I have no title for this one

Time for some late-night blogging! My honey is still out of town and the kids are in bed. If I hurry, I can blog and knit tonight! I've retrieved my guilty pleasures from their hiding places (diet Pepsi in the reefer behind the cheese, Belgian chocolates in the cupboard behind the mixing bowls) so I'm ready to make up for 3 weeks without a post.

My most heart-felt gratitude goes out to all who contribued to our virtual Alex's Lemonade Stand. Your generosity and kind comments warm my heart. God bless you! Our real-life lemonade stand on June 9th was great fun for all, especially my kids. The lemonade sales of the day combined with the donations to our virtual stand bring our total amount raised for childhood cancer research to $1369.07! (The 7 cents were donated by a little friend of my middle son who emptied out his piggy bank for the occasion, bless his heart.) We blasted right past the goal of $1000. Thank you very, very much.

The remainder of June flew by for me. My recent absence from this blog was due mostly to the fact that I’ve had a pinched nerve in my hip and it hurt to sit at the computer. I’m feeling much better now because I spent the past week lounging around at my sister’s lakeside cabin and popping anti-inflammatory pills. I also spent a fair amount of time chasing cute little children around with my camera—See?


Just before leaving for the lake, I finished plying 4 ounces of superwash merino that I dyed with easter egg dye. After pulling the fiber out of its steam bath to set the dye, I wasn’t sure that I liked it. Then, while spinning it, I was still wondering if I’d again wasted some perfectly good white fiber by making it look like red dryer lint. After plying it and winding it up into a hank, I finally decided that I like it! It’s just so different from what I had in my head when I started the process. I didn't squeeze enough of the initial soaking water out of the fiber before applying the dye, so the colors intermingled much more than I intended. I learned a lot about dying fiber and I’m anxious to do some different colors now that I’ve finished up the spinning of this batch. I’m not sure what I’ll knit with it. I could do socks, or some lace or...or... It's probably a sportweight, but I'm not sure that it's spun tightly enough for socks.

Earlier this afternoon, I started spinning my May Spunky Eclectic club fiber (wonderful long-staple, crimpy Coopworth wool in a colorway called "Nightshade") that has been patiently waiting in my fiber basket. When it arrived back in May, I was not very excited about the dark colors. I was in a very springy mood and wanted to be spinning buttercups and rainbows. I guess I had enough bright sunshine this past week, because the deep, mysterious colors of Nightshade kept me entranced (and the Backyardigans kept PeeWee entranced) for almost 2 hours of spinning! Can you believe I got to spend that much time on it? I know, I'm a slacker with the boobtube-as-babysitter, but she played hard at the lake all week. I loved the pictures on the Spunky club blog of this fiber spun as a single, so I decided to do that, too. Adrian of Hello Yarn also had a handy link to information on spinning low-twist singles, and that was a great help.

And now to finish off tonight's post, we have news. Yes. News. I'm just going to say it fast, then shut up. I'm going to Yarn School. I'm so excited, I nearly pee my pants every time I think about it. Faith, you coming? It's in Kansas, what could be better? YARN SCHOOL. (Adrian will be one of the teachers and I'm like her #1 fan, and maybe she could mention your name to Jared--you know, Brooklyn Tweed?!?--and maybe she could get him to autograph your forehead, cuz aren't you like his #1 fan?! SQUEEEEE!!!!! {hyperventilating})

More news? Yes. More News. I submitted a design to Creative Knitting magazine and they accepted it. It will be in their May '08 issue. I don't think they want me to say anything else about it. I could probably safely say that it's a sweater. It's in cotton (yes, ouch-knitting-cotton). It's something that I would actually wear myself, assuming I ever finished it--but I have to finish this sweater, because THEY'RE PAYING ME TO KNIT!!! Shutting up now.