What a difference..

What a difference a day can make!  In this case,  the weather.   We've gone from summer-like weather, hot and sunny to waking up and finding the pond iced up!  The weather is much more seasonable, but the sudden cold temperatures certainly was a change.     Because of the mild weather, we had to clean up the pond and start up the pump much earlier than we've done it before.  Usually at this time of year, the pond is still frozen over.  Thankfully the icicles and frozen, slippery rocks only lasted a day.   After a cold, blustery few days, it's warm enough to hang the laundry again, but now they are calling for snow flurries by the weekend... not unexpected this time of year, but most unwelcome.

 Mister Garter Snake has been sighted again this year.  He's been seen in the greenhouse as well as around the garden.   There have been mice in the greenhouse over the winter, and there doesn't seem to be any now, so I'm guessing the snake or snakes have had some good meals.  Either way, as long as they don't hide in places where I'll find them by accident, they are welcome to the heat and humidity in there, especially if they keep the mouse population at bay.

 The first orange cabled sock is done.  I was a tad concerned that it would take a long time to finish one sock and that I'd loose interest get distracted before I got to the second one.  However, when I think about it, it was still a fairly fast knit.  It sure is cheerful and bright!  It will be the perfect pair of socks to wear on a cold, grey, wintery day; sunshine for your feet!  Now to get to work on the second one.

The guild is having an acid dye day, mainly with the idea of making self patterning sock yarns.  I was going to dye roving, (I still might) but then I got it into my noggin that it would be easier to spin the yarn first.  I have a bunch of superwash Merino mill ends, which really work better if they are carded first.  I carded them with the drum carder to make nice, fluffy batts and started spinning.  I realize now that I should have added something a bit sturdier to the superwash Merino, as it's very slippery.  While incredibly easy to spin, I started spinning during the inevitable hockey game and while watching the home team lose once again, I didn't notice that I was spinning much thinner than I wanted.  I sampled a 3 ply and it was still too thin.  I was able to spin it to a more useable diameter once I started paying attention.  I don't know if I'll just deal with the almost half bobbin of too thin yarn and try to pair it with something thicker to make a useable amount of sock yarn or if I'll just turn it into some embroidery yarns and re-card and spin more yarn.   Either way, my skein of hand spun sock yarn may not be ready for dye day and I will have to resort to more mundane resources, which luckily, were on sale this week!