I am not absolutely positive, but I am pretty sure I haven’t done any wheel spinning since the end of August. I put my wheels away when Rose arrived as she was definitely going through a destructive teen stage. I am glad I did, all things considered. She is great now, but we did lose a lot of items from her destructive chewing.

After the destructive phase ended, a few months after we got her, I was just too busy in general to pull those wheels back out. I wanted to finish a bunch of knitting and reduce my yarn stash. I had major work projects. And then? I got engaged and had a wedding to plan. The spinning wheels stayed quietly in their closet as all these life events and plans happened.

Then I almost finished my lintilla shawl. I ran out of handspun yarn JUST before the end of the knit and JUST before family got into town for the wedding. That got set aside. Until this weekend.

I already had the wool singles done, I just needed to spin up a couple mawata silk pieces and then ply those with the wool. I could easily have just spun one little mawata, but I did two. Then I finished knitting my lintilla!

I love it. It’s slubby and fun. It is super soft with all that silk. I did all the dyeing for both the wool and the silk. It is absolutely something I made from start to finish.

Now I am off to find some fiber and do a real spin. Or, perhaps I’ll do some plying from spindles. I don’t know! But, I am definitely going to take some time to do some spinning. It might take me a minute to get squared away with it again!

It’s one week after our big event. My nails are beginning to chip. The flowers are beginning to die, though I did remove all dead flowers and put together new vases with those that were still viable.

We are working our way through our leftover food and doing pretty good with that. Some got frozen, much got eaten, and the salad we couldn’t get through had to get tossed. Our certified copy of our license arrived today so now we can plan a day off to go get name change stuff taken care of. I am still sleeping quite a lot, though I am hoping with a nap today I’ll be fairly caught up again. I’ve gotten back on my diet, despite the consumption of leftovers, and am only 3 pounds over my lowest weight. Not bad! With the massive success I had with it, I do want to keep it up.

Goals for this weekend would be taking up spinning again. I need to get some mawata silk done so I can finish my lintilla scarf. It’s so close to being done! I also want to get more of my craft room cleaned up, it’s pretty nutty in there as I mostly just dumped decor in there after the wedding was over. I am going to let Mr. Ink know that it may be time to start getting my loom put together so I can experiment with it, but since he works this weekend, I won’t push it. And I’d like to get a good start on thank you notes, I am terrible at writing them and the sooner I work on it the better chance we have of it actually getting done.

Meanwhile, what I am actually getting done isn’t on the goals list.

But I am definitely going to town on it! These tiny 10 stitch rows are deeply satisfying to me especially when paired with a yarn that changes colors. I’ve been working on this while chilling with the dogs in a quiet house. It’s much needed. Miss Butterfly is at camp and Mr. Ink is at work and I am truly enjoying the house to myself. But I do truly hope to have a little spinning to show off in the near future!

2 more sleeps until wedding day. Yesterday we had a lovely day spent with family. I managed to get the car cleaned before my parents were ready to come visit. We had additional family arrive and had a nice lunch and downtown shopping (browsing) experience. Mr. Ink’s sister in law arrived in the late afternoon. Mr. Ink finally bought a dress shirt for the ceremony and then brought home pizza for a late evening dinner.

I’d been working on my Lintilla shawl out of handspun, and I almost finished, except I lost at yarn chicken. Which is fine because I have what I need to create more yarn to finish. It’s just that spinning isn’t about to happen until after the wedding, so I had to choose something else instead. I decided to wind up an 8 ounce ball of handspun and cast on another lintilla because it’s just so easy to knit. But, the handspun wasn’t performing as I wanted to, it had no drape. So I ripped it out.

Then I decided on a ten stitch twist. I don’t know if this will make it to blanket or throw size, though I do have more yarn I can use on it once the 8 ounce ball is done, or, I am pretty sure I could procure more of the colorway and keep after it in the future. But, I just wanted to knit it because it looked interesting and fun. Whatever it turns into is cool with me.

This morning Mr. Ink’s sister in law is working from our house. We’ll be heading out shopping a bit later but for now I’ve got time on my hands and it’s quiet in the house so I am getting some knitting (and blogging) done. Here’s where I am.

Not the most beautiful or inspired photo but when working on crafts in the quiet moments, we take what we can get. I don’t think I am doing the joins quite correctly but they look interesting so I am going to go with it and call it a feature not a bug.

