I don't usually swatch for socks--I knit them toe-up, so I can try them on and make sure everything's right. I haven't found that any of the commercial brands are very much affected by washing, so this works well. But the handspun is different, and special, so I did a small in the round swatch last night. Usually I play around with stitch patterns and needle size when I swatch, but my brain was occupied with hanging out with some other knitters so I just did a small finger-puppet-width tube for an inch or so, and bound off.

The yarn's a smidge thinner than any the commercial sock yarns I dug up from the stash for comparison, but is dense enough that it still looks about right on size 0US, which is my usual sock-knitting needle size. I gave it a quick rinse last night, and this morning it was dry, with a gauge just shy of 9 st/inch.

Then I got all dithery. Is the firmness of the ply going to feel unpleasant once it actually gets under my foot? Is it going to up and poof into a felted, worn-through mess instantly? What's it really going to do in action? I looked at the 20-stitch tube while getting dressed, and got an idea.

The tube fits perfectly on my big toe.

It's not a perfect simulation; I also have on a sock so there's more cushioning than usual, and purl bumps usually irritate my heels, not my toes. But it's good enough to get an idea of what it feels like, to make sure the yarn isn't going to fall apart after one wearing, and if it was bothering me it's easy enough to just take off my shoe and get rid of it. Plus, my toe appears to be wearing a turtleneck. That's fun. Halfway through the day now, I vote that this is a Good Idea, and I'll do it again the next time I swatch a sock yarn.

Oh, dear.



Oh dear, oh dear.

I tell you, I'd knit with it right this second, except I can't stop looking at it long enough to get practical.

*sigh* FINE. I'll talk numbers. There's 420 yards of this yarn, 18 wpi and 4 ounces. 50/50 superwash/tencel blend from Susan's Spinning Bunny, in the colorway "Anshan's Biscotti", though the example on the site is a lot closer to uniformly brown compared to the one I was using.

I broke the long top in half (the short way), so it was easier to work with. Then, because I was hoping to get all the plies to line up color-wise, I split the top into three equal sections, rolling them into balls as I went. The split wasn't perfect, of course; for both chunks of top there was a larger, an in-between, and a smaller-looking ball of roving. When spinning up the singles, I paired the largest of the "first half" chunks of top with the smallest of the "second half" chunks of top, continuing on in that way and hoping that the small amount of variability would even out in the end. Measuring fiber amounts by eye is pretty dicey because of how compressible it is, but I kept my fingers crossed, and also kept a bit of fiber in reserve for sampling and evening-out, if necessary.

My goal was a 3-ply yarn of 18 wpi and firmly plied. When I figured out the thickness and twist of singles that would get me the right quality of 3-ply, I spun a few yards of singles to that specification, 2-plied some with just enough twist for it to balance back on itself, and 3-plied the rest with an ootch more twist than needed to keep things perfectly balanced. The two ply was my "knee sample", I ply singles back on themselves a LOT as I go to make sure I'm keeping consistent, and I wanted something that would look like the loosely plied-back sample, even though the final product wouldn't look that way. The 3-ply was the reference for when I actually plied.

Considering I hadn't even worked with either superwash wool or tencel, the spinning itself was very easy. Only the most halfhearted pre-drafting was needed to open up the top, and once that was done the spinning went smoothly. Because I was planning to make these into socks, I was spinning much more carefully than I normally do, to make sure that the singles were as smooth, and as consistent in thickness and twist, as I could make them. Final stats: 40-someodd wraps per inch, 8-10 twists per inch, if I'm using the right thing to describe that.

(At this point I was convinced the bobbin in the middle had a lot more fiber on it.)

A short ways into the plying, I was REALLY unhappy with how the yarn looked. I didn't want a lot of barberpoling, and one of the plies was consistently changing color too late; the other two lined up perfectly. Also, I always forget this, but I never like the look of freshly-plied yarn. It's always a bit bedraggled and forlorn looking. It's a rough moment to start having doubts.

Once I figured out that one ply was changing too late and not too early, it was time for surgery. I broke that ply, wound off until things lined up pretty well, and reattached the two ends there. The rogue ply wasn't that far off, just a yard or so, but that one little mod changed everything. There's still a lot of barberpole-looking yarn, but the effect changed completely after that; if you look at that close-up, most of the plies composing a particular strand have tonal differences rather than being completely different colors, which is mostly due to variations in the roving itself. I'm hoping that the tonal ply thing will look good when knit up, since I've had good luck with that in the past.

