Springtime catchup

So much has been going on but not much fiber or cooking related!

We took a three week trip to Italy; visited Rome, Orvieto, Montepulciano, Citta di Castello, Ravenna, Ama (population 5), and Florence, and many points in between. The food was amazing; the wine was amazing; the sights were amazing; the trip? amazing.  I'll come back to describe several of those places in later posts. Before and during the trip I listened to a book about the Etruscans, a Great Courses lecture series on the Roman era, covering the monarchy, republic, empire, and fall, and stared a Great Courses lecture series on the Renaissance in Florence, so was able to put what I saw more into context; I think DH was entertained as well.

Socks!

I came home to an empty loom and an empty house; DH took off almost immediately for some business trips, so I went from having a constant companion to being constantly alone; this is a little depressing. I'm finally coming out of that and starting to be productive again.  So here is what I'm up to.

Fabric for a bag by one of
the 4H students

• I finished a pair of socks from some of my oldest yarn.
• I am working on a cotton summer jacket called Mystic River; I got part way through a front panel and couldn't decide on the length so I put it away and started the second front panel; I'll have to decide on length in the next week or so.
• I wound a warp and started dressing the loom with some alpaca I bought in 2001 and some alpaca that was gifted me around 2010. One of the yarns is a singles yarn and one of them is a two ply; so I'm doing a plain weave pattern called log cabin, and weaving it doublewidth on my loom. This'll be my first project using doubleweave to get an item longer than my loom will support. It'll be a throw blanket to use in front of the TV; it should weave up pretty quickly once I get the loom threaded.
• I did spinning demos at two events and went to the Spinning Guild meeting, spinning on some wool/tencel mixed top that I've had for forever. I hated spinning it, it was not a happy fiber to work with. It's done and I've moved on to the next blue fiber that I have, a dark blue merino Tussah.
• I poked at some tiles on the mosaic but haven't had the concentration to keep going on it.
• Most of the kids in the 4H group finished their bags!!! I have no photos of the finished ones, but have included one of them before it was sewn together and straps added.

I have been spending a lot of time on the yard, getting the new yard in shape and getting the pond cleaned out. I came home from Italy to find it full of pollywogs and string algae! Also, we're starting work on the kitchen on May 6, so I've been spending a lot of time chasing down materials.