Eleanor Wears Cashmere

One day at work a package arrived filled with the most amazingly soft yarn, Miss Babs Sojourn (65% cashmere and 45% silk). In it was one skein (their last skein) of a color called Mystery Mine. Although there were threats of hair pulling and mud wrestling, I came out victorious! The skein was mine! I loved it so much I wound it by hand instead of using the ball winder.

It was 200 yards of fingering weight heaven that I knew I needed to make an item that would be close to the skin. The Eleanor cowl from Knitty was the perfect solution, especially since I love lace.

Last night I bound off and this morning I seamed it. If it wasn’t going to be 93 degrees today, I’d wear it all day.

Why my shop is named The Crafty Kitten

Zoe is the real crafty kitten around here. Notice there are two stools at my work table.  Zoe likes to sit right beside me and play foreman.  He will sit beside me if I’m working 10 minutes or 10 hours.  This is his studio as much as it is mine.

Garden Update

The peonies are nearly ready to bloom:

I have a couple of roses on the bush:

The oregano has tried to take over everything, even the poor little hosta:

Lots of seedlings waiting to grow up and go into my raised bed garden (once I build it):

I bought & planted a daisy today:

And, as usual, anytime I start digging around in the flower boxes I find very odd things. The first thing I found was this little yellow and black cone shaped thing which looked a bit like the skin for some type of reptile or amphibian only it was hollow and paper like. I studied for a bit before moving on. I tossed it into the grass and couldn’t find it again but wish I hadn’t done such a thing when I found this just a little further down in the dig:

It’s the head of something, though I’m not sure what. The tiny skull is so delicate and fragile. Here’s a different angle where you can see the inner workings of the skull:

I’m pretty sure that it is a small snake really freaking large grasshopper. I’m not sure how this came to be buried in my flower box but it isn’t the first thing I’ve found buried there. I guess I can continue with my dead bodies make good fertilizer joke.

If anyone knows what this is let me know, I’m just making assumptions based on what it looks like to me.

Wookies are soft.

Recently, I obtained an alpaca fleece for free. I took some time on Saturday morning to wash the entire thing.  I have been leaving it on my front porch swing during the day to dry.

It is the exact color of Chewbacca.  I swear it looks like I’ve either shaved or killed a wookie on the porch.

The alpaca is amazingly soft and I can’t wait to spin it.