Fiber Follies

I enjoyed another day at Bob and Patrick’s Thursday. This required some advance planning. Firstly, I had to be sufficiently ahead in work to allow myself to catch up completely before half-past Friday. Secondly, I was picking up Precious Child, which cannot be done “on the way” as she’s twenty minutes in the other direction. So, then, if I want to get to the farm early enough to settle in a bit, I must convince Precious to get up early on her day off (“early” to her means something in a different time zone than it does for me). And I must head out reasonably early. If I go by meself, I arise at my normal time, pack the wheel and whatever fiber and knitting I want to work on, then work an hour, clean the litter pans, and get things in order for an easy dinner before leaving. And I’ll still be at the farm well before noon. When Precious Child comes, I entreat her to arise early. I pack whatever I’ll take the night before. I arise early and clean the litter pans, then rush out. And it seems that the days we both go I have a half dozen stops to make on the way so we don’t arrive til noonish.

Anyway. Wednesday night I spent some time spinning, then decided to pack the wheel. I zipped its bag open, turned to fold the wheel then turned back to see this:

and then this:

Now I know what to get Risky for Christmas. I got her out of the bag and the wheel in, packed some roving and a knitting project and the camera.

Thursday was a glorious sparkling day. Sunny and cool and dry. The guys were just finishing the day’s shipping when we got there. We sat on the porch a few minutes when Sadie reminded us that there were kittens to look at. Here they are in their mohair nursery:

The other mama cat has three kittens but she isn’t happy with people looking at them.

Later, we wandered about to visit the livestock:
Who all thought we bore gifts of food so came running most undignified to the fence.

Suckers.

I did get some spinning in. Precious plyed my merino/tencel for me, and did a super nice job of it. Here it is before I set the twist.
Bright and cheerful isn’t it? I really like the way it’s turned out.

Bob had dyed some silk top. I was crazy about the colours, all goldy-antiquey-yellow with well- saturated blops of purple and pinks and blues and greens. Absolutely gorgeous.

He sent me home with more than 50g. I was all about admiring it and petting it and naming it George then decided to spin it instead. It’s my first try at spinning silk. I’ve heard it’s a bit tough to spin but I’m not having any more troubles with it than I would with anything else. Probably since I’m so new at spinning, I cannot distinguish between difficulty levels from merino to silk. And it spins very pretty, quite different from what I’d expected.
I’m also spinning two more batts Bob made from the aqua merino and the white wools that I got off-site. He makes them into beautiful batts that spin into beautiful singles.

And, since I’m bobbin-crazy, I’m filling yet another bobbin with a wool that Precious Child bought for me from Susan’s Spinning Bunny at the fiber festival three weeks ago. I don’t remember what wools it is, it’s super soft and slippy slinky like merino. The colourway is called Roses for You and I just plain love it. It’s spinning up pretty too.
There. That’s all for now. Back to the work for me…

Oh. Yeah. The post title. It’s Risky’s birthday so I’m letting her get away with more than the usual nonsense. She wanted to stroll across the keyboard when I started the post. If you wonder what it might mean you’ll have to ask her. I’d sooner not know. Happy Birthday Risky Malarkey O!