It may be Sunday or Monday morning spinning this week

August 31, 2013

Good morning, and Happy Labor Day Weekend, the unofficial end of summer! It’s also the end of a two simultaneous dog sitting gigs that I’ve been doing, and as much as I love the dogs that I’ve been caring for, I’m really looking forward to getting things back to normal in this house. What’s normal here is still more dogs than most people have, but it’s quieter when the extra dogs leave, and there’s room for me to sit on my own couch, which I enjoy doing.
The two furry guests in my house arrived last Friday early in the evening and all was going well. The dogs had gotten all of their sniffing and tail wagging out of the way and we were settling in to watch TV for the rest of the evening. I was knitting a worsted weight sock in a black/white/gray Cascade 220 that I’m still not sure I care for.

Aside from the fit and feel of the sock being wrong, its colors remind me too much of what came next.

At about 9:30 PM our peaceful evening ended when our Pharaoh hound came in from her usual evening back yard critter patrols. Actually, the stench came in before she did. Yes, she encountered the skunk that often travels through the neighborhood in the evenings. I had always assumed the skunk must be smart enough not to stay away from the yard where several dogs live. Boy was I wrong! Quick action on our part prevented the smell from permeating everything in the house, confining it to just the living room and kitchen. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep Friday night, and by Saturday morning, the smell was still bad but it was mostly coming from my poor sweet dog.

I kept my plans for the day and drove to Connecticut to the home of Bruce Weinstein. Bruce had invited a few guys over for lunch and an afternoon of knitting. I brought a few things that I’ve got on the needles right now, not sure which I’d end up working on. Bruce showed us his WIP’s too, and also treated us to a little trunk show of all the samples from the photo shoot from his book “Boyfriend Sweaters”. I did bring my Lendrum with me in case I wanted to spin. I had finished the Colonial wool in shades of purple prior to the weekend. It became a beautiful 3ply that was the perfect gift for our host on Saturday. I also completely forgot to take any pictures of it. The fiber I brought to start spinning next is four ounces of Masham in red and blue.

I didn’t get very far with spinning last Saturday, choosing to focus on my knitting instead, and like it always does when you’re having fun, time flew. Before I knew it, it was time to head home and the drive home through the Berkshires was just as beautiful as the drive there. I even noticed more than a couple trees that were not entirely green.

So let’s fast forward to this weekend. I took the last two days off from work to take care of doctor and dentist appointments as well as a number of things that needed to be done in the yard that I’ve let go for far too long. After two days of yard work, shed demolition, trips to the scrap metal yard, landfill, and Goodwill, I hurt. I won’t bore you with a list of all things I did but this morning my arms hurt, my legs hurt, and my hands and fingers hurt. I did manage to knit a bit on my latest sock project yesterday afternoon but I think trying to spin this morning is just not going to happen. It might later today, but for now I’m going to have my Alleve for breakfast and wait for it to kick in. With Monday off from work too, I have plenty of time to get some spinning done this weekend. I may also get caught up on some carding projects. One of the things I did between outside projects the last couple of days is put a coat of Danish wood oil and a finish of paste wax on the wood of my drum carder. It came out beautifully.