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It's a funny thing, I love to knit with solid or semi-solid yarns and large swathes of stockinette don't bore me a bit. From the comments I've seen in many people's ravelry projects, my taste for knitting is a veritable snoozefest for many. It's peculiar, then, that I can't say the same about spinning. As much as I love to knit solid yarns, spinning solid yarns takes me forever. Of course, I am more likely to then knit that final yarn but I drag my feet the whole way. Those crazy handpainted yarns in all their vivid colors are just so much more fun for me to spin (at least the singles are, I don't care what the fiber color, plying makes me yearn for the excitement of watching grass grow.)

But there's a compromise; solids that gently fade into other solids producing a gradual transition from one color to the next and one of my favorite dyers is serving up a beautiful assortment right now.

1. Rosa Rugossa Singles, 2. Rosa Rugossa Combed Top, 3. Rosa Rugossa Singles, 4. Rosa Rugossa Singles

The colorway is Rosa Rugossa and it's a soft blend of superwash merino, bamboo and nylon. The 4 ounces gave me about 792 yards of singles at about 24 wpi. I think it'll make a really lovely shawl one of these days.

I bought another 4 ounces in her Blueberry Campout colorway as well.

There's something about that shade of orange that just makes my heart go pitter-pat.

I don't ever recall Thanksgiving being particularly stressful, as a kid, but really, what's there to be stressed about other than the inevitable battle for that first slice of turkey breast with the big piece of crispy skin.* I'm sure it was much harder for the adults with all the cooking, cleaning and kid/drunk in-law wrangling, but as a kid, it always just seemed like lots of good food and playing with the cousins. As adults, I think Leo and I have kept a lot of the same relaxed attitude. We don't tend to make a production of the holiday, thought we do like some good lumpy mashed potatoes and crispy bird skin on a plate. Since we have yet to really put our new kitchen through the paces, we did (and by we, I mean me) a whole chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, dressing and cranberry sauce and dug in at our leisure. I'm still working through the last of the starchiest bits.

And being the long weekend that Thanksgiving is, we had plenty of time to fit in a trip to the ocean on Saturday. It was brisk but dry and that's pretty much good enough for us. I don't think the dogs have ever been put out by a little cold weather.

1. Leo got frenched by a puppy, 2. Thea takes a victory lap, 3. Birds, 4. Throw it again, 5. Lift off, 6. Manzanita Oregon November 27, 2009, 7. Manzanita Oregon November 27, 2009, 8. Manzanita Oregon November 27, 2009, 9. More birds, 10. Manzanita Oregon November 27, 2009, 11. Manzanita Oregon November 27, 2009, 12. Manzanita Oregon November 27, 2009, 13. Where'd it go?
Created with fd's Flickr Toys

I also finished spinning about 200 yards of some angora, alpaca and soy silk I hand carded together. Using a bit of Kool-Aid, I dyed it in three successive dye baths to get a rich orange shade.

Bath 1: 1 orange + 1 lemon aid packet

Bath 2: 2 orange + 1 lemon aid packet

Bath 3: 1 tropical punch packet

I love the color and it smells so sweet. I find dyeing really stressful, because you can't really undo it if you blow it, but this time seem to work out great.

To finish off the long weekend, I made a big batch of lemon garlic crispy kale.

Click either image for the recipe, inasmuch as it is one.

I hope all of you had a lovely weekend too.

*Most of my teen and college years, I did thanksgiving at friends houses and I watched in horror, one year as my friend's mother whipped her mashed potatoes (no lumps!) and removed the skin from the turkey after cooking. I've never fully recovered from the memory.