If only all Saturdays were this rewarding. We've got beautiful wintry weather outside...



A lovely surprise on the doorstep...



Inspiration and materials at my fingertips...



And an all-over-but-the-blocking finished object.

Guess what I did this weekend? Washed, dried, photographed, uploaded, posted!



(Huge pictures with more detail can be seen by clicking the photos and going to flickr.)



This is my new precious. It's a novelty yarn I spun from a batt created by the incredible loop.etsy.com, made of bamboo, corriedale, alpaca, and sparkle. I'm so incredibly pleased with how this turned out. My mother had brought me a necklace home from the Caribbean that had these pretty round, flat shell beads, but the necklace itself was poorly constructed so I took it apart to use in this yarn instead. I strung the beads on this lovely metallic thread, then when I was plying I carefully secured them throughout the yarn so they wouldn't slide everywhere when knitting. I plan to start knitting a scarf out of this as soon as a big ole WIP is finished up (and photographed and posted, of course!)

Here are the other yarns I spun during the holiday break. These two are some of my first yarns spun out of my own handcarded batts/rolags, and both are for sale on my etsy site.





Quiet Riot, a blend of oatmeal-colored bluefaced leicester, cotswold locks, silk noil, and firestar nylon.





Holidays on Ice (named for the hilarious David Sedaris book of short stories...don't the colors make you think of the holidays?) Blend of merino, wool, mohair and sparkle.

And here are a couple more novelty yarns I'm keeping for myself.







Jewelled Tapestry, spun from corriedale dyed by tisjewelart.etsy.com. I added cotswold locks and plied it with gold thread.





Spun from a crazy batt from luxe.etsy.com with lots of mixed wool, soysilk, fabric scraps, etc. etc. I added cotswold locks (once again!) and plied it with leftover Jaggerspun Zephyr laceweight in a lovely ruby red.

I have a bunch of handspun yarns that need to be photographed, and a brand new digital camera (birthday gift from my boyfriend) to do it. But have I taken advantage of a single day of sunshine in the past two weeks? Hardly. Then again, I do need to wash and set the twist before taking any pictures, so maybe I should make that priority number one.

I spun my butt off during the holiday break. I'd taken a bit of a break from the wheel, but spent a lot of time carding up some blends with my SAFF fiber and new Strauch handcards, and couldn't wait to see how it would all look spun up. I'm quite pleased. I also did my first beaded yarn, can't wait to show that one off. Here's hoping for some sunshine this weekend so I can get the washing, drying and photographing done!

In the midst of garden planning for spring. I went to the hardware store yesterday and bought a shop light, bulbs, some chain and pulleys to make a simple grow light setup. After going back and forth on it, I decided to try starting from seed after all. Given how many different varieties of veggies I want to grow this year, it was just more economical. I've got three kinds of tomatoes (two heirloom and one cherry variety), an interesting looking eggplant, some peppers, and four kinds of squash. (I love squash.) Once the setup is done, I'll take some pictures of it.

All this garden planning, including making my two raised beds, and now I'm not even sure we're still going to be in this house come summer. After the car theft, and hearing repeated reports of break-ins in the neighborhood, I'm completely unsettled about where we're living. I'm trying to tell myself that crime happens everywhere, especially in Atlanta, but I'm also aware that we don't live in the best of neighborhoods. God, I really don't want to move again this year. I just don't. This house is so good for us, and affordable, and if it wasn't for the FUCKING crackheads in the area it would be fine. But I don't know if I can keep living here if I don't feel safe, and right now...I really don't.

So that's where I am. Someday I'll have those handspun pictures to share with you!