What I did on my summer vacation: Part 1

My summer vacation was too, too fun and will take a few posts to get through. But there are a lot of pictures!

The first part of my vacation was when DH took the children off to his family's place in Pennsylvania for ten days. Since I got my new job in April, I'm only entitled to 3 days of vacation so far so my usual 3 weeks away was not possible this year.

I believe all mothers in the universe will commiserate with me on ten days alone in the house. Ahem.

Anyway, since I didn't get to spin much for the Tour de Fleece during the actual Tour (too busy getting a new website live at work), I did my spinning during my time on my own:

This yarn started out as training for the Tour, Superfine BFL 2 ply laceweight dyed in 2008 with leftover Easter Egg dye. But I decided to finish it off. 668 yards, 5 ounces. I do love this color!

I also finished off Spunky Eclectic's April offering, Soul Windows, Corriedale/Nylon: I had already spun up one bobbin. 360 yards. I quick put it in a cake, though, to take on my trip in case I finished Tempest (I didn't).

Then I did some yarn start to finish: Firefly from Twisted Fiber Arts, BFL. I am a HUGE Firefly fan and watched the whole series on DVD again while spinning this up. Will make great socks that I will enjoy immensely! 343 yards.

Anyone notice a trend? I can't seem to spin 4 ounces of wool into more than 350 yards of 2-ply sock yarn. Luckily I don't have huge feet! Still working on this.

My last (yes, I did spin a lot, thank you) project for the quiet portion of the vacation was to finally spin yarn for a Spinalong I joined in March, Ply by Night on Ravelry. This sounded like a great idea at the time. They all buy the same fiber, the same colorway and spin for a specific project (from two choices). This was really fun to watch with the previous colorway, how differently the yarns turned out by different people, different drafting techniques, etc. But the month I joined the colorway was very...monochromatic. Not quite my thing so it did not get me motivated. However, the yarn, although impossible to photograph color-wise, did turn out and will be lovely in socks from Sock Innovation or something like that where you really want an almost solid: I swear it's not gray! BFL dyed by Briar Rose Fibers, 338 yards. Yes, they're getting shorter. Ho hum.

Next time: Our trip to Washington, DC!!!

Peace.