Did my usual very-warm wash to the skein once I'd wound it onto the niddy-noddy. A fair amount of dye came out with the first rinse, but it didn't affect the overall color much, and hardly any dye came out in subsequent rinses.

About the time I hung it up to dry, I kept needing to go back into the bathroom to admire it, or bring it out onto the sunny deck to see what it looked like in good light. A good sign.

I'm so happy with the final product. It's super-even, firmly enough plied to (I think) be pretty hard-wearing, while not being harsh or wiry. The plies are different enough to make the yarn interesting, but not so different that the whole knit piece will fade into undifferentiated muddiness. It's shiny and soft and snuggleable. All-in-all, it took me almost exactly a week to spin, and that was a week of not doing much else besides gainful employment, sleeping, and eating something from time to time.

And it will be knit soon. Very soon. A very simple pair of socks, I think, maybe with some ribbing on the top of the foot to add in some springiness.

When I'm on a culinary tear I tend to open up all the cabinets and leave them like that, since it's likely I'll be opening it again in 30 seconds to grab something else.

This technique can be dangerous to anything above about eye level.

So, I conked my head on the corner of a cabinet the night before last. Just shy of my hairline, about an inch above my temple. It left a smallish bump, but I lucked out in spite of my stupidity--it doesn't hurt when I'm just sitting around. However, it seems to lie right on one of the muscles that moves my eyebrow, and it stings a bit whenever I use that muscle.

I never realized how much I use my eyebrows before.

The night I hurt myself, every conversation with my husband went like this:

J: [Wryly witty comment]
Me: [starts to make a face in response] Ow!

After 4 or 5 of these I started remembering not to do any eyebrow raising, but I realized I had to actually say something in response, rather than just make a face and move on.

J: [Wryly witty comment]
Me: Yeah, totally. The... thing. It's funny.

It's like trying to talk while sitting on my hands, or explaining a particular knitting technique over the phone. Broad hand and facial gestures (and frequently a pen and paper to doodle what I'm talking about) get me through words I can't remember offhand, help to add subtleties of tone I think my words are failing to convey, or simply show I'm listening, when I don't have anything worthwhile to add to the conversation.

This started as a comment, but then got all out of control, so I'm posting it as a short entry instead:

In re: shopping at Asian or other foreign markets in the states: One of the nice things about the USDA labeling guidelines that went into effect 10-ish years ago is that even if the whole rest of a pre-packaged food is in a foreign language, the ingredients and nutrition info is written in a standardized way, and in English. I do a lot more label-reading when I'm in a shop that mostly doesn't sell standard US food, because if the picture and writing are a total mystery, at least I can figure out from the ingredient list what I could do with it. For me, realizing this took a lot of the intimidation factor out of shopping places where I'm the only white person. (Not entirely true, I suppose--last night there was another white guy in the Korean grocery. But that was the first time I'd seen a white person in there that hadn't come in with me, and I've been going in there at least once per week.)

Actually, this is a good idea even if the labeling seems clear. Last night I bought some pickled daikon, because it's something I've seen in bentos and eaten in little bits of in Japanese restauarants, and I was curious to try some more of it. It was only when I got it home that I thought to double-check the ingredients, and I saw that it was largely sweetened by aspartame and saccharine. Ick. I wasn't expecting that since it didn't say "sugar free" or "diet" or any of those other American codewords for "fake", but I'll remember to check next time, if I like the flavor despite the chemical tang.

Fewd!


(there are more detailed ingredient lists if you follow the Flickr links.)

This lunch has leftovers of the curry I talked about last week--some of it's up in the corner, and then I used some of the sauce to flavor the rice for the inari sushi on the lower right.

The round tortellini-looking things are storebought frozen veggie potsticker/ dumpling things. The Korean grocery that's our closest food source sells these in a million flavors (mostly meat), in huge, inexpensive bags. You'll notice them showing up a lot in the next few pictures; they're the perfect thing to throw in at the last minute. It just takes about 10 minutes in the steamer for them, faster if I just made rice so the water's already hot.

The round very white thing is a dumpling filled with sweet bean paste. I still haven't quite decided how I feel about bean paste as a dessert; having it with some more Western-ly sweet thing helps. You can't see it with the red container but I put some of my homemade strawberry jam in on the side, and that went really well.


