Some days, life just sucks...

...but you have to carry on anyway, and it helps, I find, to force yourself out of your angry, vitriolic thoughts and focus on something good. So, let's go with that, shall we?

First, you readers apparently know me well enough to know that I am far more likely to walk around with a monkey on my head than I am to quit eating meat and other animal-related products. Yep, going vegan would be a huge joke for me. I love me some meatless meals, but don't even try to take away my eggs or cheese. I'll hurt you. ;) (And for those of you who didn't figured it out, the monkey on my head was from Ravelry's April Fool's joke of putting something funny on top of each person's ravatar...this year, I had a monkey. I think I had a Carmen Miranda hat last year. LOL)

Second, and speaking of monkeys, (amazing how often I do speak of them, it seems, LOL), I finally finished my monkey socks! I missed the KAL deadline by two days, but at least I've got yet another pair of yummy socks to enjoy on my feet...


These socks were amazingly hard to photograph so that the actual pattern showed up well. I guess it is the rather boisterous Rio de la Plata yarn...so many colors! But they look great close up, to which Nigel, our Garden Gnome, can attest. (Nigel has been laying face down in the mulch since mid-winter, darned sot! Finally pulled him up today and told him to clean up his act. Sheesh! No one needs to see that!)

One of the big reasons I didn't get my socks done by the KAL deadline was that I went on a spinning binge. I spun this...

...some lovely green Falkland fiber from cosymakes, with which I tried my hand at spinning woolen. I'm afraid I'm never going to be good at that, but the yarn turned out to be a fun thick-and-thin, averaging a heavy worsted-bordering-on-bulky weight. LOL Not sure what it wants to be yet, though.

And then I started to spin this...

...this is some Masham roving I got from CJ Kopec Creations, in the Candy Corn colorway. The colors are fabulous (this was taken at night, so the lighting is a bit over-warm). The fiber itself is interesting...it's not the softest wool in the world, and it shed something fierce as I was spinning it (I was wearing black sweats and a black t-shirt, too, LOL), but it is willing to be spun incredibly thin, and it does end up with a pretty halo. I'm curious to see if it will soften up at all as it is handled in knitting, or maybe when it is soaked? Anyone ever knit with this before and have any insights? Anyway, that bobbin was the first half, which I managed to spin fine enough to end up with a true, consistent sport weight when I Navajo plied it...


I kind of wish I'd done it as a two-ply because I think I could have gotten a fingering weight, which is my ultimate spinning goal. In fact, I just purchased some fiber specifically with the goal of spinning some fingering weight sock yarn for a specific sock pattern. I'll fill you in on that more as I progress in that project.

Lastly, SIX DAYS until we leave on our Easter/Florida trip! Woohoo! You have idea how much I need to get away and melt my brain in the sun for a while. No. I.D.E.A. Truly. It's been that kind of week, folks. :P