I'm still spinning...

It’s been rather a busy day, even though I had it off from ‘work.’ (Don’t worry, it was legitimate – I didn’t call in sick!)

I’ve been really on a spinning jog lately and have spun almost a full 8 oz of the lovely green roving I bought a few weeks ago in Wisconsin. This is the Lincoln/Coopworth roving that is being so much fun to spin. I’ll post a picture once I get the first skein plied.

I also spun about 172 yds of black alpaca the other day which also turned out quite lovely to spin. With that one, I was trying to do a 1-ply at a certain thickness to match some wool that I want to use for a design idea I’ve got. I just don’t think it’s going to be enough yardage for the project I have in mind. My friend, Karen, from Karen Poulakos Fiber Arts Studio has some lovely ‘Colonial’ wool roving that I think will be a perfect match for the other yarn I’m going to use so as soon as she gets in some black, I’ll be good to go. I just want to make sure that I have enough. Nothing worse than running out of yarn and not being able to buy more! Maybe I can get more of the green done while I’m waiting. Well, I do have some maroon ‘Colonial’ so maybe I’ll work on that for a while!

The great Cricket Wars of 2008 are in full swing. Living on the ground floor, this time of year I get invaded by those nasty black crickets. Five a.m. Sunday morning found me stalking the critters as they mocked me from their hidden positions. Somehow, at least one of them got into the cabinetry in my kitchen where I couldn’t get to them but their noise echoed as loudly as it possible could. I did, however, get in some hits to one that was in the open and took some others out later in the day.

I’ve reinforced my perimeter and it seems to have worked for most of today but I can hear them encroaching from the outside so one never knows when they’ll strike next.

By the way, if you're in Springfield in October, go by the Chase Bank building. I will have 4 watercolors in the display there during the month. As I mentioned before, I've just joined the Sangamon Watercolor Society and this is part of their on-going display at the bank. But this month, they have a special artist who will be in town to do the judging and will give feedback on each of the paintings. I'm excited to have some impartial feedback on my work (unless he says it sucks then I won't be so excited!). Hopefully he'll be more constructive than that!

I did finish the sketch of my Great Grannie and will post a picture once I get the mat cut the right size. This is the one that I finished all but the face on and it took me forever to get up the nerve to try the face. There are flaws but I'm very happy with it overall.