June Spinning

I plied the romney-perendale that I had been spinning at the demos and have those pics finally:

It was an overcast day, so not a lot of good lighting and a lull in between flowerings so I used the rocks by the pond to take pics.  It goes into the handspun collection for Largess donations.

Here's the Muted Mallard Finn yarn:

307 yards of chain plied goodness. Not sure what it will become or if I decide to add it in with the other yarns to become Largess too.

I finished up the Mallard Finn Yarn but still need to ply. Think I"ll go ahead and chain ply it also to keep the color striping. I wasn't consistent with the Muted, so couldn't have just done them as a two ply together, in case you were wondering.

While it was resting I started on some lovely Cormo-Silk that I had gotten from Sincere Sheep because Lorajean had raved about it. It really is a gorgeous cloud like white. Does still have a surprising amount of grass/hay like stuff in it, but I just pull them out as I come to them. I got three two-ounce bundles with the idea that I would ply them as a three-ply. I had one of them done when I did these photos and finished the second one last night. I would have started on the third bundle, but I only have four bobbins and with three already filled, I need to empty one before I start on that last bundle. So need to get that chain plying done!

This really doesn't show the sheen of the silk that it has. Kind of does give you the idea of the cloud-like softness though I guess. ;-) It really does spinning lovely and I should have the third one done soon.

I had a birthday last week and had a lovely lunch out with my son with good conversation. We went to Red Lobster since it was just the two of us. Brandon isn't really into seafood, he does like the coconut shrimp though. Introduced William again, since the last time he was there was when he was a lot younger, to the famous Red Lobster biscuits. I think he'll be taking his girlfriend there for dinner sometime. lol

Brandon made me a lovely collapsible niddy-noddy out of mahogany and cherry:

The mahogany bits are the pickaxe pieces and the uprights are cherry. The lighter bits of the cherry will darken and turn more red as they age. The darker part of the cherry is more of the heart wood. So not only do I have a lovely useful spinning tool, I also have defensive weapons if I need them! Really anyone who is silly enough to mess with a knitter deserves the needle holes they'll get. Mess with a spinner and you'll get something like this coming at you. lol Really, I'm not that violent.

Sneeze, sniffle, blow, groan.....

Thursday night's book signing went really well. We arrived early enough to score seats in the first row. Put us up close to Geno and R.A (Bob) and able to be first ones to get books signed. R.A. being from the Boston area one of the first things out of his mouth was 'Anyone have the score for the Red Sox's?' No one did, but I remembered that Brandon carries his work Blackberry, so after trying to get used to navigating on the New York Times page he started me out on, I figured out how to get to Google and go from there. Top of the 7th it was 5-0, not good for the Sox. By the time we got up there and he again asked the question, the sad news was that it was bottom or the 7th and 9-0.

R.A. and Geno both had a sense of humor and it was fun to hear the pride in a father's voice about his son coming into his world. Of course Geno has been 'working' for him for the last 10 years as a copy editor and Geno is supposed to know the books better than he does. R.A. also asked William some questions and took the time to personalize every one of his books with something, not just sign them. Very cool! Of course it was good that he was one of the first ones in line even though we had his 12 books spread out amongst the three of us.

I was starting to get a migraine while we were waiting, so took some Excedrin Migraine I had on hand. Only a couple of rows of knitting too. I thought about knitting during the talk but since some have implied its rude, I put it away.

My Friday and Saturday were spent taking Excedrin Migraine every few hours and Saturday I threw in three Vicodin spaced out. It was still not fun. Saturday night I started sneezing and sniffling. Yup, Sunday morning I woke up with a sore throat, stuffy head and thinking that life really isn't fair.

I hate the Hall's mentholated throat drops but broke down and have had been sucking on the few that we have. I will have to get out of my jammies today and get some supplies - more throat drops, a really good decongestant and other food type supplies. I hate being sick and also having cramps start - just shoot me now please.

Until I get the book signing photos off, here's one that I forgot to put up last week. A new member of the household. Currently going by the unoriginal name of 'Big Blue'.

Nessa finds him terribly fascinating and likes to sit on my lap at the desk and watch him - he teases her.

I need photos of the niddy-noddy Brandon made for me from oak. I'm on coat two of the finish and need to take some steel wool to it before more goes on. I also need to move the singles of Cobbler off of their bobbins so I can try to get them plied. This corriedale was much nicer to work with than the rough Habu stuff I got from Knit/Purl.

We had news that Kari is in labor as of yesterday afternoon. Today is Kari's birthday and may also have become Madeline's. So I'll be shipping off her booties this week:

ETA: Received confirmation that 'Madi' was born last night, so shares a birthday with my niece Bailey, at 11:41pm and weighed in at 8 and a half pounds was what I was given. We also received confirmation that 'Madi' is how they will be shortening her name after finding out that everyone had an idea of how to shorten it and none agreed. ;^)