Seriously, yes, someone should come over here and confiscate my blogging license. I’ve been so remiss at blogging that I maybe shouldn’t be allowed to anymore. Last time I checked in, Stalker Angie was about to arrive, and sooo much has happened since then!

Beware Stalkers Bearing Gifts!
She came, she saw, she brought goodies!
my apologies for the horrible lighting

Stalker Angie arrived at my house more than half a month ago, and brought me the absolute nicest gift: sheep stationary (!) and some SoySilk (which I’ve been dying to try!). I’m not exactly sure why it was that she gave me gifts and not the other way around, but the SoySilk did not explode, and is in the stash getting along nicely with all the sock yarn. We had a great time during her visit, and since I’m too lazy to blog about it, you can read it over at her place. While she was here, she finished a gorgeous crocheted shawl . . . I’ll let her show the pictures of it.

In other news
My friend of many years, Dolores, gave birth to a baby girl, who has been nicknamed “Daisy” since she was but a wee squirmy bump . . . so what better to make for her than the Daisysweater from Knitty?
my first baby sweater! really!!

I’m planning on leaving it plain, but I have three different sets of buttons shaped like daisies to choose from. Certainly y’all all will be in on that decision!

Speaking of the Yarn Harlot (which we were, since she designed the Daisy sweater), I’m planning to go to Oklahoma City next week for one of her infamous book signings . . . unfortunately she isn’t coming to Dallas, so our choices are OKC and Austin (which are each approximately the same distance from Big D). The Purling Pirate and I are planning to roadtrip to OKC for the occasion, possibly with a Purse-Ho in tow. And then, on Saturday, depending on what my girl NanC has planned, I may be trekking to Austin as well!

And since Tuesdays are for spinning

I’ve been slowly spinning up some Merino/Tencel that I bought a while back . . . I think I have 8oz total of this, so I’ve been working on it in batches.

The photo is amazingly true in color and shine on my monitor, and it is mostly laceweight singles, with a few thick places thrown in. I’m thinking of leaving this one as singles, rather than plying it.

Speaking of plying . . . I’m finding that I like the end product of Navajo plying, but I’m wondering of some of you other spinners can clue me into one thing: if you have to pause and stop and be able to continue later with the Navajo plying thing, how exactly do you do this? ‘Cause I’ve found so far that once I start, I don’t feel like I can stop without messing it up.

Spinning!

I’ve been a busy little plying bee this week . . . and I saved up a bunch of spinning pictures to show ya!

I plied the red singles that I showed off last week . . . it didn’t turn out too badly!
plying still needs work, but is getting easier!

I also split a hank of corriedale roving (colorway called pine) and spun it up and plied it . . . even better!

this skein was perfectly balanced! yay!

There was a teeny tiny bit of one bobbin left over, so I navajo plied that little bit just for some practice.

Navajo plying, in my opinion, is hard. But I love the results — for some reason I’m able to get a more balanced 3-ply than I am a 2-ply.

And of course, I couldn’t keep from spinning up some of the merino that was in my sampler pack . . . I spent about an hour or more predrafting to try and get smaller singles.
this electric blue color refuses to photograph in focus!

So then I Navajo plied the whole whack, and came up with some pretty cool yarn!
Ta-da! Spinning Tuesday!

In other news, I had my first-ever physical therapy appointment today (for my stupid back, which is thrown out at the drop of a DPN) . . . it went really well! My therapist is super-nice, and I have hopes that going twice a week will really help. A highlight: at the end of the visit, Physical Therapist Michelle used an ultrasound machine on my back muscles, and I cracked her up by asking, “Is it a boy, or a girl?”. Hee.

No real news with respect to the kitties, except that as of 5pm today, they seem to be AWOL! Hub’s theory is that the mama cat decided that they are ready to experience “real” food and may have moved them closer to the food source (one of the neighbors down the street puts out food for them, we think). In any case, we haven’t seen them at all. So Hub sprayed the yard with some really noxious stuff (to kill the fleas), and we are going to see what tomorrow brings.

When I said it was time to cast on for another sock!

Believe it or not, it’s my first time knitting Koigu, and seriously, y’all, it’s like buttah. And I’m also using my ebony DPNs for the first time . . . the combination is so lovely that it’s making me a little woozy. Seriously. (as in “seriously spoiled” . . . I have a feeling that the scratchy Lion Brand sock yarn in my stash will never see the light of day now!)

Also, why are the letters starting to wear off of only the “S” and “E” keys on my keyboard?

do I really use these two keys that much more often than the others?

No progress on the feral kitties; thanks to everyone so far who has asked/commented. We kind of took tonight off from trying to catch them, but will likely get back on track with it tomorrow. We did dust the deck yesterday with diatomaceous earth, which is supposed to kill the fleas on contact, and this afternoon I noticed zillions of tiny white dusty kitten pawprints all over the deck! So cute.