Fiber, Fun, Family, FOs, Fwoo!

Hey, everybodee! I've got a whole pile o'pictures for ya. All stuff I'm excited about. I have to say, I feel very sad about the not blogging so much anymore, but I also feel pretty great about always having great stuff to say when I do get around to blogging. Here we go.

First, look at all this amazing yarn I made! I - me - turned a giant ball of silk and merino into a giant pile of something like worsted-weight yarn. Sorry, I'd give you more specific details, but that would entail me getting up off the couch in the middle of my Gilmore Girls DVD and going to look them up. (I am so addicted to old episodes of Gilmore Girls, which I discovered only after the show ended.)



Here's a close-up. It's all dry now and marinating in stash. I've got enough here for just about any sweater I could imagine wanting to knit.



Oh, look! Julie was excited about the yarn, too.



Changing the subject, we have this tree in our front yard that suddenly decided to produce piles of crazy seed pods this year.



The girls love to play with them, and for a moment it felt like some kind of cool homeschooling moment as we opened the pods together, collectively getting grossed out by the green goo inside the parts that hadn't dried out yet, then counting the beans and stuff.



And look! We got a cute picture of the girls looking like loving sisters together. It's potential Christmas card material, even.



Remember that mysterious orange object I was knitting with my lumpy-bumpy first homespun yarn? Well, it turned out kinda cute.



It's one of Marie Mayhew's awesome designs, superb in their cuteness and available online and in person at the Yarnery.



Although this is not at all my normal kind of knitting - I love the results, but somehow the process of attaining such cuteness evades me - this pumpkin-orange yarn was just begging to be turned into something felted to hide its quality. It was meant to be, and the girls love it.

Last weekend Joe's brother Dave came over to hang out with us for a day or so. It is so fun having him in town at the moment - and we're really hoping the job he's trying out is going to turn into something permanent so he'll stay and play Uncle Dave permanently. And he's good for Joe - the two of them stayed up till the wee hours playing video games together Friday night, so late that Dave crashed on our couch and hung out most of the day with us on Saturday.

He was here at the right time, too - just as I was finishing up a pair of socks. The ugly brown socks which were sized for me but which I didn't particularly love. I remembered that Dave has feet about the same size as mine, so...



He tried them on and said they fit, and now they're his! The colors look so much better on his feet than they would have on mine.



And finally, I saved the best for last. Guess who was in town on Sunday?



It was Kay and Ann of Mason-Dixon Knitting! They are so cool. They had some great funny stories to tell, they were so accessible and frienly you wouldn't believe it. I met Kay briefly before the talk, and she was so sweet. She even knew who I was when I told her my name! She said I was famous because people have told her they're knitting the "Shelly Kang" blanket. And then afterward, during the signing, they signed copies of both of their books for me and even took a picture with me and the picture from their book that largely inspired my blankie.

I could tell you so much more about the amazing fun, but my laptop battery is about to run out, and I need to get back to my knitting.