Mmmm... birthday cake
Mmmm... birthday fleece
So, from those two pictures, you'll get a flavor for how wonderful my birthday was. The theme of my birthday party was Mardi Gras, complete with masks, beads and a baby for the cake. It was a lot of fun and it eased the pain of "getting older." I also got a pound of this lovely Cormo/Rambo cross fleece as a little present for myself for my birthday. I love it already and can't wait to process it. I know it's not for everyone, but I love, love, love processing my own fleece. Since I pretty much ONLY spin gossamer weight, I don't need to do much to get enough for a project. I can see how it might get monotonous if you wanted to process enough for, say, a sweater. Even I don't think I love processing fleece THAT much. I don't know why I haven't gotten around to this fleece yet, except that it's been a very busy week. I couldn't even tell you why or how it's been so busy, because there's nothing of consequence going on, but it seems like my time is being spent on a gazillion little things that need to get done. It's death by a thousand cuts week here at Chez Butterfly. And, of course, my fiber work is the first to suffer when things get crazy. Last night I pulled out my wheel for the first time in almost a week and got some spinning done. Oh! and I got a new camera for my birthday, so look, there are some decent pictures now! Yay! Here's the spinning:
Swallowtail got derailed briefly, but she's now back on track. I finished the bud portion pretty quickly, then did some practice nupps (I've never done them before and didn't want to learn them on the actual shawl) and away I went on the nupps. But, we went to Mark's brother's house for the Stuporbowl and I guess the stress got to me because I messed up the pattern in several places (his family and I are oil-and-waterish). I tried dropping back and rebuilding the stitches in the places that were wrong, but I wasn't getting it right. I could get the right stitch count, but the knitting was wonky, and not that "it will block out" wonky. So, after debating it, I decided I'd rather add a couple of days to the shawl knitting and have it "right" when it's done. Besides, who really minds re-knitting cashmere? I think it's so nice, I knit it twice. And thanks to waiting on Mark at the eye dr.'s today, I'm almost back to where I was. I really do love this yarn and a bit of web surfing shows me many, many more gorgeous colors. My mom doesn't like "frilly" stuff, she likes functional stuff, so I'm thinking of knitting a Swallowtail for her, but in a thicker weight of this luscious cashmere yarn so that it's warm (functional) and pretty (frilly). Then everyone wins :-D
Another birthday present this year was the rest of the dyes I need to work with the Deb Menz dye notebook I received for Christmas. The "boys" (Mark and my dad) both have to work on President's Day, but my mom and I are off, so we're planning a big ol' dye blitz. Toward that end, I mixed up a cubic buttload of dyestock this weekend.
So I'm ready to go. I have a bunch of yummy fibers for dyeing and I'm now combing through the notebook putting together colorways. I'm a happy girl. And here's one last thing I'm happy about: I'm now blogging from what I like to call command central!
It took a lot of hard work and elbow grease, but I put this puppy together and now have the workspace I wanted in the computer and craft room. I am ecstatic with it! I now have the deskspace for my 2-monitor set up, a desktop I can do my writing on (or eat my dinner off of), and an Ott lamp in the second of my two main crafting spaces (I already had one in my other main crafting spot). After that cramped little tower, this is pure heaven. I feel like the queen of all I survey. As I should :-D
