redeemed himself yesterday when he surprised me by wearing one of the hats I knit for him. Willingly. He put it on in the morning before we left the house and he wore it all day. He finally took it off at bed time. He must have really liked it.

I'm using the Gentleman's Fancy Sock pattern from Knitting Vintage Socks and some KnitPick's Bare Merino/Nylon yarn that I kettle dyed into a rich, dark brown. I'm modifying the pattern for a shorter leg, as I don't have the yardage required for the pattern and my husband has an eleven inch foot. I weighed out the yarn ahead of time and I have 103 grams. I figure I'll stop to knit the heel after the first 16-18 grams. I suppose if I was really worried about it I could modify them to be knit from the toe up, but after knitting several socks toe up and then knitting them from the cuff down again, I've decided that I much prefer knitting from the cuff down. Toe up socks are great. I'm sure I'll knit many more in the future, but today I'm going to indulge my cuff-down craving.

Now, I'm going to go drink my Earl Grey, listen to A Perfect Circle: Mer de Noms (it's been in my stereo for weeks -I can't seem to get tired of it) and spin some Pigeonroof Studious South African Fine in the Lazy Daisy colorway. It going to be a great Friday.

Time lapse...

It amazes me how fast life changes. We get very busy. Life throws us a curve ball every now and then, and it just takes a while to work with it and make adjustments.

We managed to get through the first partial week of the school year and then, sadly, that weekend my husband's grandmother passed away. It really came as a shock because she had just (seemingly) recovered from some major health issues with her heart that she experienced back in April. We almost lost her back then. Somehow, against very bad odds, she made it through the recovery. It's sad to lose her after all of the hardships she endured, but then again, she was able to do a few last things that she wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. Mainly, she got to see two more of her great-grandchildren come into the world. That has to count for something...

In this time I've had to work several extra hours (it was my MIL's mom that passed on, and as I work part-time for my MIL it meant that there were some extra days that needed to be covered at work), so I haven't had a whole lot of time to work on dyeing fiber for the shop, and I definitely haven't had a lot of time to spin, but I have managed to finish a number of things in the time I haven't been blogging. Here are a few of the UFO's which are now done...

Socks for my SIL knit from the handspun in this post...

The Waffles sweater for Paige -knit from kettle-dyed Knit Picks Bare Merino sock yarn (Paige was very pleased with me for finally getting this one done)...

And most recently this Ishbel for my grandmother's birthday. I was really proud of this one, not just because it's a shawl, but because (for once) I knitted this one on time (actually, I had a whole week to spare before gifting it) and that is a very rare occurrence.

Now that things are finally calming down a bit, I've been relishing the few minutes here and there when I get to sit down at my wheel. I'm slowly working my way towards finishing my Angel Lace Shawl, though there's no hurry for that one. It's coming along beautifully, and I'm looking forward to finishing it (so I can wear it -it'll be getting cold soon), but for now I'm just enjoying being able to take my time with it, savoring every stitch.

So that's what has been going on. I'm hoping that this weekend things around here will fall into place (at least mostly), and I'm hoping to get some fiber dyed and more spinning done once the household cleaning is all caught-up.

P.S. Lately I've had some wonderful messages from people sharing pictures of the yarns they've spun from my fibers & knitting projects with (which have all been lovely) and I've been considering starting a Flickr group so that they can share them with everyone. Is there any interest for this? Please feel free to voice your opinion in the comments. =)

Koolhaas #2

In the last several months I haven't managed to get much knitting done and as a result I think I've grown hungrier for it than usual. I'm not usually a hat sort of person, but lately I've been indulging myself with hat knitting because of the instant gratification they offer. Here is the latest hat, my second finished Koolhaas.

  

I really like this pattern. It's not difficult to memorize (it's very intuitive), and well, I can't help but think they just look sharp as far as knitted hats go. I don't know if my husband is going to actually wear this (sadly, he has a grudge against hand knits which I suspect is because he's jealous of the time I spend with wool). He'd probably never admit it himself, but he looks pretty sharp in this hat, too. Hopefully, next winter when the days get very cold he'll come to appreciate it...

Here is a picture of the Bacchus SW BFL in progress.  

