30 days

Daylight Savings Time snuck up on me this year. Woke up Sunday morning with an "oops, slept in" after glancing at 10:00 flashing in my bedroom, then was perplexed to sit down with breakfast in front of the computer and notice it said 9:24. Odd. I wondered if the battery had completely died and stopped time. Checked the US Official Time website. It was indeed 9:25 by that time. Went back into the bedroom for something where the clock insisted it was 10:30. Figured maybe the clock was broken which would explain why the alarm hasn't been going off for two weeks. Daylight Savings Time didn't even occur to me until one of my housemates mentioned it. I guess my brain didn't get the "we're awake" memo Sunday morn.

So October is almost gone without a blab on the blog. Actually had an adventuresome month. I finally went on the Northwest trip I've been planning for half a year.

Stopped to visit my old housemate in Ashland where the turning leaves reminded me that it's fall. I had been been anticipating some dreary days, so the weather decided to be beautiful the entire week. A bit of drizzle here and there, but overall sunny and gorgeous.

Met up with my old climbing buddy Dan in Portland where I experienced "superhero night" at the bowling alley. Then I headed up to Seattle to finally deliver Mel's spinning wheel. She found out about a Suzie Majacraft for sale in Carmel last spring. Living closer and loving an excuse to try new wheels, I volunteered to check it out and buy it if it was good. Of course it's a great wheel, so tempting to buy it for myself although I swear that has nothing to do with the fact that it took me six months to find time to drive up to Seattle. I have to admit, I was kinda in love with the wheel and wouldn't have minded if Mel decided she didn't like it. However, she likes it so my living room only has one wheel, and I now have an excuse to try to build a travel wheel. Also brought Mel the last of Camryn's fleece (yearling mohair) that I washed and dyed for her veeerrrry slowly.

Thank goodness Mel is patient. She sent me back home with 10 pounds blue-faced leicester wool roving to dye up. 5 pounds are for her, 3 for me and 2 for Quenby. el, I promise this time the colored stuff will come back faster. See, I've already dyed some and will do the rest this week.

Mel lives in an incredible studio apartment where I practiced taking night pictures the first night.



The second night we went to her friends' Canadian Thanksgiving feast. It was incredibly tasty with a deep-fried turkey and a roasted turkey, vegetarian lasagna, several sweet potato dishes, Indian food, couple salads and more dessert than the stomach can fathom. And my old bandmate Dave was there, so we got to catch up before going to visit my friend Danielle who is starting the landscape architecture/urban ecology program at UW.


I was proud of my self control on the trip. Did step into a number of yarn stores (business research) but managed not to buy anything there though I did keep coming back to a silk brick at The Weaving Works in Seattle. I really really really wanted it, kept picturing what luscious colors I could dye it and imagining spinning all that soft silk...Reason prevailed. I have my silk cocoons still (but they're not silk bricks) and I have some silk caps (still not silk bricks) and I even have some silk top (but I've never spun a silk brick). Luckily silk bricks can be found outside of Seattle, so one day in a weaker moment, I may... At any rate, my only nonedible, nonpetroleum purchases on the trip were a Parasite Pals lunchbox for my entomology housemate, two pairs of chopsticks aka spindles, and a hematite donut bead, aka whorl.


Back in Davis, fiber was awaiting from a Craftster swap.


from Jessica
and more


from Jane, including some amazing felted beads and a sweet felted bracelet. Merino and alpaca and mohair, oh my.

Meanwhile, what have I made, you might ask.

Thrummed mittens! With unspun roving tufts sticking out inside, nice and warm and fuzzy. Mmmm... The alpaca is from Lori in Alaska, the white locks are kid mohair from Isis's Girl and the brown locks are suri alpaca from Nerissa.