But first, did she create a monster? (or did she just enable the one that already exists?)

One pound of spun wool, empty roving bag, sad new spinner

One of the other things we did at Pogo’s was to check out her shop. Which had a bargain bin. How could I resist? Mostly it is samples spun up to show color of roving.

So to share… A two part contest.

Part 1, winner gets

a single ply, I like the red slub! (that’s two pics of one skein, the color is someplace between the two pics)

AND

pretty sure this is friendz blendz, Pogo says she can’t get that background color anymore (not sure if she means the light or dark color)

I think these are 2 ounce skeins.  I made a pair of Maine Morning Mitts from a similar (same?) size skein of friendz blendz and had lots left over.

Here’s the contest:

Tell me when you think this pile of snow will be all gone. Send me a comment in this post. Part 1 winner will be randomly drawn from the entries. Deadline for entry, let’s say Friday April 4, 6 pm eastern time. Part 2 winner will be the one who correctly guesses when the snow will be all gone.

On the left, Feb 29; on the right Mar 26.

It has snowed since. Last year I think the pile went away in mid-June. I will know it is all gone because I drive my car by it every morning. I’ll count my morning observations as knowing when it’s gone (technically I may be off here by as much as, say, 23 hours, but it’s my contest, right?), because I don’t see the bottom of the pile on my way home.

I went to bed feeling wool fly between my fingers and my butt make the little up and down motions from my feet on the wheel pedals……

I am not ready for G… I am not yet done with F! Well, maybe this can also be G for goat babies!

Did I have fun yesterday at Pogo’s? You betcha!

Lorna Doone and I forget the chocolate boy’s name… begins with L. Pogo had to help Lorna Doone into the world. The chocolate boy is special, I don’t know much about goats, but maybe this color is unusual in angora goats? All I know is they’re wicked cunnin’!

Another wicked cute girl kid (her name also begins with L),

Some more of the herd,

More goat pics here.

I rented a wheel for the month… Here it is in my native environs…complete with dog bones and

in the dark because I’m spinning to a background of Super Mario Smash Brothers and the shades are down… oh look, light!

First bobbin!

So I’m a person obsessed at the moment. I got to worrying…what if I spin up the pound of roving by the end of Sunday? What will I spin with? What odd things do I have around that I could spin? Should I get those cassette tapes out of the closet? Then I remembered… I do have some fiber animals!

hmmmmmm (Gracie is on the left in all of these pics, Zuzu on the right)

let’s look cute so she won’t comb us out

Ok girlieos… I got out the clippers today!

They need some touch-ups (and I need a better clipper, as in one where the guard doesn’t fall off if you look at it, AND I should take some lessons), but this can all wait a couple of weeks.

F is also for Family

And some old photos of mom with her first love.

My niece said, “Memere, you were such a hottie” (!) This niece looks much like my mom at this age. Mom and Bill don’t quite look like this anymore, but they are very much enjoying each other’s company again.

Not nearly as exciting as Mel’s lovely reticulated iris, but it is the first flower I saw around here…on Wednesday of this week.

But, when I looked up, this is what I saw, snow along the Arsenal parking lot.  It was hard enough to walk on.

For Cathy-Cate and her Gothlet… We’d walked on that snow closer to the river and saw Plecopterans! I knew what they were only afterwards, when we googled “snow bug” and found this and our newest intern said ‘Stoneflies’!

This morning? As many of you know… more snow.

Fort Western, taken from the Father Curran Bridge (there’s a good photo of the high water marks in Hallowell lower on that link).

And looking across the river

(notice the little ice floe?)

But I heard from someone in my family (what is her relationship? who knows…family!) that where she lives (Steamboat Springs), they’ve had over 500 inches of snow!

Did you see that hilarious you tube link in the comments? Thanks Patricia! The frau put it up over on her site, so you can visit there and see it directly. Thanks!!!!! And you should go check out the link to high fashion (what 30′s designers thought we in 2000 would be wearing) over at Chappy’s Mom’s. Far OUT. (how’s that for dweeby, Juju?)

I think I’m going to bed now… that spinning class is tomorrow (!!!!!!!!) and I fear that I’ve been exposed to some crud floating around these parts…….

elizabeth (on the right) of the crazy pig story

I think this is the goat who is supplying us with milk! She had one kid and he only nurses off of one teat. So the goat keeper is milking off the extra (I know nothing about goats…). It is very yummy, sweet and not at all musky.

What do you all do with folks who read your posts (or archives) and then go on to talk about it with others? It’s like that telephone game, where facts (reports, statements, etc) are misunderstood, and it just seems like malicious gossip…

So, two things happened from feeling let down about not having my class yesterday. I had dug out the drop spindle the night before, but couldn’t remember how to operate the thing… so yesterday I went on-line and got some hints.  (the second thing is at the bottom of the post)

I spun up the remains of the polypay fleece I had. This is not especially nice fleece, it cost all of $2 for a kitchen trash bag full, the fibers seem a bit short, it smells lanoliny (which I like), but it was what I had to work with.

(sorry for the pic quality, it was the least fuzzy of the bunch)

You can see here that my spindle is rather small (though lovely), and there’s a lot of kink in the single. I was doing S-twists (counter-clockwise) because that was the only way I could get my hands to work the spindle.

Also had trouble joining new bits of fleece,

but all in all, I was rather pleased, and I eventually figured out the Z twist.

I think I have 4 or so small plum sized balls. Some are Z twist, some are S. I may make tiny xmas stockings for somebody’s tree with this (maybe).

Then I moved on to Meg’s fleece (she of the pig story). Meg gave me a gallon ziplock with some fleece from her housemate’s sheep… half natural white and half natural charcoal.

that’s it for the charcoal!

Ta-da! Yarn!

You can see I’ve totally got that ‘thick and thin’ fancy yarn thing down… (kidding…).

Hmmmm…. maybe I’ll brush out the dogs and play with some of that…

The other thing I did yesterday was some ‘retail therapy’. I spent $4. I was at the Salvation Army store.

a rather ugly sweater that I think can be felted into a bag; a too long skirt that is comfortable and not the color of mud that I will shorten; and a great bag.

Check out all the pockets!

Happy Easter if you’re celebrating!