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Day two of 4 days of non-work bliss has been quiet. Which is what I was going for. And I still have 2 days of peace and quiet left. Two more days to sleep in until 8:00 am. That’s truly a luxury for me. Oh, and coffee in the morning. Another luxury. Normally I don’t allow myself any extra time to make breakfast or coffee for myself before I sprint out the door to work. But it’s something that always make on my days off.
I started Icarus this afternoon. I’m about halfway through chart 1. I’m knitting this up with my crazy wonderful Malabrigo lace yarn in pearl ten which which is a silvery greyishpurplebrown that reminds me of a black pearl. It’s really a stunning color. I’m sure that any photo that I post here won’t even begin to do it justice. Speaking of which, I’d post a photo of it, but it’s so tiny and early in the pattern that you can’t even see anything other than a little greyish blurb against the pattern that it’s sitting on. Photos to come later once it becomes a little more substantial.
I had grand plans for yesterday which consisted of hours and hours of spinning cormo on the wheel and finishing up the merino on the spindle. Of course, I got distracted by sock knitting and touched neither of them. The sock is nothing too exciting either as my gauge got all wonky on me with the particular yarn that I was using (Tofutsies) and somehow I’ve ended up with some gianormous sock that could probably only fit bigfoot. I tried it on and at a glance, it didn’t appear too big, but my foot felt as though it was swimming in it. I’m trying to decide if I should frog it and try smaller needles or if I should just finish it up, complete the second sock and hope that I meet someone with feet exponentially larger than mine that likes magenta. I just need to kitchner the first sock and I’m ready for the second…but I’m still trying to decide.
It’s not really that interesting of a sock, so I guess I probably should frog it and find something a little more creative to knit with the yarn. Eh. I don’t know. I’ll just let it marinade for a while.
In patio garden news, Holy Cayenne, Batman!
I’m trying to think of all of the wonderful spicy foods that I will be able to make with them very soon. I’m too excited about these cayennes.
But back to Icarus and his loveliness…
My knitting has been feeling a little neglected in the past couple of days. I’ve picked up my drop spindle again and despite some very difficult moments where the drop spindle was getting a little saucy with me, we’ve managed to spin up some lovely lace weight singles. Okay, perhaps it isn’t the spindle as much as the short staple length of the merino. Okay…it’s my poor spinning skills. There. It’s now out there for the world to read. I feel better.
It’s very robin’s egg-ish. But it’s soft and it has a lovely halo. I think that it will make a nice yarn once plied. My only complaint is with the roving dye…that keeps bleeding onto my fingers and has actually stained my spindle a bit (Not that it’s the nicest spindle in the world. It’s homemade, but it gets the job done and that is all that matters to me). I think that this fiber may require an extra long soak when I set the ply. I’ve been pondering taking it in to work with me to spin on my lunch hour. But the bleeding dye has kind of put out that fire. Ahh well…I can spin in the evenings while watching the radar on ravelry.
I burned the back of my hand on the toaster oven this morning whilst toasting my bagel. It has left a very bulbous line across the back of my hand. It’s very Tyler Durden-ish. Only, I’m not really allowed to talk about that because the first rule is that I can’t talk about it.
I have cayennes. They’re still pretty tiny, so you’ll need the magnifying glass to see them. But they are rockin’ out on my patio garden. There are 9 little cayennes scattered across the plant. I can’t wait until they turn red.
See? Tiny. But they will soon be grand. And spicy. Oh, and my very kind neighbor is going to transplant some of her cilantro for me, so soon I will have another addition to my garden. I think that I will pass along some of my basil starters to her. I have soooo many- in addition to the plant that is already giving me more basil than I thought I would be able to use.
I have a chili pepper!
Awesome. I’ve had the plant (well, plants, actually. I bought 2 chili plants) for a couple of weeks now. However, I’ve not gotten around to transplanting them into proper pots yet. It’s on the agenda for this afternoon. I don’t know why I feel so afraid of gardening. I want to garden. I want to grow things. I want to grow things well. But when it comes to transplanting plants, I’m just so afraid that I am going to kill them. So irrational. Everything that I am growing is thriving right now and I really am proud of that, as it’s really the first time that I have had this luck. Check out the basil plant that I bought a couple of weeks ago:
It was maybe half that size when I bought it. Now, it’s looking glorious. And I need to make something for dinner tonight to use it. (Mental note: must remember to keep picking the leaves back so that it doesn’t flower) The basil that I started from seeds is still coming along quite nicely. They aren’t quite ready for transplanting yet, but they will be soon. Then I shall have a forest of basil. Mmmm…a forest of basil. That sounds so yummy.
I’m enjoying a lazy saturday today. I made scrambled eggs for breakfast (I make kick-ass scrambled eggs.) along with a cup of coffee (I have mad coffee-making skills too). I checked on my little patio garden and then finally sat down at the wheel to finish up the plying of the seawool singles and start the cormo roving. The seawool turned out rather lovely.
I’ll measure the WPIs as soon as it drys. It’s currently hanging in the shower drying from it’s blossoming bath. I’m thinking it’s somewhere between a fingering and dk weight. Yeah, not completely consistent in some areas (okay, many areas) but I still think that I had a breakthrough of sorts while spinning this. It’s much better than my previous yarns. I still have about 2oz of roving left, but I’m going to save it for later, I think. I’ve been dying to try out the cormo. It’s a lovely jewel tone- I’m thinking mittens for it- but could use some carding. I haven’t purchased any carding tools yet, so I’m just sort of going with it. The singles are a little slubby in places, but I’m really not minding it too much. I’m getting a nice thinness with it, so I can handle a few slubs. Besides, I think it adds to the rustic qualities of handspun yarn (which I love). And for mittens, I think this will work well.
The colors are going to be glorious once plied. I can feel it.
On a side note: the cottonwood is everywhere today. It’s wisping across the sky in the breeze like summer snow flurries. I can’t help but stop to stare at it. Mesmerizing.
