7.28 Keeping going...

Next up on the spinning scene is this mulberry sliver. It's been marinating in stash for a couple of years and I decided it was time.

It's sort of like spinning silk, but only sort of. Spinning from the fold seems to be the way to go. It has no give at all, so I'm seriously thinking of plying it with wool. Two ply or three? Dunno yet. Still waffling on that point.

7.27 Spinning results

The merino/firestar is all plied up. I'll measure yardage when it finishes drying. With all the humidity in the air right now, that may take a while, although I put the skein through the salad spinner to help.

The thunderstorms on Saturday brought tornadoes to the area. I had just answered the phone when K called from MD when J walked in the door on his way back from Big Rockets and said: There was just an emergency broadcast announcement - tornado watch. Go take a look at the radar.

My conversation with K went sort of like this: Hi, sweetie, how's... Oops just a minute...I'll call you back later, bye!

There were two tornadoes, one in the town north of us and one to the west 30 miles away, the first in 25 years. Fortunately, it seems to have been property damage only, no injuries. Hard enough on the people involved, but it could have been worse.

The radio announcers today (on all stations I've listened to) all are giving the weather report something like this: Monday, blah blah, Tuesday blah blah, Wednesday - Thunderstorms! but no tornadoes forecast at this time!!

7.25 More daylilies

The daylilies are all blooming now:






and these last three are from the babies that Cathy sent me two years ago:

7.21 Daylily time

When the pink Dot Com Tango lilies start blooming, they signal the end of the Asiatic bloom for the year.

You can see that the white Cappucino are all but done and the orange ones whose name I never remember.

The red Olinas are taller than I am, although they do have the advantage of about a foot boost with the raised bed.


The end of the Asiatics is the beginning of the daylilies and the Orientals will follow very shortly.

7.19 Marketing tool: Temptation

I bought the black/pink/firestar batts from Corgi Hill Farms (on etsy). She has a neat little marketing trick: With the order (I got four batts), she included a cute little mini batt of a completely different colorway:
Now I ask you.

I had to go check out the store just to figure out what the colorway was, since it wasn't labeled. Fortunately she has so many different reds and different fiber combos available right now that I was paralyzed by indecision and consequently didn't spend any more money I didn't intend to right now.

But I have finished the first two batts and am ready to start on the second singles.

7.17 Spinning for a week...

You'd think a week's worth of spinning would look like more, wouldn't you?
I have spun every day, although some days have been on the spindle.

7.9 And on the knitting front...

I've started one of the Eugen Beugler stoles from Best of Shawls and Scarves, the Corner to Corner one. I'm using Jaggerspun Zephyr. The corner went pretty quickly, but now I'm on the full length side-to-side on a diagonal and the rows are longer.

7.8 Spinning on the wheel and spindles

On the wheel is a batt of merino and angelina.

(the batt)


The red is tussah silk from Just Our Yarn (the neverending 3.5 oz I bought almost a year ago - this is what's left of the first half of it.)



And the blackberry English longwool from Freyalyn, which I misplaced months ago and just recently found again.

7.6 Lily forest stage 3

The lily forest is moving along through the bloom cycles. The Asiatics are all blooming now, both in the front bed and in the window bed. The ones in the front bed are the "pastel Asiatic mix", while the ones in the window bed are all Tango lilies.

Some of the pastels up close:

And a closer look at the Tango bed:

Cathy, this is the first of your babies to bloom this year:

7.5 Wheel spinning

Autumn fiber from Cloverleaf Farms:

Spun up to be:

Giving me two bobbins:

One bobbin to go.

7.4 spindlespun

Today's spindle spinning comes via the LDRS 28 rocket launch. We drove down to a farm in Potter where we got to watch all sorts of hi-power model rockets going off. Most of them went up and came down as planned which was fun. Some of them went up and came down not as planned, which was sometimes more fun.

I got a bunch of spindle spinning done while I watched.