thank you, melissa

last night, after i dragged myself in from a whole day and evening of classes (it sounds pathetic, doesn’t it?), i found this waiting for me:

that’s from melissa g.; she’s an angel! i work with melissa, though she’s about 500 miles away in the office. we wish we lived near each other. we like a lot of the same things, including staying up waaayy past our bedtimes. and sometimes, we are even chatting over IM at those hours (if we’re not working). melissa crochets and loves animals, and once, a long time ago, she went to camp and got to meet some lamas and do some spinning there. she spins now, vicariously through me. and i am a pet lover, vicariously through her (i am so allergic to animals, that i sneeze when i am around just the owners). this is a bunch of fiber that just sounded good to melissa: alpaca top, tussah silk top, and some corriedale top . . . nice, eh? thank you, melissa! i will spin you some yarn.

actually, i did not teach ALL day yesterday; i did have a break. and my teaching days are like having a day off to me; who wouldn’t feel that way if they got to spend 12 hours in a yarn shop every monday! though it does sort of put me in sensory overload . . .

and of course there are the dangers and pitfalls of being around so much yarn. carol e. and i try to stay strong, but we are alone there on mondays, and sometimes we cave. or at least, i do:

it’s called malabrigo; it’s from a family-owned wool house in peru. this is their kettle-dyed merino, which comes in 100+ colors; here is the color chart, which is very accurate, BTW (Our Colors). it has approximately 215 yards per 100 gram skein. lots of places carry it in the USA. now, in my own defense, this really IS irresistible; even without the arty thing that is going on with my camera here (totally on its own, i couldn’t make that happen if i tried), you can see that this stuff is practically edible, right? RIGHT??!!

ok, so we agree. the red will be a really, really good scarf. the browns, i don’t know yet, but i want to make something with both colors. i figure if i arrange them artistically on the coffe table while i knit, something will come to me.

yes, i know i’ve been making a lot of little yarn purchases recently, but that’s about to slow WAAAY down. i’ve had some unexpected free time this last month, but now work is starting to pick up again (as in, i might not see the light of day for the next few weeks). so THAT’S over, which means i will not get out to shop much (sorry beth, but we can maybe squeeze in another trip soon; we DO need to get debbie out, still . . .)

anyway, i made good progress on a couple of projects yesterday. those good tweed sox are now a set, and almost done:

which is good, because as much as i love the way this yarn looks, i am not enjoying knitting with it so much. it’s will wear very well, but it’s not very soft. good thing it’s handsome, is all i can say. i should be done with these tonite. i’ll probably start another pair in some old green mountain spinnery yarn i’ve had for ages. it was a discontinued color (in 1993 or so; yup, there really is hope for the bottom of the stash) that i must have been out of my mind enthusiastically bought three cones of. the color is a nice, deep rusty red, but seriously, i really don’t think i needed 3,000 yards of it! my stash was a LOT smaler then. anyway, i have made some socks out of this before, but i STILL have enough for a sweater and some more socks.

and that striped noro scarf that was so curly; that’s done too. i blocked it flat, but i can tell it might curl when it gets worn. not that there’s anything wrong with that . . . here it is while i was blocking it:

it took about 45 minutes to pin it out and get it flat. now it looks like this:

well, for five minutes anyway . . . ok, i’ve been in this desk chair way too long and am setting off to spin or knit and catch up on podcasts; i am way behind and have all last week’s programs not yet listened to (i’m not sure that was grammatically correct, but . . .).