Goodbye, my sweet boy

After a wonderful 14 years and 3 months, my sweet fiber cat crossed the rainbow bridge this morning.

Who would have thought this big boy (@ 13 pounds, "dieted" down from 18!) could have started as a 1 lb teeny boy (messing with his sister).

 He loved to "help" me with my stitching/knitting/spinning, help himself to whatever was on the kitchen counter, and always wanted to be on the top shelf of my clothes closet. His sister and I will miss him. There's more I could say, but let's leave it at that.

Improvisation

What does a spinner do when the power goes out? Spin by flashlight of course!

Back to reality, sorta

Well, I am back to the daily grind. The time off was wonderful - I did a bunch of stuff around the house, goofed off a lot, and indulged in a facial. The house finally got painted, so I was relieved to get that off my list of things to do. There is still some weatherstripping around some of the doors that needs to be replaced and the deck needs some touch ups, but all in all I think it is good.

I did start the Tour de Fleece last Saturday. My challenge is to spin everyday and make a large dent in the small lots of fiber I have collected over the last few years. Included in this are samples of the fibers I got for a fiber-tasting I am hoping to do at the LYS next month. Here is some camel and camel-silk I had hanging out in the stash.

 

And in other news, I pulled out another project and found a distressing thing:

Apparently I like doing yarnovers, so not only did I do them where I was supposed to, I did them where I wasn't supposed to! The sparkly section is Blue Heron yarn, transitioning into to Rowan Kidsilk Haze (doubled), ending with a section of Tilli Tomas beaded silk yarn. So I dove in and started trying to fix it:

I got about halfway through and decided I needed to do this with fresher eyes. I dropped the "bad areas" and fixed them, but in having 2 extra stitches in one repeat and 4 in the next repeat, I ended up needing to rip back most all of the Tilli Tomas.

Sorry for the bad iphone pic, but I am trying to stay in bed as long as possible this morning! The Kidsilk Haze is still a little more open than I would like, but I think it will be easier to even out those stitches once I put some more rows in.

This weekend is supposed to be more house tasks, like finishing up the closet and hopefully restoring the living room, but I don't think I am going to get it all done. I have weavers' guild activities today and tomorrow and I am hoping to catch up with a friend or two this weekend as well.  Oh and I have joined not one, but TWO online lace projects that I have not even started yet, not to mention the group EGA project I have barely touched! (Me? Over-committed? Never!)

That's about all the rambling I'm up for at the moment, so for fun, here is a cute cat pic. She is actually meowing in this picture, but her "vampire" look is in full force.