This and That

Since my last post, life has been so blissfully quiet that I’ve more or less hibernated from the heat and humidity. My needles, keyboard and spinning wheel have seen the only action (I’ve forgotten what the Kirby is for). Oh, I did take a trip to Jacksonville on Saturday. Did I ever mention I live in NE Florida? No! Well, I live an hour from “anywhere” up among the lakes, pine forests and fern hammocks. So going to the east coast or going to town means a “day out”. I would not have stirred myself even on Saturday had it not been the day for the River City Knitting Guild meeting, just couldn’t miss that!

So the run down on my exploits at home are…

One started and finished Poncho (the first of several Christmas gifts I’ve plans to make). Photo coming soon.

More work on TKGA Level-2 Vest …..not going well, due mostly because I can’t stop myself from tweaking the pattern and starting over. I'm also a glutton for punishment!

And talking of tweaking brings me to the massive amount of time at the keyboard. I have been trying to implant the code supplied by two different Web Rings into this blog. Both, no matter where I place them, manage to enlarge the size of my font for the whole blog. So until I become more html savvy the Rings will have to wait.

I also spun about 6 more ounces of the 11 British breeds. So far these 4 ounce samples have taught me that unless I go to live in the frozen north I’ll never need to buy the Black Welsh or Marsham breeds or blends. For me they are definitely outer-wear only wools and very coarse. The Manx Loughton, Massam and Shetland Moorit are also too coarse for “next to skin wear” as are Cotswold and Wensleydale, the latter two feel and spin more like mohair (not Kid) as they have very little crimp. The Wensleydale can be spun ultra fine and smooth, I liked the look of it but don’t know if I’d like it knitted, it may be very nice for weavering. On the other hand all three (Lt. Grey, Dk. Grey and White) Blue Faced Leicester samples are scrumptious, as is the White Shetland. All the breeds were easy to spin, due I’m sure to the superb processing job HaltWhistle Fibres had done….no VM and combed beautifully.

Please temper my remarks about these Breeds as they reflect the fact I live in Florida, have only been spinning for about 18 months and do not weave. So take all this for what it is worth as to your needs and preferences and remember this was my first experience with these breeds. I’d like to know your thoughts about them and whether my lack of experience might not have done some of them an injustice.

Back to the "Real World"
Due to "Hurricane Frances", who right now appears to be coming for a visit and because we’ll most likely have many of her alphabet family follow after her. I’m going to make some permanent changes around the house. Our stored treasures (mostly old photo’s) are going get unearthed and placed in stronger waterproof containers. This could take more than a day, since I’ll no doubt dwell and reminisce over every single treasure.