Tonight we head out to the venue to do some last minute planning. Mr. Ink’s sister in law will be in charge of set up, so we had a meeting about everything last evening. But of course, things always become much clearer when she can see the actual space we are using. And then, we get to have the middle age equivalent of a bachelorette party. Meaning, we are going out for dinner at my favorite little wine bar/restaurant while the guys have their middle age equivalent of a bachelor party, they are going out for steak.

It feels like tonight is when things really start picking up for the duration of the weekend. I can’t believe the time is already here. I also can’t believe how relaxed I am feeling about everything. It’ll all be exactly as it should be.

We are one week away from the wedding. At this time in one week we’ll be gearing up to load up the truck with necessary items and I’ll be trying not to ruin my manicure while doing so. The forecast has improved, we are now forecasted to have a 71F day and sunny. Around here, this means we are likely to hit more than 71. But, the heater I rented for the tent during the rehearsal dinner won’t go to waste, as Friday is only supposed to be 61.

But all this is a week from now. For this morning, I am starting with taking it easy. Miss Rose Bud and I had a nice long cuddle this morning while I was knitting after I did a great job in getting a good amount of sleep with no memorable dreams. Very pleasant. We’ve got a weekend which is packed full, but for now, we are taking it slightly easy. I am definitely going to work in a nap.

Here’s where I am with my Lintilla shawl.

It has grown so much! I am getting pretty close to knitting on the edge ruffles now. Every time I knit this I remember the reason I love it so much is that it has a shape that drapes so nicely over the shoulders. I love the pattern but I knit it repeatedly more for the way it wears than for how it knits.

That’s it from here, I need to get the house straightened up so that I can begin working on the deep cleaning portion of the day. I hope your weekend is quite lovely!

It’s Wednesday, 11 days before the big day. I was going to come here to talk about knitting, and I’ll get to that. But, I am having a morning of feeling really odd. In one week, we’ll be at madness level 5, barrelling toward the big day and it’ll likely feel like I can’t catch a break or a breath.

So, I am breathing this week. The week is flying by while simultaneously time feels suspended. We are moving too fast toward big day when I really want to take in what is now. The enjoyment of anticipation, the enjoyment of having done most of what needs doing and knowing that whatever happens next is ok with me. The suspension of time where I enjoy all that has been with my relationship with Mr. Ink. This almost 6-year relationship has been nothing but good. I didn’t know that a relationship with another person could just be good and uncomplicated and comfortable while also being the best thing that ever happens. So I have this idea this week that I want to treasure that. The big day changes everything and nothing at all. Once the big day happens, Mr. Ink will still be planting trees and gardening. I’ll still be knitting and spinning and messing around with makeup. We’ll still be parenting a teenager, going on bike rides, taking the dogs to the dog park, and planning our next big adventure together. This is my week to remember and appreciate how we got here, close to the big day.

I feel like it doesn’t take a leap to understand that all these feelings are kind of leading me to not get quite as much done this week as I had anticipated. I am hopeful that I’ll be able to change that dynamic yet this week. Those bathrooms didn’t get deep cleaned yet. I blame the still slightly bum knee which was acting up after I walked the dogs yesterday. And a headache. And a myriad of other excuses. I did get Mr. Ink to work on the slow running bathroom sink drain though, so it’s ready to be cleaned.

Instead, I worked on the normal day to day house chores and some additional packing up items which will be used at the wedding. Then, I also got some knitting done. Let’s talk about that knitting now. I mentioned that I had started two new projects. The first was a cowl, and as it turns out, I forgot to check and twisted my cast on. Didn’t notice for a while, and it was too late to fix so that got ripped back out and I don’t have the heart to cast on again right now. The other thing is another Lintilla shawl. I have often found that the Lintilla shawl is my perfect no brainer knitting. I adore it. It provides interest while still being garter stitch and the pattern is easily memorized. Here’s the handspun I am using:

I had created this last summer when I did a craft room clean out and declutter. One ply is silk hankies and the other ply is crampot dyed locks. I loved the finished yarn so much that I was saving it for a special occasion, knowing full well it would become a Lintilla shawl but also knowing I wasn’t ready to crack into the skein. Turns out, now is a good time.

The colors here are a little funny, they don’t blend nicely into one another. It’s more like color blocks. But, this is also a ridiculously soft yarn with a ton of interesting texture and those color changes are going to make me very happy during the knitting of this shawl. It is a little jarring to not have it look like I am accustomed to having handspun look.

