Sunday, April 22, 2007

A Little Progress

First, I must show off the wool mentioned in the last post. It is still sitting in the corner waiting to be picked through, then I should be able to whisk it off to a local mill for spinning and carding.

Raw wool, in all of its glory
















The wool is not the only thing that has been neglected this week, in between long hours at work and a really good novel. My ripple blanket has made some significant progress since last pictured here, but has stalled in the last week as I have come to the end of my spare yarn. I think that I have enough oddballs left to make it into a square, so maybe its destiny is to be a baby blanket?

Currently measuring 3.3'x2.5'





















The ripples are not only hypnotic to the eye, but very soothing to crochet





















If you like what you see above, click on the Ripple Along link in the sidebar to see even more beautiful afghans made by crocheters more talented than myself. They are very inspiring!

Monday, April 16, 2007

It Smells Like Sheep In Here!

So, I attend school with this really nice guy from northern Wisconsin. About the time he decided to attend graduate school, his parents decided that they needed to find a way to combat an empty nest. So they got a sheep; mind you, they are not farmers. Soon one sheep become two, and so on and so forth until they arrived at the current fifteen.

Well, somehow word got around that I knit and spin, and my friend conveyed to me his parent's new found love for sheep. It must have been the gleam in my eyes that sparked the idea that his parents needed to donate wool. That idea came to fruition this week when I received two bags of freshly-shorn wool.

If it weren't totally smelly and dirty, I would totally stick my face in it. Ah wool! Anyway, I need to find time to pick through it before sending it to a local mill to be cleaned and carded. And then I will stick my face in it.