I've been using these square boxes for lunch a LOT lately, throwing in a pile of salad, a piece of pita, some hummus, and some cheese or nuts. I don't really think of it as bento because the foods that go into it are usually much more Western, but as you can see the aesthetic is coloring my other lunch options. The main thing that got me into bento besides adorable food was liking the idea of packing a lunch with less wasted plastic bags and such to toss out later, and that's gotten easier and more normal-feeling as time goes on.

More potstickers, leftover from dinner the night before (thus the rice stuck to one of them). Some flatbread and hummus, and a big heap of produce. These lunches were notable to me because it took me less than 10 minutes to put it all together completely from scratch (rather than starting with one half of the box filled with leftovers or something). The only thing that needed any pre-prep was the cucumbers, and I cut the flatbread into manageable bits. I was really happy with how these came out considering my usual level of brain at 7:30am. I think all those bentos that took way too long and still looked crummy must have been good practice in the end.


I haven't eaten this one yet, it might be terrible. :P There's one square and one regular bento box because I used my bento today and haven't washed it yet.

You might be getting tired of seeing inari sushi and veggie dumplings, but I'm not tired of eating them. Which is good, there are still a few inari sushi and about 5 pounds of those friggin' dumplings.

Common elements of the four spinning shops I have been to:

Way out in the country, even if there's a good-sized money-having metropolis nearby.

Informal hours/setup; words like "call to see if we're actually around" next to the listed hours on the website.

Incredibly friendly dog.

So yesterday I went to Susan's Spinning Bunny, which is on a dirt road about 20 minutes from downtown. The shop itself is a dollhouse; it doesn't induce the dizzy "so... much... fiber" feeling of, say, The Fold, or Susan's Fiber Shop, which are both basically aircraft hangars masquerading as fiber stores. But although it's teeny-tiny, the stock is very well-chosen; I could pretty much picture a plausible project for every single thing I looked at or touched. I'm actually pretty picky about what I spend money on because I'm so cheap, so that's a really unusual thing.

When I'm presented with way too many choices, my tendency is to choose nothing at all, because I just know I won't choose the right thing. Because the place was small enough for me to paw everything, I was actually able to make a decision and buy stuff! Huzzah! One thing I got was what I'd come for; 8 ounces of Ashland Bay top in the same colorway I already have a few ounces of center-top here. The original bit of it I'd bought at the Fold with the idea of making socks, but when I started spinning it up I decided that it was just too delicate a fiber to be worth spinning up and knitting, just to get worn through in a few months. Now I'm thinking lace shawl, as usual, so I needed some more fiber in the same color to carry that through. Although it's nominally the same colorway, the mix is pretty different, so I'll probably use what I have as one ply with the new stuff as the other, and blend it in that way. Or I might use what I have as an edging.

Then, because my plans of handspun socks had fallen through, of course I needed to buy some fiber that would be better for that purpose. So I bought a superwash merino/tencel blend in a colorway called Biscotti but which I think of as "Neapolitan ice cream that someone ate most of the strawberry out of."

I've been doing some spindle-spinning lately but I've barely touched the wheel since we moved. The sock fiber really got me going again, though. I sat down in front of the wheel around 4pm and except for dinner and an occasional stretching break didn't get up again until it was time for bed. I've got about a quarter of it all spun up, already.



(Left and right; Biscotti sock singles. Center; green laceweight)

I'm going for a three-ply yarn in the 16-18 wpi range, firmly spun so it'll stand up to wear, and I broke the fiber into three relatively-even strips, in an attempt to line all the colors up without things getting too muddy. The fiber's great, it spins nice and smooth. I haven't worked with superwash or tencel before, but I didn't have any learning curve at all. I sampled a bit to make sure the three-ply would be the right thickness, then spun a few yards of singles to that specification and made a small two- and three-ply sample. The three-ply is to remind me of what I want to see when I'm actually to the plying stage, the two-ply is so that as I'm spinning I can just let a small sample fold back on itself, to verify that I have the right grist and twist going. When I'm spinning for something specific and not just for the feel of it, I always have a little two-ply sample on my knee, and check what I'm doing against it frequently. What I'm spinning right now is pretty close to what my hands automatically do, just a bit more twist, so it hasn't been difficult to maintain.

So right now my main knitting project is with handspun, and my main spinning project is something I can't WAIT to start knitting. It's times like this I wonder why I bother with commercially spun yarn at all. It just doesn't excite me as much as my own.



Mmm, curry.

