I woke up before 8 am, rested from a good night’s sleep and a day of doing pretty much nothing yesterday. It’s 28° outside and foggy. It’s also our youngest grandson’s birthday. He is two years old today. We need to pick up a load of cattle feed to take to the farm later this morning and we can see him for his birthday. Gabriel is quite a boy. He has the biggest smile and a head full of pale blond hair. He is his momma’s boy but I can see his daddy in him, too.
I’m going to let Brad sleep a bit longer, not much past 9 am though because he’ll need to eat and take his morning meds. The ortho specialist who did both of his shoulder surgeries gave him an injection in the left shoulder for bursitis yesterday. It’ll be very sore for a few days but it should calm the inflammation down and give him some relief soon.
I was able to find a crock pot I liked for Audrey’s Christmas gift. Her old one bit the dust and she really needs a new one. I found an 8 qt, oval, stainless steel model with digital controls online and it will be here tomorrow. I didn’t want to have to go shopping in person a week or two before Christmas so I started looking online and voilá! I found what I was looking for.
On the spinning front: As much as I want to finish the bobbin of BFL/Tussah before I start something else I’m going to swap out bobbins and see how the Merino top works so I’ll do a short, sample spin and ply the singles sample back on itself to gauge for a 2-ply lace weight yarn for a lacy summer shawl. I’ll probably end up dyeing the yarn after it’s spun.
That will satisfy my urge to get my hands on the Merino and give me a change from what I’ve been spinning. I have a pound of the Merino and just over a pound of the BFL/Tussah so it will take awhile to spin either fiber, although I’m not spinning for lace weight out of the BFL/Tussah. I’m hoping it will fluff up enough to be a heavy fingering or light DK weight yarn. It’s not like I need 16 oz of either fiber for the projects I’m planning but I tend to want to spin up all of the fiber in a batch pretty much in the same time frame so it is a more consistent gauge throughout the skeins.
I’m thinking about winding off another skein of hand-spun yarn to make my lap throw larger but I’m not sure if I will like the contrast of the yarn I’ve chosen against the blues and aqua in the throw. I used all of the hand-spun I had of that particular fiber for the throw and it’s a bit narrower than I had hoped it would be, but I didn’t stretch it a lot when I washed and blocked it. It’s nothing fancy, just something to keep my legs warm without using the fleece throw or the heavy knitted afghan, and I have some other yarn I need to use that doesn’t blend with anything else. The contrast might work. We shall see. If not, perhaps the gray BFL/Tussah I’m spinning will compliment the blues in the lap throw.
I need to bake my cornbread today so it won’t be too moist for dressing on Sunday. And I might as well thaw out some cranberries for my sauce as well. I bought two 2 lb bags of berries at Albertson’s a few weeks ago and tossed them in the freezer. It’s easy to take out just what I need for cranberry sauce and save the rest to cook down for concentrate. Good for the kidneys!
I could really use a mug of coffee but I’ll wait for Brad to get up and in the meantime I’ll work on one of my knitting projects and see what’s on OAN. I might even log onto Twitter and see heads exploding over more files being released. Anyway, have a blessed, and warm Hump Day, ya’ll.
Rural Texas Knitter 