Snail Spirals

Well, we're moved in. Still no internet at home (Really, Verizon? It truly takes you a week and a half to flip the switch and let us get online? Whatever. You said by the end of today, remember. AT THE VERY LATEST, you said. We'll see.), so I'm stealth blogging from work.

We're mostly unpacked, and settled in nicely. I like the layout much better than the other house, especially the living room. We got rid of the honkin' enormous entertainment center that came with the house we bought in Friday Harbor, and bought ourselves a pretty little coffee table style TV stand and a DVD rack, which is much better. We also bought a dinette set that will be Emma's desk. A girl has to have a place to color, after all, and I think it's really important that she has a dedicated place to do her homework. The table fits perfectly in the breakfast nook in the kitchen, along with two of the chairs, and the other two chairs are in the living room. Yay, we have extra seating now! Plus, it's not an overly large table but still big enough for Emma, a friend, and all their crayons and pens and papers and scissors and glue and tape and glitter and stickers.

I know I said last time that we have too much stuff, so how does buying more furniture fit in? Honestly, next time we move, the TV table, DVD rack, and dinette set should take up less room in the truck than the entertainment center we got rid of. When I said honkin', I meant honkin'. I'm sure they collectively weigh less, too. The dinette is real wood, not particleboard, and the TV table, while particleboard, is nice and small.

Enough of moving. Unpacking is almost done, and I'm sick of it. So I washed some wool.



This is eleven batches of the merino ewe hogget fleece I got last July. I was getting a bit nervous with having this hanging about still greasy, so decided that it was time to start washing. I didn't want the lanolin to harden.

That's probably about a third of the fleece, washed in mesh bags in dishpans in the bathtub. Two soapy soaks and two rinses, and while I haven't thoroughly checked it for residual grease yet, I think it's clean. I'll do that tonight once it's dry, before I put it into the storage pillowcase. Merino is a greasy breed, eager to felt, and this is a hogget fleece (first shearing) so the fiber is very fine. I washed it carefully, in small batches, with my hottest tap water, and so seem to have avoided any felting issues, thankfully. This should comb up beautifully.

I've also been spinning. In addition to some contract work (cashmere and silk, mmm), I've been plugging away on Herkel's wool. I'm still working on the bobbin I started when my in-laws were here in June, with the first 100 grams of wool I combed. I spun one nest of the combed top last night, a total of 8 grams, and it took me 2 hours and 20 minutes. I have 38 grams of top left, about 11 hours of spinning time!

I get all smug when think about how many yards of singles must be on that bobbin....