We've been hanging out with some friends of ours that are vegan, so we've been thinking about and putting together more tasty animal-free food, because I enjoy feeding people and thinking about new things to cook. When they came through recently on their way to a retreat, I thought I'd put together a coconut curry. It was good, but it did seem to be missing something, the flavors just hadn't mixed together right. It was better the next day, though; I expect the flavors just needed to cook together longer. If I did it again I'd do it like I describe below--get the coconut milk going with all the spices early on and let them cook for a while. I'd probably start that before I got the rice going or chopped veggies, even.

Coconut Curry

I made a large batch; enough for 4, and then more for lunch the next day, when combined with rice and naan bread.

Ingredients:

-1/2 onion, sliced thin
-A clove or two of garlic
-Block of tofu, in biggish cubes
-small pile of carrots (or a pile of small carrots), cut somewhat thick on the diagonal.
-2 sweet peppers (both mine were red), cut in chunky slices, then cut in half (so, 3cm by 1cm rectangles?)
-several handfuls of mushrooms, quartered. Dried ones might also be nice.
-something green, maybe spinach? I didn't have anything green, and it looks lacking.
-Can of coconut milk (I used a lower-fat brand because full fat tastes like Too Much)
-tsp of dried ginger
-5ish cardamom pods
-tablespoon of garam masala
-a little more cumin and cinnamon besides what was in the garam masala
-a very hefty pinch of turmeric
-a bit of salt
-a bit of Hot Cock (SFW)
-enough oil to cook everything.

Start with a pot and add the coconut milk and all the spices, including the garlic, and start that up on medium-low. You can put the cardamom pods in cheesecloth if you're afraid of them, and pick the whole baggie out at the end. While that's cooking, get a pan over medium heat, and put some onions and oil in that. When they've sweated, add all the mushrooms into the pan.

When the spices have more-or-less gotten well mixed in with the coconut milk, and it's starting to get a little bubbly, add the tofu in there. (I like browned tofu in almost all other circumstances, but here I like it better soft and doughy.)

When the mushrooms have really started shedding juice, time for the carrots. When the carrots are halfway cooked, time for the peppers. When the peppers are halfway cooked, throw the whole mess into the pot, and let that sit for a bit.

(Now's a good time to grab the rice, put the naan in the toaster oven, and set the table. If I'd had spinach, I would have added it right about now, just before serving, so it was fully wilted by the time I got to the table, but still green and lively.)

Serve over rice, or under naan. This particular recipe is a little low on "curry goo"; it was enough to coat everything well and leave something for the rice to sop up, but it's not done in that style where there's a bowl full of coconut milk with one bit of veggie swimming in there somewhere, because I can never eat that much curry liquid no matter how much I love it. This had plenty of flavor without feeling so heavy.

My half-thought plan for the red-and-orange handspun turned into something that needs a way bigger canvas than a measly 400-someodd yards of fingering weight yarn can provide. When I started divvying each square of my graph paper into four smaller squares because three pages of notebook was too small, I knew I was in trouble.

Do you people have any idea how many uncompleted lace project plans that I'm really excited about are sitting around here? I can count four off the top of my head without referring to my notes. I'm sure there are more hiding in there (just thought of a fifth I didn't write down on Saturday that is a likely candidate for some yarn I'm working on right now). And this isn't counting the lace shawls that I'm NOT designing that I'd really like to knit. And even this isn't taking the laceweight yarn I already have into consideration, or the fact that I like spinning fine yarns.

The problem is that I'm near my limit of lace shawls I'm comfortable owning. I don't wear them often enough as it is; I'm in a lab with corrosive chemicals during the day, and hang out in jeans the rest of the time. One of my shawls is informal enough that it ends up over my pj's on a regular basis, and comes with us on trips, where it serves as an impromptu blanket/accessory/pillow/sunscreen/comfort object. But that's a pretty plain shawl.

J suggested that I could donate a shawl to an auction. But knitters are full of stories of donations gone awry, of the 100-hour Shetland shawl going for a pittance while furry scarves rake in the dough. I try not to put get too personally invested in handmade things I give away, but I'd find it hard to let something go so completely.

J's mom liked the shawl I did for her the year before last, so I'm sure I could pawn a few more off on her before she got sick of them.

What I really need is a best friend that simply adores very fancy shawls, and has reason to wear them all the time. That way, I can imbue them with some love and care, while knowing they'll be used, and while still getting to visit them once in a while.

Any takers?

(After the complicated shawl idea, I came up with something very simple for the red yarn. It's about 1/4 of the way along, and oh, I am happy to be knitting some handspun again.)