I got the flight details this morning for Mr. Ink’s sister in law. She’s…great. She takes care of things. Knowing that she’ll arrive on Wednesday and just help take over whatever needs taking over is really a relief. Knowing that I’ve done MY part to be as prepared as possible will help her not feel overwhelmed as well. It’s a good relationship. My parents arrive the day before that, and it’ll be nice to have a little time with them before the insanity of additional family company begins. Work is the oddest thing since I’ve told very few people what I’ll be out for, it just continues on as normal with the same types of stress we always have and nothing slowing down for anyone. When it comes to work, nothing is feeling suspended at all, in fact, I’d venture a guess that work is what has me feeling like we are barreling through the week.  I will be pulling together a bunch of tasks and deadlines for my boss this week as she’s eager to make sure I TRULY do not need to worry about anything at work while I am out of the office. So eager that she’s agreed to sit in my office half the time to make sure everything stays on track. She doesn’t work in my building so it’ll be a good opportunity for her to get a handle on what is happening in my building, a benefit to her as well.

Anyhow, that’s about a long enough blog post for now, too long really. But it’s a good description of where I am at the moment. 🙂

This weekend was a two finished object weekend, which is really fun when I have tended to feel like I am not getting very far with knitting due to time constraints.

This is the Levity Shawl and it is done! It is such a pretty piece and I enjoyed knitting immensely. The handspun yarn looks as good as I imagined. And with this finished object, I have made it to 43% of my yearly goal. This was also some of the oldest handspun in my stash so it was fun to get it used up and moved out of the yarn stash, as is another goal of mine this year.

Speaking of which-I am now at 110 yarns in stash so also well on my way to my goal of getting this number under 100 this year. I began two new projects over the weekend, one intended for my lunch breaks at work, and another intended to be nice and mindless for the upcoming couple of weeks. I’ll show those off shortly.

Miss Butterfly and I worked very hard over the weekend. While there were points where I got the typical teen attitude and so on, for the most part she’s been extremely eager to help out around the house while we prep for company. We did do a deep cleaning of the living room on Sunday and also completely rearranged it since we wanted to open it up a bit to accommodate all the company coming in. We still don’t know what kind of weather we will be dealing with so it is entirely possible that we’ll be mostly indoors. That’s a lot of people indoors! Anyhow, you can see that the couch is covered in towels and sheets. This is because Rose’s fur sticks to that couch so badly. We are trying to minimize that at this time. Miss Butterfly and I did a vacuuming of the couch cushions and so on, but we are really going to have to go in there pretty hard to de-hair the couch and don’t want to make more work for ourselves. Anyhow, the couch is now in front of the living room windows, which has basically provided Rose with panoramic dog TV. She thinks this is a wonderful turn of events. If she sees humans, she gives out one big woof. Then Miss Lizzie who doesn’t care a bit about staring out windows begins to bark. She doesn’t like to quit. Even when I tell her to knock it off, she lays around growling under her breath. She has no clue what is even going on, but she’s definitely got something to say about it!

Now Rose, being a nervous girl, really struggled with the deep cleaning and furniture rearrangement initially. Plus Mr. Ink was hanging pictures again, so that was loud. She didn’t appreciate it and really was on edge there for a while. Finally, we decided to take her to the dog park. It was a stunningly beautiful day. There were tons of dogs. It wasn’t muddy. It was the perfect day to find a spot on the grass and sit so that Rose could play. Sitting on the grass at the dog park is one of my absolute favorite things. It’s so unusual that dogs have to come up and investigate, sometimes get right in your face or crawl all over you. It’s super cute. We meet a lot more dogs that way than we would if we were standing around. So, because of this, we stayed much longer than normal. When Rose ends up laying down playing with a ball near us, we know we’ve truly worn her out. This was a really good reset for her and she came home much less stressed and ready to explore the new furniture arrangement.

While Miss Butterfly and I did get a ton accomplished, we didn’t get all accomplished that we had wanted to this weekend. As such, we’ll be working on deep cleaning the bathrooms this week in the evenings. That being said, we both agreed that while it’s not that fun, deep cleaning the bathrooms tends to be easy. And really, fairly quick. The biggest problem is getting down to business in the first place. That being said, one of the reasons we haven’t gotten down to business yet is because the main bathroom sink drain needs to be unclogged again. It’s pointless to deep clean if the drain isn’t running that well. We are waiting on Mr. Ink for that task to be completed. I think we’ll do a little nagging tonight to get there.

