an ent knits

These are all from last Saturday’s afteroon of spinning on the B&B’s patio.

I was going to wait to have better pictures and time to write something more coherent, but there’s more and more and more stuff to do (both fibery and not), and if I actually wait for time to take good pictures and then time to write, it’ll be July and I’ll be busy with other stuff, so it might actually be December or something.

So, here:

Springtime Bandit, 5 repeats of body chart, half the edging chart, 12g left of a ball of Brooks Farm Acero. Knit on 5mm needle. Has been done for ten days, and I still haven’t woven in the ends. (And I’ve worn it twice.) Color is much more accurate in the picture with Mel.

And here:

Very Full Spindle. Though it could fit more if I really wanted, I suspect. At least 4 oz of fiber, there, the batts I got a little over a year ago in a swap with Sherie.

By the time you see this, I’ll be making final preparations for a spinning retreat organized by Beth of the Spinning Loft. More later, including, I hope, decent pictures of Springtime Bandit. (This week has been very full of science, to make up for skipping out on Friday.)

(This is tussah/baby camel from Spirit Trail Fiberworks, and it’s my current walking spinning. Shot at lunch on Thursday.)

Ducklings! (And turtles, but the turtles don’t change all that much over the course of the year.)

There should be knitting pics sometime soon–if I don’t run out of yarn and have to cobble together a solution of some kind, I’ll probably finish Springtime Bandit tonight.

Yesterday morning, on my way to lab after doing my laundry (at the laundromat, where things work much better if I go in the morning), my mood kept shifting between “oy, I hate this weather!” (because it was already hot and sticky) and “oh, look! flowers! and more flowers! and more flowers!”

My ideal: today’s weather (much cooler), with all the flowers.

I should maybe have picked fewer of these to share, but I couldn’t. All of these (plus more on flickr) are from yesterday’s walk to work.

Yes, one knitter. Me. One of my labmates is finishing up here and going back to China next week, so a few of us went on one last lab hike before he leaves. We went to Hickory Run State Park, where a different group of us had gone a couple of years ago.  We took a different trail this time, because I wanted to not have to wade through a stream, and because we wanted to visit the boulder field, no matter which part of the woods we walked through.

The woods were lovely.  It had been far, far too long since I’d been in the woods.

Lots of the tree stumps were covered with moss and lichen–I love the way the lichen makes some of them look like teensy stone cities.

I have to say, though, that I’m not sure the trail (the Boulder Field Trail, which I would not call difficult) was all that much drier than the ones we took last time–those were dry, except for the stream.  This one, well, the puddles you can see are the trail.  And we still had to cross three streams, though they were leapable and didn’t require taking off of shoes.

We made it to the boulder field, though, where we had lunch and hung out for a bit.  Then, my companions headed off for the other end of the boulder field, and I stayed behind to enjoy the warm sunshine and the cool breezes and the not feeling like I was slowing everyone down.  (I am not a fast hiker.  Especially in gorgeous woods.  Especially in old running shoes, which really aren’t great hiking shoes but which I still think were the best of my options.  Fortunately, they were gracious about the number of times they stopped to wait for me–the trail took me an hour and a half each way, and probably would’ve taken them closer to an hour.)

While I sat in the sun, I knit:

Springtime Bandit grew a lot today, between the drive up, the break after lunch, and the drive back.

My feet are faintly sore, mostly from the weird angle of my running shoes (I do most of my running barefoot these days, on my elliptical machine), but I had a wonderful time.  It was actually kinda nice to get to hike apart from my labmates for a while (several whiles)–it was quiet, and peaceful, and the only reminder of nearby civilization was the whisper of the highway.

How’d it get to be Friday already?!?  However it happened, here’s a photo of some fresh yarn:

That’s the Frosted Forest I posted as singles a couple of weeks ago. It’s about 320 yards of heavy laceweight; I think it’s going to be a lacy cowl.