Well, fiddle dee dee!

Woke up (early!)to autumnal, lowering grey skies and heavy rain, and it just seemed too much trouble to even get out of bed. But severe need for TEA disabused me of that idea quick smart, and I spent a very happy hour eating toast, drinking tea, doing yesterday's Guardian Quick crossword (well, it's better than nothing) before leaping into my usual routine of hitting the computer.

So sad, isn't it?

That essential task performed, got through a few others, and all of a sudden I was moved to dive into the large basket that lives by where I used to spin in the sitting room. This started out as the basket I kept the ongoing fleece in, gradually morphed into the thing where all the odds and sods of fibre that I was most likely to get around to spinning next plus a few essential tools and now is just storage as the wheel has moved over to the other side of the room and a (smaller) new basket has appeared. Anyhow, out came all the grey falklands, which got eyeballed and no, there isn't going to be sufficient to dye, so I will have to spin something else for colour. This will probably be the rather nice batch that came from Lambspun recently. I also looked at the merino and silk I finished a few weeks back, and inspiration struck. It is going to be a simple shrug, and as we speak, it is cooling in a dyebath, colour somewhere near what I call teal. I actually did a little mixing and testing for this, shock horror. I took a couple of Gaywool dyes, mixed a small, loosely measured amount and started mixing in equally loosely measured ratio. First pairing didn't work - I wanted a subtle purplish grey, couldn't get it. So I kept the same violet/blue and added a bright yellow. First mix was sludgy, but the second seemed a lot better, so I went with that. And, no, I didn't keep a record of it, although it was simple enough so I probably could do so retrospectively. You would have to allow for the last minute addition of the test pots, and the gram or two of dye crystals remaining in the tub, though.....(yes, I am a lost cause!)

I also found some bobbins with some singles that I spun ages ago from some batts I brought back from SOAR, on the Schacht which is now the upstairs wheel. That is now scheduled to get finished, and hopefully will be enough for another shawl (I'm anticipating a cold winter, obviously!)

Furthermore, whilst slogging away on the treadmill, I was thinking about socks, and how much I like knitting them, although I don't do them well. But well enough to do an Alston class...and I could find some thickish yarn and do the winter felted slipper/boot thing at last...

Bloody hell, there has been some positive cog-slippage today. And the sun has come out as well.

gw