Sunday, July 27, 2008

Le Tour Fini!

Well, this is the last day of Le Tour de Fleece, as well as the Tour de France. I managed to spin 5.5 oz of fingering/lace weight singles in light fawn wool/alpaca blend. Not a large amount by any means, but it sure feels like an accomplishment. :-) Company and sick animals combined to keep me from actually achieving my goal of spinning every day, though I spun a lot more than I would have without the inspiration.

I also got some lovely caramel colored alpaca washed and ready to spin. Somewhere there are photos that I'll post later :-)

Thanks, Lucy, for providing my inspiration for the Tour - and Lois, too. I think I'll spin up a bit more this evening.

- Franna

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Le Tour de Fleece 2008


In memory of Lucy.
I pledge to spin something "blonde" from my stash every day from now to the end of Le Tour.
- Franna

Monday, July 07, 2008

Just Desserts

Tomorrow the Moonspinners Guild is meeting to work on our Sheep to Shawl project. I have the wool and need to wash more of it so we can card and blend for the shawl warp.

Well, the sink was full of dishes, so I needed to clean that up before I could wash more fleece. Lined up along the counter were a half dozen or so empty beer bottles. We started making hard apple and pear cider last fall, and save the recapable bottles to refill. Typically, they sit on the counter until I feel like soaking their labels off.

Well, today, I decided to soak the labels off and wash the bottles. A few of the bottles weren't quite empty, so I was pouring them out into the sink, not paying a lot of attention. One bottle was particularly heavy and didn't seem to want to pour out. Plus there was this dark, hairy looking mold in the sink - coming from the bottle? I was shaking the bottle to dislodge the "mold", just as reality started to sink in. The stench hit just about the same time I saw a "worm" coming out of the upside down bottle.

Oh NO! It wasn't mold, it wasn't a worm. It was a MOUSE. The mouse had somehow crawled up on top of the bottles and squeezed into one with a bit of left over beer. That must've been one briefly happy mouse!

I don't get grossed out too often, but this one did it! You can't imagine the smell. Dead thing and old beer. YECHH! You can bet THAT bottle went directly and swiftly into a plastic bag and outside in the garbage can. Thank goodness garbage pickup is tomorrow.

NO PHOTOS. You can thank me later ;-)

- Franna