Putting my gay-marriage-loving scientific experience where my gay-marriage-loving mouth is:

There's a community called Livelongnmarry that is doing a fandom-themed auction which is raising money for the fight against the California initiative to invalidate the same-sex marriages which have already taken place in that state. (So, raising money, pro-gay-marriage. These things get complicated-sounding sometimes.)

Someone who I read for interesting anime commentary offered to critique a manuscript for legal plausibility, and I thought, "Hey, I can do something like that! What a cool idea!" A good opportunity to use my education outside of work, and a chance to do some good with the skills I have.

I'm offering a critique of fiction or a detailed answer to a scientific question from a nanotechnologist's perspective.

There are also a million other cool things there; offers of doing fanfic or fanart based on your particular intrests, jewelry, food, etc, etc.

There's a lot of nerds interested in marriage equality, apparently.

Go check it out, and bid if you see something you like. I'm going to spend a bunch more time over there this evening and seek out some goodies. And if you have need of a nanotechnologist's services, bid!

It's hard to have a work-related conversation if you're hiccuping. Well, I found it easy to talk in between the *hic*s, it was the listening that was difficult, I gather.

And now I'm reminded of a recent Halloween. I wore the brain slug, of course, but promptly forgot about it because you can't see something that's on your head. I had a research group meeting, and at it I started hassling one of my advisors about something-or-other. Midway through my question, he stopped me. "T, I'm sorry, but I can't listen to you talking about serious science with that thing on your head." So off it came, and he was able to answer the question without giggling.
**********************
Fillyjonk had a recent entry about catching up on blogging her books-read list, which reminded me that I started a similar project and forgot about it after one entry. Though I do keep track on paper. So, here's a long catchup list, with varying amounts of commentary. (And here is entry #1.)

10) Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (book on tape) A reread, or re-listen, I suppose. It's a book that seems to induce strong opinions, probably because of its length, and the fact that it could very nearly work as two or three separate books. (To keep things moderately non-spoilery, I think the whole Venice section is in some ways a totally different book, although it depends too much on the earlier sections to be its own thing. It does to my brain what book 6 of Harry Potter did, turn something I found enjoyable into something that felt real and dangerous.) I liked it enough to enjoy it twice, and the book is on my shelf, each of which is rare for me, so that says something.

The book on tape is wonderful. The reader made some choices that weren't what I had in my head, but in a way that enriched the experience.

11)The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay I ended up caring more for the characters than is probably strictly healthy. Blame my love of New York Jewishiness. But although *I* loved it completely, I can't think of anyone I'd recommend it to. Perhaps it was just the right book at the right moment. Messy and loving.

12) The Ladies of Grace Adieu: By the author of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, a collection of short stories that live in the same world, but not necessarily with any of the main characters. Many things go wrong in translation between Faerie and Human worlds. Might be a good place to start if you're curious about Jonathan Strange but put off by its slow start; these stories are shorter and no less delightful.

13 a and b)Genshinken vol. 2, Aventura v.1 (and 2?) (Both manga): I talked about Genshinken in the first entry. I liked the character and plot setup for Aventura, but I was having a hard time following what was going on because of the style of the art. It was lovely, but busy, in a way that translates poorly to black and white on cheap paper. I'll wait for the anime.

14 a and b) Five Fists of Science, Flight explorer (both comic books): Five Fists of Science reads like a tv show that was planned out for 3 or 4 seasons, but which got cropped into a miniseries. Details that could have been slowly added to give characters depth felt instead like they were crammed in everywhere, at once, for no particular story-developing reason. Worth it to find it in a shop, though, just to look at the sections where Mark Twain is basically carnival-barking for Steampunk Science.

Flight Explorer consists of a series of... short graphic stories? Longer than comic strips, shorter than a whole comic book. Different artists. Almost every section delighted me; the looks were really fresh and different, the stories were well-put-together. Absolutely the hidden gem of the list so far.

15) Don't Try This At Home: Horror stories from famous chefs. I like reading food-themed books. This was just okay. One of my metrics for if something is good is if I can remember any of it after a week, seeing what sticks with me. And not much of this stuck. I've kept it around for now because it's the sort of light reading I enjoy when I'm feeling crummy, but "I can handle it when running a fever" isn't much of a glowing recommendation.

That's enough for now. But soon: Geeks, Gays, Italians, and Rednecks, together at last!

