After doing about a pound of Earthen Tweeds for the shop, it killed me not to have some to play with. So I spun up a small sample:

And because it looked like it could be a spring field dotted with little flowers I had to take a close up

As I was knitting the swatch I kept fondling the BFL goodness. I need to make a sweater in this so the carder is about the be busy making me 24 ounces of this yumminess. Yes, I know I still have the handspun Aftur to finish and I have the Bianca yarn to finish… A girl can think ahead can’t she?

And while we’re on yummy. My herbs are sprouting well.

I know making seeds grow is nothing unusual but the dog got at them at one point and I wasn’t sure they’d come up at all. I’m very exciting they survive the severe thrashing at the hands of an over excited pup.

I stepped outside to take a few pictures of yarn, and this was the sun trying to burn through the spring morning fog. I was stepping out to take these:

I took a small bit of this to sample undyed. It’s Louet’s new Wool/Linen. Holy cow is it nice. I need to swatch but it’s some nice stuff and I’ll be getting more for the shop for sure.

This is the yarn I mad eon Julia over the weekend. She is a sweet little wheel. I set her up with the lace flyer and away I went. Two ounces later, I had 300 yards. I was thinking I wanted a finer yarn when I started out but then I changed to a heavy lace weight. I remembered that while I have fun making lace, I almost never use it. I like my shawls to have a little weight to it.

If you want to know more of my thoughts on Julia, and other’s thoughts, you can read them on Ravelry. We have a pretty good discussion running.
My Review
The Julia Discussion

I’m in the middle of shipping club so I have to be brief. I had to come here, though and give you a little preview of Louet’s Julia. They landed at the shop yesterday and I’ve got one all set up. I swear, I haven’t touched her yet and it’s driving me batty. The second shipping is done today though, I have some yarn to spin…

This is how she arrives (well, once you remove all the stuff from the box).

Louet finally has some really good instructions!

Not that you need them. The wheel is as easy to put together as the others.

Let’s hit some high points:

After I spin on it some, I’ll let you know more. I’m adding the high speed kit to this one this afternoon and we’ll see what ridiculously thin something I can spin on it. Ok, I’m going back to shipping…..

PS - I almost forgot. This POST is one that the fabulous Abby wrote about Julia. And while we’re speaking of the fantastic Abby… I need to mention that I have some of her Batts coming into the shop. She wrote a bit about it HERE.

Normally this would be an autumn dish but I just had to have some now. On our weekend away I had a dish of roasted squash soup that was just incredible so I really wanted to reproduce it. I think I got it pretty close. This makes a big batch so you can cut it in half or make it all and freeze some.

Roasted Squash Soup

1 Butternut squash
2 acorn squash
Garlic minced
onions minced
Parsley
olive Oil
2 cups of Veggie Stock

Wash then cut in half the squashes. Scoop out the seeds. Drizzle the cut side with olive oil then liberally sprinkle on the onions and garlic. Cover and put into the oven at 250F for about 3 hours or until it’s soft when you pierce it with a fork. Let it cool a bit. Scoop it out of the shell. Throw it in the blender with the Veggie stock - blend smooth. Serve hot with a sprinkle of parsley. If you want it to be a little more rich, you can add sour cream or regular cream. Though, I think regular cream makes it a little more sweet and desert like.

I’ve been eating small bowls of it with a large salad. It makes a great lunch.

Knitting and Spinning
I’ve been wanting to spin far more than knit lately. I suppose my block is the ten million swatches I need to do. Ok, maybe not ten million. I’m just not a swatch gal. I swear I can do a pair of mittens in the time it takes me to one swatch. Especially if you count in the procrastinating.

I’ve got 4 bobbins full of the Merino Bamboo I showed off a little while ago:

I also took time repairing and rearranged my wheels. The shop and the living room were feeling crowded with my wheels. So I moved the big Jensen home and the Indian Head spinner downstairs. The Indian head was broken and I had some work to do to make it work right and I’m pleased with the fix I did even though it’s not the prettiest. The Ashford that was living down there in a corner got pulled out and got her new quill head. That thing is a blast to use. This is the space I cleared out for them all.

If you go to the flickr picture you’ll see a bunch of notes. We don’t wind yarn here anymore so the wheels were able to take that space. Eventually husbeast will take over this area of the basement when I get my dye shop moved. Then the wheels will either have to go in some sort of storage situation or I’ll have to make some room in sewing room.

All the while I’m working on an update. And I”ll have batts in the update. If you use my rolag tutorial from last week, you’ll be able to get a self striping yarn from the new triple play batts. I wound my yarn on the shaft so you could see the color changes.

I had hoped to have the update done last week because I’m working on club now. So I may not get it all done until next week now. I know that’s cruel to tease you and leave you hanging….

HOCKEY!
The only big market hockey being played at the moment are the playoffs. My Bruins just saved their butts last night with a win. They are one game away from being eliminated.

It’s near the end of the season. After June, there will be no hockey until October. That’s a hard time for the husbeast. He’s such a big hockey fanatic that he used to tape the entire play off series and watch them again over the summer. We have some really old series in a box somewhere around here.

Part of hockey fandom is having jerseys. Husbeast has quite a few but his favorite team is the Buffalo Sabres and the hometown AHL team is the Portland Pirates.

Both of his jerseys are now out of date. The Sabres have had 2 logo changes since, and the Pirates had a logo change just after I bought this jersey for Husbeast’s birthday one year.

The first hockey game I ever went was the Maine Mariners. For any hockey fan out there, you may remember how long ago it was that the Mariners played. Jerseys were really hard to find and this one is one that Husbeast bought me for Christmas a couple of years ago. And as mentioned above, the Bruins are the team I root for.

Not everyone loves their teams logo and jersey. Many fans of the Sabres are calling the new logo, the Buffalo Slug. Still, it’s the team and the game that is foremost and we’ll all still sport the jersey in support of our favorite teams.

Go BRUINS!