Rain!

Hi Cindy!

Although the monsoon hasn't officially arrived (need 3 consecutive days with average dew points of 55 or above), we had our first dust storm and rain of the season. It is still raining after well over an hour. The dust arrived first, shortly after 8 pm, and then the lightening, thunder and rain rolled in about half an hour later. The picture makes it look a little more dramatic than it really is but it is still pretty cool. Actually the picture looks more like snow than rain but that's just the flash reflecting off all the drops, either that or we're being invaded by thousands of ghost-spheres. Take note of the fence. Hopefully in the next week or two it will be gone and replaced with lots of grey block.

Spinning class last week was interesting. Barb, the instructor, brought us little goody sacks of other things to spin. The first was a little bit of silk that she dyed with kool-aid. It turned out quite pretty. I got it pretty consistent. She insisted we try spinning it from the fold and it worked pretty well. I'm looking forward to buying some of the bombyx top to spin but probably not until the last class next week. Of course I'll be the only one there that week since the other two are on vacation then so maybe this week will be the last class.

Also in the sack was a sample of wool she also kool-aid dyed, some undyed silk cut for blending and a bit of flax. I'll probably try the flax this week to see how it goes. She also gave us a small bag of unwashed brown fleece that had come from a sheep she used to have. I cleaned it last night and it is drying. I need to buy or borrow cards from the store and get it into a useful form. Margi found it drying overnight and attacked a bit of it. Kelly found it in the middle of the kitchen floor. I think she might have tried to eat some and then puked it up too. I heard some one yakking in the middle of the night and found a pile that looked suspiciously fleece colored.

Two classes ago a bought some heather colored rambouilette. I think I mentioned it in my quick post before vacation. I have worked on spinning it the last two classes. Here are my two weeks worth plus what's left of the roving. The upper right is the first night's spinning (whole class) wound on the niddy noddy. The bottom center is the bit from last class done after the silk. I'm not sure why I wound it into a ball instead of digging out the niddy noddy. I've wound both into center pull balls although I didn't take a picture here. I'd like to get it all spun before class ends as well as get it plied.

I meant to write this entry on Saturday, or even yesterday, but I spent all weekend recovering from food poisoning. I was actually coming down with it Friday night when I wrote the last entry. All I'll say is beware of frozen pizzas with spinach on top. There was no meat so it had to be tainted spinach.

I got word Friday morning from my friend L that she is going to have a baby. As I mentioned the other day her daughter is about the same age as your DS so there will be quite an age difference. I've found patterns for a really cute bunny hat and a pair bunny booties. If she just found out it means I've got several months to get stuff done. And hopefully it will only be 1 baby, not the multiples like last year.

Are you ready for Harry Potter? I finished HBP Saturday and I'm now anxious for the next one. We had talked about going to a release party Friday night but DH is doing a retreat Saturday and he starts at 5:30 am. I guess I'll just have to wait for Amazon to deliver it.

Off to knit on my sock before bed. Looking forward to hearing about your trip! A