Real Progress

I am finally feeling a real sense of progress!

First, I had an awesome weekend just past - Rick, Taylor and Allison were here to visit and we had a great time. Played a lot of cards and just basically hung out. Then, Jim and I went to the spin and grin at Stephen's on Sunday and had another great time. I got my money from Char for the things of mine (mostly felted flowers) that she sold at the Ann Arbor fiber thing in October. It was really a great weekend.

Jim and I did the major-house-cleaning-during-deer-season that we do every year. We got done in record time and started right in on putting up the Christmas decorations. The only glitch with that is a malfunction on our tree which is still covered under warranty. I am waiting for the resolution of that, so the tree is the only thing remaining to complete the decorating of the house. I hope it is done by the time our first party of the year takes place in early December.

Then yesterday I did some carding of cormo for the shawl.

I am blending colors to come up with the needed eight different colors, and I am very pleased with the outcome so far. Did I tell you that I love my new drum carder?

I have the white, beige, and light gray yarn completed and ready to wash. I have the gray-beige and dark brown ready to spin. I still need to card the medium gray, dark gray and black. I am going to anticipate that I will have the yarn for the needles before Christmas - woot! I am really getting excited about the project now.

In between working on this yarn, I am also spinning more novelty yarn. Mindless and fun. It is so neat to see how it turns out. I am using some Shetland roving that I dyed, plying it with chenille. I bought a new, larger roaster to dye in, and it is working superbly.

And in between everything, I am starting to think Christmas gifts and shopping, Christmas letter and cards, and life in general. I am having to make lists so that nothing falls through the cracks. I can hardly believe that it is almost Thanksgiving already.

Maybe by my next post, the needles will be clicking!

Washing Cormo

Today, after a discussion with cormo guru, Char, I dug out some of my cormo stash from Char's shearing and I have just finished washing it again. I had washed it right after the shearing, but I knew that it wasn't completely clean and by now, these months later, it was rather sticky. So today was laundry day anyway, so I did an extra load and washed part of the lovely cocoa brown of Diana and the dark chocolate of Dixie. Now I am wishing it was dry so that I could card it and start spinning it.

I have changed the pattern that I am planning to use. It calls for eight different colors/shades of yarn. I am going to make do with five. I have the white top, Diana, Dixie, the black from Alice that Char and I bought at the festival (and Char washed for me, bless her!!), and then some light gray that I bought a year ago from Char. Now I am again fired up with getting the fiber ready to spin. I think that I might have enough of the white ready to ply, so now I will be dealing only with the colors - which are fun to spin anyway.

I am getting anxious to start knitting!

It seems good to be done with the mittens for now. None of them sold at the Ann Arbor show, which was disappointing. However most of the felted flowers did sell, so I am happy about that. When I get tired of spinning or knitting, I will work at creating more flowers.

On Wednesday, the trees were still covered in leaves, now, these few days later, they are basically bare. The yard is a foot deep in oak leaves. I raked area in the back yard around the fire pit last Friday, and you cannot even tell that I did it. I enjoy raking them - great cardio exercise and a real sense of accomplishment.

Taylor's football team, the Falcons, have won every game this year including the playoffs yesterday. They will be playing at EMU on Saturday for the championship. He called to tell me about it. I am so happy for him! Go Falcons!