Up till now I've always balked at the idea of buying SW BFL from other sellers because A: It usually is more expensive and B: In photos it usually looks a little rough around the edges -like it's full of neps. But after my last SAL experience with All Spun Up BFL and the gorgeous, fine 3 ply sock yarn I was able to spin with it, I decided to give it a chance. I like how BFL spins, but I've knit socks with it before, and I don't want to knit socks with non-superwash BFL again. They turn out gorgeous, but I'm too hard on my socks and I tend to felt them when I wear them.

So anyhow, I'm loving this spin. For me, a good BFL/SW BFL roving can spin up into a lovely 3-ply in roughly half the time it takes me to spin merino. I'm hoping I can finish getting through this roving by tomorrow and ply in a few days. Maybe I'll be able to get a new pair of socks on the needles by late next week!

Oh, and here's a picture of the new kate. I just love the look of Kromski stuff. I know there are people out there who are a little prejudiced against Kromkski wheels for one reason or another, but (in my opinion) not many wheels out there have the aesthetic appeal of a Kromski. Especially the mahogany-stained (but obviously I'm biased). Also, compared to my last wheel, an Ashford Joy DT, I just love the way this wheel spins. It's much for comfortable for me to use, even if there have been days when it wanted to squawk like a murder of crows (white lithium grease does the trick, BTW).

 

Finally, in answer to the question in the comments from my last post, yes, I am really moving to Forks. Which is kind of sad, as Forks is not in truth a very exciting or wonderful place to be. Though I am intruiged by the idea of Forks-related colorways. I'm assuming these are supposed to be Twilight related? If anyone has any suggestions feel free to throw some ideas to me in the comments and maybe I could come up with something fun. I'm thinking along the lines of characters and places, etc. (though I'd be interested in hearing other ideas, too). 

Now, I'm off for a date with SW BFL...

eta: Notice the pretty new carpet in the first and last photos?

Blur

It's amazing to me how I sometimes wake up and realize that a great chunk of time has flown by me. 

The last few days I've been sitting back and taking in the fact that the school year is almost over. At some point this year my little girl learned how to read, and while I remember helping her to learn this skill I still am having a hard time understanding how it happened.

The house -while still not done- is frighteningly close to being ready, and moving is probably right around the corner. I can't tell you how much this intimidates me. I was born in this town and I like living here. Most of my family lives here and soon I'm going to be living an hour away from them. I'm starting to actually get scared about whether or not I'm going to like the new town, whether or not I'm going to like our new house (while I'm generally content to live anywhere as long as the roof doesn't leak, it would be difficult to move from this house -now that it's finally looking so nice- to somewhere else that might not be). I've also begun to worry about forging new friendships. (People in Forks are really an interesting sort and seeing as I don't have a gun rack in the back of my Jeep, I'm not sure of how well I'll be able to fit in.) 

I'm hoping I'll be lucky enough to find another knitter and/or spinner. A partner in woolly crime. That would be awesome. 

Speaking of wool...

 

This skein of yarn is what the moonlit colorway looks like all spun up and Navajo plied. I've really grown fond of this skein and I hope it's new owner enjoys it, too. 

Lately, I've been in desperate need of some "me" spinning time. I think I'm going to be spending the next month (possibly two) just spinning down my stash. Some of it may end up in the shop and then again it might not. I've had several gorgeous bumps of fiber in there that I've been saving just for me and I keep putting them off in favor of spinning yarns for the shop. Now that my stash of "me" fiber has grown past the 3 pound mark I think it's time to set some time aside for getting through it. Besides, the fourth bobbin and lazy kate are here. There aren't any more excuses to wait.

Aside from all that, I've still been spending an evening with my dyepots when I have time. This is a braid of Bacchus in SW BFL, which I started working on this morning. It's another BFL that's making me fall hard. It's soooo soft and drafts so nicely. Even though I do have the Kate now, I've decided to go ahead and Navajo ply this one anyways. I think the coloring will turn out a lot better than with a standard 3 ply. 

 

And finally, this is an extra spicy version of Thelma (in SW merino) which I'm planning on spinning into a standard 3 ply sock yarn for the shop. I think it's going to turn out nice. 

I think I have plenty to keep me busy for a while. Even though I plan on using a lot of my spinning time for myself in the next few months, I'm sure I'll still be adding yarn to the shop once in a while and I'll definitely be adding more fibers (lots and lots, I hope).

I hope everyone going to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival will be enjoying themselves thoroughly (hopefully one day I'll make it that far east) and that everyone goes home with many woolly treasures. =)

P.S. Did I mention I've finished a second Koolhaas?