Anyhow, that’s a nice long update of what is going on around here! Prepping, as usual, but not feeling too stressed anymore. It’s more of a prepping in order to pass the time in a productive fashion right now. I think that’s why Miss Butterfly is so eager to help.

It’s often so much easier to figure out what to post regarding beauty these days. But I do knit, even though it’s lessened somewhat this season. Anyhow, I finished up a honey cowl out of handspun yarn. This is the project I finished to give to Miss Marja’s mother for allowing us to use her home to get ready in less than 2 weeks from today.

It’s a really nice pattern and yarn pairing, I really love it! The colors are so beautiful and intense.

We’ve been hard at work getting the house prepared for company. I love to do a deep clean before we have visitors. Well, I love to do a deep clean full stop. But, having visitors makes it all the more enjoyable. Miss Butterfly and I deep cleaned the dining room yesterday. Mr. Ink went out shopping. He bought a suit for the wedding, finally. He also bought a new rug.

During the time which we attempted to allow Rose to be out of her kennel but contained to one room, she shredded the rug in Mr. Ink’s den. The den was on the list of places that needed a deep cleaning but it is technically Mr. Ink’s responsibility. That being said, the shredded carpet pieces have been migrating all over the house. So, as soon as that new rug arrived, Miss Butterfly and I tore up the den to remove the old carpet and then did a bunch of work on the floor and edges. There’s still cleaning to be done in there but we are pleased with the progress we made. This morning Rose decided to go grab herself a rag to shred rather than shred the carpet, so that’s a win.

Rose has been doing far better in her kennel with the new set up. She happily runs in there to eat, she goes in there just to check it out, and she’s most insistent that Lizzie doesn’t go anywhere near her kennel. This is good, it’s major progress. We had one drooling day while we were gone but overall she’s far better adjusted to it than she had been.

More dog stuff, Rose and Lizzie have been playing lots of hide and seek with Miss Butterfly. They love it, and Rose is now the clear winner. Her thoughtful intelligent nature paired with her nose finds Miss Butterfly far faster than Lizzie’s over the top flying through the rooms seeking but often overlooking Miss Butterfly because she’s moving too fast nature.

Today we are hoping to get the living room deep cleaned and rearranged. It’s the largest space in the house with the most surfaces to dust and clean and it can be a real pain in the butt. That being said, it’ll feel much better when it is done. We will rearrange the furniture to work better for lots of guests since we need to gather as much space as possible for the upcoming event. I had really wanted the bathrooms deep cleaned today as well, but we’ll see how we go.

I finished up my kernel scarf though it took me quite some time to get it washed, blocked, and photographed.

I didn’t give this one a super severe blocking as I typically would do with such a lacy pattern. But to be honest, I think it looks just fine this way. The lace still shows up just fine. This was a pattern that was a little tough in the sense that I really did have to pay attention to every row and mark them. But, it kept my interest as well and moved along quickly. Not at all a bad little project.

This brings me to 15 projects completed this year so far, which is 38% of my yearly goal. With what I’ve got on the needles right now and this yarn out of my stash, I am sitting at 112 yarns in my stash, with my goal to get this under 100 this year. Since I’ve moved my yarn to a smaller space this goal has become all the more important to me. But, after the wedding, when I start experimenting with my loom, I am hoping those stash numbers can really move since weaving tends to do that!

As for wedding updates, this weekend was a quiet one. I didn’t really have anything we just had to go out and get done. So instead I used my weekend to deep clean the craft room and bedroom. The bedroom in particular really needed it. I didn’t move the bed to clean under it in November when I did the last super deep clean so I never felt like I’d had the deep clean completion I would typically hope for. The other thing that was really gross from the winter was the windows. It was great to get the inside and outside of those done in those two rooms! And then, the piece that made the biggest difference. Rose had been really drooling and stressing out where we’d had her kennel. We moved her kennel near Lizzie and started back at kennel training basics, and that made a huge difference. So, I got to clean the spot in the bedroom where the kennel had been, really getting the drool areas cleaned up and what a difference that made! I am so glad I took time for that. Anyhow, those may not sound like wedding updates but when so much company is arriving at your place in less than 3 weeks, it’s totally wedding prep.

With knitting, I do have another photo to post soon. Stay tuned!