I learned a cool trick!

It's dead easy, too. (Click here!)

Oh, hello.

I didn't see you, there. How do you do? Me? Oh, I'm just hanging out in my new Hazel Knits shawl.



(Coming soon to a knitting blog near you!)

Nice People are Awesome, part 1

Recently I was given the opportunity to try out some of BMFA's awesometastic rovings (Thanks Tina! You are the super most excellentest!) I was going to post about it earlier, but I thought I'd wait til it was spun up and do a before-and-after.

Here are the rovings:


And the somewhatpoorlyphotographed yarns (it always looks like they're in focus when I'm taking the picture. Sigh.):



These three are 50% Merino, 50% Yak, in Brick, Mossay, and Pond Scum. Um...yum. I've never really worked with yak before, and it is ridiculously luscious. I tried to spin these finer than usual so I could make a little shawlette, but somehow I still ended up at a heavy worsted. (As I said on Twitter... I will blame the wheel until someone buys me a new one to prove me wrong.) Making the shawlette anyway. It'll be for winter :-)



This one is 75% BFL and 25% Tussah Silk, in Drucilla. Can I just say how geeked-out excited I am about Buffy-themed colorways? (Bought myself one of these, too.)



If you squint real hard, you can see that this is a skein of 50% Mulberry Silk, 50% Superfine Merino in Valkyrie. So shiny and yummy. Much prettier in person. Must rephotograph, sometime. Sigh.



And here's a little baby skein of 70% Silver Alpaca, 30% silk in Copperline. Loooove this color. Fun to spin- I left it as singles for once, and should probably block it since I'm sort of shoddy at singles.

Pretty!! The roving was split with Vivian and Star, so I'm really excited to see what they ended up with. Pretty sure both of them are better spinners than I (or at least better at spinning fine, good-for-things-besides-hats yarns, haha. Good thing I like hats.)

I am working on way too many things that are either secret, or possibly-secret (and therefore, for the moment, secret.) It makes for terribly boring blogging.

So I'm taking a break, and working on something less secret.



You'll see it as soon as I'm done frogging it and fixing it repeatedly. :-P


For now, here is a picture of a bird on my head:



(I'm not sure how I escaped without getting pooped on, but I'm glad I did. That's a handspun hat, dangit! And lorikeet poop is seriously ewwww. All they eat is nectar-juice out of zoo-goers's cups all day. Eugh.)

Beetlefriend!

I identified my beetlefriend from the trip: he's a Golden Buprestid/Metallic Wood-borer/Jewel Beetle. Aptly named, since that's exactly what the guy who walked by as I was taking a picture AND Travis's mother said about him ("Oooh, it looks like a jewel!")

From Beetles of the Pacific Lowlands (funny since I saw him in one of the much higher lands):

"This beetle spends most of its life as a larva, burrowing in dead wood. The larva has the remarkable ability to go into a sort of suspended animation for apparently decades, then pupate and become an adult. There have been reports of beams which were installed for 30 years which then have beetles crawl out of them. The adult flies to the south side of trees looking for mates. They often will congregate in an area that just burned, apparently able to "smell" smoke for several miles."



This person had one crawl out of her handmade cutting board after 29 years. Surreal. Though as far as bugs who could pop out of your home furnishings at any moment, I'd say they would be one of the more welcome ones.

Timberline - Once More with Color

(Look familiar? It's the hotel from The Shining. The outside, anyway.)



WhatisthisohgeeIdontknowitlookslikeMalabrigo....



This bug is the prettiest living creature I think I have ever seen, and it landed on my pants. It was a little over an inch long, and friggin SPARKLY.



This is a Douglas Squirrel, which I named Douglas. He was very angry with me, sitting in his space. Much loud, bird-like chittering. I left him a little bit of trailmix for his trouble.



Every time I have my camera by flowing water, I get really carried away with the slow shutter speed.





Check out those bike-seat marks on the jeans. One of these days the butt's just going to fall off completely.











Shootin' through my sunglasses!





(Travis's)



(and that)



(and that. He went up much higher than me, heh.)



My good side.

I can't believe I didn't take any decent picture of the inside of lodge... it was very cool. I guess my altitude-addled brain just didn't think of it. Arg.

Also, just because Travis is wearing my experimental fractal Cosy-fiber-club hat in every picture does not mean it's his, no matter what he thinks.