Spinning and Planting

 

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It's been a while, but I've finally found some time to do a little spinning.  Well, not so much found as just plain stole.  I haven't done dishes this week.  Or cleaned the kitchen.  Or swept.  Or washed the duck eggs.  But I did spin some yarn!  

I made a skein last week with a project in mind, started the project, and then liked the yarn so much that I stopped knitting and went back to make a second skein before the "feel of it" left.  They are so pretty!  It was my first time spinning Geordi - he really has amazingly soft fleece, it's like down!  I spun one strand of his fleece, a warm dark-medium brown with a hint of red, and then for the second strand I spun one roving of his fleece held together with one roving of Annie's fawn-colored fleece.  When I plied them together, it created a gorgeous tweed-flecked yarn, not as striped as plying one strand of each color - this is 75% Geordi's brown, with streaks and flecks of Annie's tan running through it.  Now I'm thinking of other color combinations to do with this same technique - reverse it, tan and brown flecks; white and tan flecks; black and brown flecks...  So many possibilities.  

The project I've started is a hat-scarf.  The pattern is off Ravelry.com, called a heel-head scarf, basically a scarf with a hood in the middle, using the technique for making a sock-heel.  There are cables running up the scarf, splitting around the hood to frame the edges, and then joining again down the other side.  I think this tweed yarn will look great with this simple pattern - I'm just starting the shaping, I'll post a picture when I finish it, hopefully this next week or so.  

When I've not been spinning or knitting, I've been in the hoophouse.  I finally got my seed order figured out and placed a couple of weeks ago (the single up-side to my pregnancy insomnia is the uninterrupted peace and quiet in the wee hours) so I've been prepping and planting inside the high tunnel.  I even got the cold frame set up in there, and started all my brassicas - cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, kohlrabi - and they're already popping up.  I've put in radishes (also up already, so satisfying!), and more carrots.  I'm planning on doing mostly carrots for the spring, then switching to okra, sweet potatoes, and melons for the summer.  We are still digging the last 1/4 or so of the sweet potatoes - they are holding fantastically in the ground, other than a few wire worms and some mouse nibbles.  I'm selling 15-20 lbs a week, and I think we'll have grown something like 250 lbs by the time we dig them all in the next month or so.  I'm definitely doing a full row of them again this summer!  I'd like to put in some of the exotic purple/white/red ones, until 5 or 6 years ago I had no idea how many colors they actually come in.  There are purple, red, orange, pink, and white colors - and those are both inside and out, with all possible permutations between skin and flesh.  If you haven't ever tried white sweet potatoes, you should really try to find some - they are amazing, nothing like the ubiquitous orange Beauregards.  If you're interested in growing your own, you have to check out Sand Hill Preservation Center in Iowa, they have literally hundreds of varieties.  They are one of my favorite, most respected seed (and poultry) growers/breeders/savers out there.  Definitely worth a visit to their website.  

Comments

gorgeous

Amy, your artist's eye has captured something quite wonderful here--simply stunning yarn blend.

YOur artist's eye has

YOur artist's eye has captured something stunning here, Amy.

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