Where did THAT week go, then, eh?

With me zapped with a cold, that's where. Very hard to find the energy to do much, it was. Apart from rediscovering the delights of reading Georgette Heyer.

Even stuff that had been done was undone, ultimately. The Regia Bamboo sock was too small and was frogged; I attempted a little desultory knitting on the second Jaywalker, and then found I had in my befuddled state got the pattern slightly wrong, and have had to frog that, too.

So I tried spinning. I fell in love with the Norwegian traditional knitting whilst on holiday, and what with the class on working with colours, it seemed a fine idea to aim for a pair of mittens. I didn't have two matching yarns in my stash (of course) so a decided to spin some White-faced Woodland roving that I have acquired form a reliable source.

Grabbed a bag of it and set to. Some time later, and by that time in a foul humour, I stopped to consider what was going on. This stuff was proving awful to spin, and was an incredibly weak yarn, no matter what I did to it. I pulled off a bit of the roving and inspected it closely. First thing, loads of neps. That was odd. But worst, it was a very, very short staple. Now, I haven't spun all that much WFW, but I hadn't thought it was known as such.

At that point, I moved on to consider the bag it was in. Which was when I found it was actually Ile-de-France, bought just to see what it was like.

Now I know.

Found the real WFW and tried again, and boy, what a difference - no neps, a much cleaner prep and a better staple length.

I have a photo . It is slightly blurry, but gives the idea, at least it would if I had remembered to put a coin for scale in with. And I don't have time to redo, so - the IDF is on the left, and the sample is is barely an inch from end to end. (I might try to do this over, if I remember and find the time.)



Other than that, I cancelled my class at AH last Friday, I was still feeling somewhat grim. I did, however, yield to the blandishments of the DSM to bestir myself to go to the Knitting and Stitching Show the next day, and in many ways I wish I hadn't as I think I set myself back rather. I didn't buy all that much = the usual souvenir sock yarn, a couple of bead kits and a pair of dark green Crocs! Oh, and him and me found Christmas presents for one another, really rather splendid handbags. That scuppers the Knit Picks circ set that I had been angling for, but never mind. I may get lucky with the Christmas present money.

I should have been at the Tuesday morning Book Group today, but spectacularly overslept, waking just as the chap who has the Herculean task of knocking our garden in to shape arrived. Still, it gave me a chance to talk to him about a few things, and then start to catch up a bit on the housework. The ironing has turned in to Quatermass' monster again whilst my back has been turned. I have far more interesting things to be doing, but won't be able to settle to them until I have reduced the chaos a bit.

Meanwhile, I finally cast on the Meadow Flowers(?) shawl from Knitters' Stash, so stand b for storms and tempests!