One of my sisters just posted a picture of my new nephew being held by his father, my stepbrother.

Dude, that is WEIRD. The kid who put a hole in the garage by driving forwards when he thought the car was in reverse is now one of the most important influences on a tiny baby's life. I suppose it's no weirder than the kid that couldn't get through the first level of Sonic the Hedgehog having the title of "doctor". I dunno, I'm a little burned out on being shocked at how grown-up people are. It's been happening a lot lately.

Does this ever stop? Will I be shocked when my sprightly-seeming younger cousin needs her hip replaced, or when my grand-niece graduates from college?
------------------
More pictures? Why, sure.

I got to thinking about my bento bag recently; it's a plain cloth bag with a set of handles and a drawstring, and it came with my box, so it sort of matches, although it's already pretty faded (very, very cheap fabric). It works, but it's this odd size where a small extra something like an apple just barely *doesn't* fit.

I looked around online for something I liked, but I didn't see much. I really liked the basic setup, I just thought it'd be fun to tweak. Plus, J needed a bag too.

The blue bag on the left is the prototype; I didn't want to deal with the handles on the first pass, so I just flung some scrap fabric under my sewing machine to see what would happen. It's smaller than my current bag, but I like that it's *exactly* the right size for my bento, rather than a little loose. I liked it so much that I started in on J's bag right away, which is the froggy-themed one on the right, and which is large enough to hold an extra small container, piece of fruit, or drink.

I love that frog fabric so much. A fabric store near me in Madison had one fat quarter's worth, and I bought it and waited for a worthy project--a very visible, small item, one that would involve frequent, non-heavy use. This is perfect, and I still have enough left over to sneak a frog or two in a quilt someday.

I looked at my two new bento bags, very satisfied with how nice they came out. And then I don't remember so clearly what happened. I just know that when I came to:


Apparently these are fun to make.

I'm thinking about selling them on Etsy. It's hard to make knitting worth it in a cottage-industry way; it just takes too long to make anything, and everyone wants it to be as cheap as you'd get at a nice-ish shop at the mall. But it's a lot faster to make a cute fun thing when you're sewing. Plus, I don't know, I feel a little less attached to something whose fabric I didn't make.

We'll see. I've got to do some more math to see how these will work out--to figure out if I'm starting a business, or just having some fun and making my fabric money back. There's a lot of people in my family that have sewn things for money, so I might go see what they have to say.

Bought batteries for the camera, finally. Then, took some pictures. Some of them are going to be holiday presents (no, really, I'm way ahead of the game this year), so those won't show up for another 5 months or so. But there's still a ton of stuff; I've been busy with a bunch of little projects, so we've got lots to talk about.

Today, spinning.

I bought this fiber a few years ago at WEBS, when I went to visit a knitting friend in Northampton. I've been spinning it off and on for a while. This wool was so soft and nice that I used the project as a "just enjoy spinning" exercise, not worrying too much about slubs or the specific wraps or twists per inch. Honestly, it would have been hard to mess it up too much. The final result is bouncy, and while it has some character, overall it's fairly even, somewhere in the 22wpi range. I've got about 330 yards all told, and I have no idea what I'll do with it. 330 yards of soft fingering/lace weight yarn isn't enough for much. My thought right now is that I may use it with some other yarn, as a plain edging for a wild-colored project, maybe, or as the soft lining for a nice pair of mittens.

This is another project that's been sitting for a long, long time. I bought the fiber the October before last, at a Blackberry Ridge open house I went to with Madam. I started spinning it more-or-less right away, and have worked on it a bit here and there ever since then. And it's finally done, huzzah! Final stats: 2 ounces, 480 yards, 20ish wpi, 2ply spindle-spun silk top.

I have a scarf idea that I think will be pretty neat with this yarn, but the idea itself is still pretty vague; it's really just the construction technique, not the stitch pattern or anything.

Thrill as I play with the macro setting!

Pretty true to color. As I spun it I realized there were fewer yellow/orange highlights than I'd thought from looking at the fiber, but I think it's going to knit up beautifully. I'm going to have to come up with the rest of that pattern soon, I can't wait to work on this. Incandescent anger makes me hungry.

This is why I spent part of the morning sounding like this: "rumblegrumble stupid instrument OM NOM piece of garbage cost another thousand to OREO NOM NOM worked last week NEED BIGGER LUNCH THAN I BROUGHT making me look bad MOAR OREO"

Then, the simultaneous *boom* of my head and stomach.