Dammit x 2

As expected, I'm out of yarn for Aeolian. Knit and Caboodle doesn't have this color anymore. Evidently neither do any other stores; Wisdom Yarns Poems Sock color #952 is now mostly purple with some blues. I am trying to scrounge enough yarn to finish the last four rows and cast-off. I found one Ravelry member who just completed a shawl in the same color and PM'd her to ask if she had any leftovers. She responded, but I can't open any of my Ravelry messages. Nothing else but the main navigation menus are working for me either, so I can't even attach my blog entries to my projects. I've restarted my computer and restarted Firefox a few times; I'm not sure what the problem is, or if I can even send a message to Casey to ask for help.

So, I decided to finish plying the Corriedale singles on my Fricke wheel. I've worked my tail off all day, and I was finally going to take a break, listen to the most recent Lime & Violet podcast, and finish off this 3-ply at last. Everything went okay for about ten minutes...
That's the connector that holds the treadle on the footman. It snapped in two. I unscrewed the two ends and sent an email to Fricke Enterprises to see if they have any spare parts for sale. I have no idea what this is (other than plastic) or where to go to buy one locally, or how I'd manage to drill the two necessary holes in something this small and rolly. So, the Corriedale gets put on hold as well.

At least I managed to wax my Reeves wheel today. I can't spin on it until the Wood Beams has a chance to soak in, but it's one more thing (very nearly) off my List. I think I'm going to take the CPH (resurrected from Mr. Greenjeans) into the living room and knit for a while. The Significant Other is on his way home from work in a bad mood, and I think I'm going to need the tranquilizing wool fumes this evening.

Such a nice girl. So sad about the crazy, though.

Evidently I've gone insane and joined the Tour de Fleece 2009. From July 4th to July 26th while the Tour de France winds its way, I've committed to spinning for 15 minutes a day, every day. My main target is going to be the Blue Moon Sheep to Shoe kit; I'm a little over halfway through the second bobbin of singles, but I'd like to finish it.

Not that I'm hating the process; BFMA roving spins like well-behaved silk, and watching the colors change makes the 15 minutes go by like the wind. I'm just anticipating the cool socks I'm going to get from the three-ply sock yarn that comes from this:

I'm just wondering when I think I'm going to chisel 15 minutes out of my overloaded evenings. I managed to get in 15 minutes tonight, but it took me until after 11:00 p.m. to do it. I guess the bookkeeping and the yoga DVD can wait one more day.

Yes, I do.

Spin on my front porch, that is. Last weekend we had a blues festival in town. Not really my husband's kind of music, but I like a wide variety of styles. And the Soulard Blues Band are excellent blues musicians. I could clearly hear them from my office with the window open to the fresh afternoon breeze. It took a few minutes to occur to me that I could work on the computer later that night, but I only had about an hour of good daylight to spin on the front porch (the sun is in the back of the house in the afternoon).

So I grabbed my Fricke and the brown Louet Corriedale roving I've been working through forever and headed out to the porch. Unfortunately the bobbin was already pretty full. By the time the band took its first break, I'd snarled the single around the flyer hooks and the bobbin shaft. By the time I took everything apart, decided to go ahead and ply all three bobbins now and finish the roving later (the lack of a spare empty bobbin factored into the decision), and set up the lazy kate, the band started playing again.

I should have taken a picture, but here's a small portion of my view:


There are few things I enjoy more than sitting on my front porch barefoot and spinning, listening to good music and confusing all the tourists.

(BTW, I didn't finish the plying; husband wanted to go for a walk. If the rain stops this weekend, I'll get it done and take some pictures.)