Full of fibery goodness!

I received a wonderful squishy parcel this week, all the way from the USA. I won a prize during the Tour de Fleece from one of the groups I was posting in on Ravelry. I asked for a 'surprise' and Chris from Briar Rose sent me the most beautiful mountain of BFL! There's 10oz in all, which is getting on for 300g. My idea is to spin it as a single and then ply it with a co-ordinating single of BFL to create a beautiful 2 ply yarn. I'm meeting up with my friend Marianne this week and I hope that she will be able to do her usual magic with the dyepot!! Watch this space, I'd like to have enough to knit a cardigan. Take a look at the fibre. I'm thinking of a deep purply aubergine colour perhaps to ply it with. What do you think?

I also finished spinning the first braid of merino/angora (50/50) - it's definitely not my best spinning, as some parts have a little too much twist, but I love the colours. It's very soft and you can see its fluffy 'bunny' halo developing already.

I'm trying hard to finish up various WIPs before we go to Greece in just over a fortnight. I have decided that I really don't like having lots of different projects on the needles at any one time, so I hope to whittle them down over the coming days. First to get done was a crocheted ripple blanket that I have made for the cat sanctuary where we got Flo from. Of course, Flo thinks it's perfect for her, and did a lot of cute poses on it to try and persuade me! But I am holding strong and have put it away until I have a couple more to donate.

 

Mr JK and I are both trying to get more exercise and lose a bit of weight. To assist us, we have bought Fitbits which are really posh pedometers. Obviously there's a lot more to them than that, and we are finding it quite motivating to see how many steps we can achieve in a day. We are trying to build in more early morning walks. It's very rural and peaceful where we live, so it's a pleasant start to the day once you make the effort to get out of bed!! This was the view a couple of days ago. Lovely isn't it? Hard to believe, but only a couple of hours later everything turned dark and we had a massive thunderstorm.

 

This afternoon we went for a walk around one of our favourite gardens, the Old Vicarage at East Ruston. The whole garden was a paradise for insects. I never tire of these gardens, there is always something new to see.

 

 

 

Plus the thought of a cup of tea and a delicious slice of cake at the end! Now that's a lot of steps to walk to work this off! xxx