Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Home Again


Well, we got back from Olds (Lynne and I) Saturday night and I've been in hiding ever since.
It's a long drive and Lynne likes to do it in one go. Since I don't feel totally comfy driving her big beast of a car (I drive a teeny weeny sports car) she does the entire thing. I don't know how she does it and I really appreciate it. I make sure she gets food and stuff to drink without driving off the road.
It was a long ten days. Seven of those were class and two were travel days. That left one day of playing in the barn full of fleeces being judged and fibre vendors. I didn't buy too much this year, in fact, most of the stuff I brought back wasn't for me. I sent three fleeces to the mill for processing, brought one home for a friend along with some mill end fibre, some yarn and these:


Two Tabachek spindles in mahogany and ebony, a yew noste and a padauk Forrester with a little spider burnt into the top of it.
Class involved a day of procion dyeing:


And a lot of spinning. I managed to get a number of the samples I need for my notebook done in class. But there are a lot more left to do. We had to spin everything from polyester batting to silk hankies. From very thick and lofty to lace weight. We even had to make our own silk hankies. Those silk worm pupae are very stinky. Blech. Glad I didn't have to do that one at home.


I started the MS3 yesterday. I'm using Alpaca with a Twist's laceweight silk and alpaca with matte gold/mauve/green oilslick beads. I'm only halfway through the first pattern, so I'm definitely going to fall behind on this knitalong. Especially since I have to get back to reality spinning and knitting tomorrow.


I've got four spinning level books that need to be turned in before next March or I won't be able to take the final level next year. I know that sounds like a long time, but the homework for these things is huge.
I still have to write up the pattern for the Firefly tank and start drafting five others.
Yup. the manic laughter is starting again.
Gotta go check the fleece drying on the deck.
I get to put it through the combs for my next level project. Um. Yay?

5 comments:

Jacqui said...

ooh! i love your color choice for MS3.

i am halfway through Clue 2 and it seems to be going a lot faster than Clue 1 so you may not actually end up behind.

glad you got the stinky stuff done at someone else's place instead of your own. good luck with the Firefly pattern.

Anonymous said...

Hey ho.......... glad I didn't call you on Monday!!!! Well, I was too busy hanging out downtown anyways.

Looks like you got lots of stuff done though.

Anonymous said...

cool spindles.

vanessa said...

the spider spindle is very cool.

Melanie said...

Glad you're home and that's behind you. I love the colours you dyed, and the spindles are really nice!

It sounds like you have a lot of work ahead of you, so Godspeed.