Its a 3 day weekend. Yay!!

My spinning wheel arrived last Monday. Its so beautiful and spins so well. I’m seriously in love. I’ve been spinning like crazy all weekend. I finished 4oz of Corriedale in the colorway Burning Embers from Spunky Eclectic. Its still drying, so I don’t have pictures yet. I think its mostly dry, but I’m going to leave it laying out for a little while longer. It came out to be about worsted weight, which is about what I was going for. Its really squishy and soft. So soft in fact, that earlier I found one of my cats curled up on it. She must have really liked it, because she was not going to budge when I tried to make her move. I had to pick her up and move her myself (she was not happy with me for that). I’ve already started on my next fiber, and I’m nearly done with it, all I have left to do is ply. It’s my April Spunky Club installment, 4oz of Wennsleydale in The Perfect Storm colorway. I tried to spin it finer but I’m still experimenting, so I’m not really sure what weight it will be. The Wennsleydale is really hairy and tough feeling. I’m thinking of either some socks (if it’s fine enough and I have a lot of yards (probably not)) or some mitts/mittens. Might make a good hat though….

I’m working on my Charade socks and my Tangled Yoke Cardigan. I love the Charade socks. I think it will be a pattern that I can knit and reknit. I honestly haven’t gotten very far with my cardigan mostly because I’m obsessed with my socks. And, when I’m not working on my socks, I’m spinning on my new wheel. I think I’ve only done a couple of repeats of the garter rib on the bottom of the cardigan, it’s probably not even an inch long. It will get there someday.

I’m hoping to have pictures of everything soon. I know, a blog post without pictures sucks.

We’ve had something like 10 inches of rain since yesterday evening in Shreveport/Bossier (I live in Shreveport, but we are twin cities separated by a river). We have flash floods, power outages, the whole she-bang. The power at my house has been out since 8:30 yesterday evening, but fortunately the water didn’t rise past the sidewalk on our street. When I got to work this morning, a bunch of the offices had wet carpet, and our back storage room had an inch or so of standing water. All in all, its been an exciting day. I hope our electricity is back on at my house by the time I get home from work. I stopped by during lunch, and it was still out. The power company said a tree fell on some lines knocking out power to 22 homes in my neighborhood. They are estimating that it will be back on by midnight tonight, but that is subject to change. Right now, it’s not raining, but we are supposed to get more rain tonight. I just really hope our power comes back on.

The things that suck most about not having power (#1 of course being the worst):

3. No air conditioner

2. No internet

1. Not being able to see to knit

I did manage to wind a ball of yarn by candle light last night.

http://www.ktbs.com/

ETA:

The electricity was on when we got home from work!!

Mike and I managed to take pictures after work on Friday. So, I have some really pretty pictures of my Hannibal Lector Delicato Mitts. For some reason I really love the palm pictures even though the fancy stitch work is on the other side.

I really love these gloves. I think they have climbed their way into my favorite glove spot. The yarn is the best. It’s so soft and the color is gorgeous. I highly recommend Dharmafey’s Cosmic Fiber Silky Sock yarn, in fact, she is working on two more skeins of it for me as I type. Those two will be in Dexter inspired colorways.

Lots of exciting stuff has been going on for me lately. I’ll save the best for last.

First, remember the seeds I was worried about growing, well, they are growing. I now have about 15 or so little green dots that look like tiny Lithops. So far so good. I would take pictures of my tiny babies, but I think they are too small right now. I don’t think I’m good enough at focusing to get a decent picture, maybe Mike could.

My Phrag Mini Grande bloomed. I’ve been super excited about this one since I first noticed the beginnings of a spike. It’s such an unusual looking orchid.

I decided to do little bit of catching up on my blog reading this morning, and Sock Pr0n completely intrigued me with her post about Little Meadows Farm. I ended up poking around their website for a while, and decided to adopt a sheep. I adopted Chocolate. Their adopt a sheep program looks pretty neat. You pick a sheep to adopt and then they reserve that sheep’s fleece for you when they sheer them in the spring. They send you little updates about the sheep throughout the year while you wait. I’ve never worked with raw fleece, but I’ve wanted to for a while, so I’m really excited about this. I love supporting small farms, and I really like the idea of knowing the sheep your fleece came from. So, I have a year to figure this raw fleece thing out. I’ve been emailing Liese back and forth all day, and she’s very nice. She’s given me lots of tips, and I even ended up purchasing 1 pound of fleece from her to practice with.

Now for the best. I know what your thinking, that last one was pretty cool and it wasn’t the best?!

I ordered my first spinning wheel today!! I’m so excited. I’ve been saving up for a while and I finally picked one and took the plunge. I was originally trying to save up for a Schacht Matchless II DT, but I started reading reviews online and decided I really liked the Kromski Minstrel more. It’s gorgeous, and I don’t think I saw a bad review for it. I would have rather tried out some wheels before purchasing because of the price, but I don’t know anyone in my area that spins, nor do I have a LYS. So, I had to decide based on reviews. When I finally decided that I wanted a Kromski Minstrel, I was super excited to realize that I had enough money saved up for it. I thought I was going to have to wait for months! It was such a great feeling to decide and order right away. Now, I just have to survive the anguish of waiting for it to arrive!

That’s enough excitement for one post.  Hope everyone has a happy Mother’s Day!

I finished my Hannibal Lector Delicato Mitts Sunday. They are absolutely gorgeous. The yarn and the pattern were meant to be together. I’ll hopefully get some pictures this weekend. I finished them just in time, yesterday I received my shipping notice for this month’s installment of the Nefarious Club. Yay…more yarn!

Since I finished my mitts, I’ve been working on my Pomatomous Sock. That poor sock, it’s been so neglected, I’ve just let it languish for months. I’m determined now…I’m on a mission…I’m going to finish them before I allow myself to cast on another pair of socks. I will be strong….I hope…..

I am however allowing myself to start my Tangled Yoke Cardigan. I’m super nervous about it, it’s been so long since I’ve knit a sweater. I started swatching last night. I ended up not having the needles I needed (of course), so I’ve placed an order for them. Hopefully they will get here soon.

That’s about it.

Hopefully I can get some nice pictures this weekend.