My goal of not having to put on a bra and leave the house today was a total SUCCESS! I sent Kevin out to get food for lunch and all it cost me was a few bucks. MONEY WELL SPENT, I tell you. Today was so nice I’m tempted to call in sick tomorrow.
I won’t, though. *sigh*
What made today extra nice was the weather. July is usually a month of 95+ degree weather and lung-sucking humidity. This weekend has been a rare gem in that it’s been MERELY in the upper 80s and low humidity, making being outside A JOY rather than a cruel tortuous chore.
Many people might take this opportunity to something outdoorsy – like go for a picnic, or take a hike in the woods. But that would involve effort and work and putting on a bra and remember, those are things that I wanted to avoid today. So instead I lugged the spinning wheel out to the balcony, poured myself a tall, icy glass of cold lemonade and made a day out of spinning and listening to the 8th Dresden files audiobook.
With minimal bribes (bacon flavored dog treats), Sadie spent the time with me, too, keeping careful eye on the birds and squirrels that passed through.
Fresh air must make me spin faster, because before I knew it, I had finished spinning the BFL I started last night.
And then quickly turned the singles into a brightly colored 2-ply:
Not sure of the yardage yet, but I’m pretty happy with what I got.
I wish I had more time to enjoy this weather, but it’s back to the grind tomorrow. Hopefully this week will be better than last!
Today was too nice a day to be stuck inside spinning. It’s a rare day in Atlanta when a July day is NOT a sweltering 90+ degrees. Today it was only in the upper 80s, and we enjoyed the day by having a nice lunch on the patio of one our regular places, and then spending a couple hours at the pool. Well, I did, anyway. Kev is not so much a pool guy, so he enjoyed the day after lunch by watching Netflix and taking a nap.
I’d be more judgy, but when I got in from the pool, I took a nap, too. Napping is what weekends were MADE for!
I did get around to spinning, though. I decided to take a break from the silk. I have been assured that wearing a groove into the flyer of your wheel is not unusual, and older wheels tend to show this kind of damage. Not scorch marks, though. That pretty much stunned everyone into silence, then high fives. YOU BURNED YOUR WHEEL! HIGH FIVE! I’ll bet that dumbass know-it-all spinner dude from RAVELRY never spun so fast he scorched his wheel! (yeah, YOU know who I mean).
So yeah, taking a break from the silk. Instead I pulled out a braid from Gale’s Art (shut up, I like her fiber, OK??? IT’S NOT STALKING IF I’M ONLY BUYING EVERYTHING SHE MAKES!). It’s her Blue Face Swirl, which is a base of white and dark BFL blended together, then dyed, giving it a swirled light/dark look.
The colorway is Sizzle
I just started spinning it. It’s clear that I’ve been spending too much time spinning silk or things with silk blended in, because I keep snapping the yarn as I spin from pulling it out too thinly. Whoops!
One of the draw backs of my single treadle wheel is that one leg does all the work. And that leg is starting to feel the burn of spinning every day – even after taking two days off. FEEL THE BURN! After the Tour is over, I’ll expect to have a ROCK HARD right leg, and soft squishy left leg.
And you thought I couldn’t get any sexier.
BONUS SADIE PICTURE
I do not want to play today
This was a long week. I mean, a REALLY LONG WEEK. I was happy to see the end of the work day and begin my weekend in STYLE.
Earlier this week, I caught Not Martha’s posts on making a grapefruit-infused vodka. If you’ll recall, I’ve done alcohol infusions before. Several times. And I loooove grapefruit. It is my favorite citrus. A CHALLENGE HAS BEEN MADE! Another infused vodka to make!
And also, I decided to take the night off spinning, since when I picked up the bottle of vodka for the infusion I also picked up a bottle of Kraken rum, which I mixed with lemonade to make some very addictive drinky drinks and was pretty much feeling no pain for a few hours tonight. Spinning after drinking that much…probably not a good idea.
Making booze infusions while drunk? AWESOME IDEA.
I started out with the peels of 6 pink grapefruits, carefully avoiding as much as the pith as possible. This is the first place I differed from Not Martha version – she used grapefruit slices, but I was worried that much pith would make the resulting drink too bitter.
Into the big glass jar with you!
Not Marth added tarragon to hers. I’m not a big fan of tarragon in anything other than chicken. If this were something I was making for the holidays, I might go with a spice, like clove. But I wanted a refreshing summer drink. And I happened to have a pot full of spearmint on my balcony. WIN! Perfect combination.
MINTY!
I added a little bit of sugar and muddled the grapefruit peel and mint a bit to bring the oils out. Then I added the juice from two of the grapefruits and poured in one large bottle of vodka.
Gorgeous!
And now we wait. A few weeks should be enough time to give this a good flavor. Then I will pour some over ice with a splash of soda water to make it fizzy…mmmm….refreshing summer beverage! I will, of course, provide a full report on its tastiness.
Monday was the real rest day for Tour de France and Tour de Fleece, but I decided to delay rest until today. For knit night, I just wanted to knit. Baby blanket is started.
Don’t freak out – it’s not for me!
I skeined up the plied yarn from yesterday and got this:
480 yards of brown wool silk awesomeness
I could not be happier with how this turned out. It is a gorgeous tweedy and soft yarn, I’m guessing worsted weight. I am going to have to pick a special project for this yarn, because OH YES, I will definitely be knitting with it.
I decided to go for a challenge today and got out the silk hankie I bought at SAFF a few years back. After watching a couple youtube videos, I felt pretty confident that I could handle it.
But first, I exfoliated the CRAP out of my hands using a sugar scrub. Silk snags on the tiniest bit of skin and I want my hands to be smoooooth as a baby’s bum before I tackled this project. Then I started to spin.
Niiiiiiice!
Pretty good, right? Occasionally the yarn got too thin and snapped, and I had to rejoin and start. Rejoining is tricky with silk, I learned.
It was during one of these rejoining attempts that I noticed something. There was a mark I hadn’t seen before on my flier. A dark mark…textured…like…there was a groove being worn into the wood…
Oh. Shit.
I SCORCHED MY FUCKING FLYER WITH MY MAD SILK SPINNING SKILLZ!!!!
Anyone have a solution for this? Because I’m really liking how the silk is spinning and I don’t want to stop!
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guernseygal
Janice in GA
lulubelle
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