Off-Kilter but Still Here

Hello, friends. I'm feeling a bit off these days due to, well, everything but also because I got a little off schedule in my blogging. After posting this past Wednesday, I did think it made sense to post again on Thursday because not much had changed in the status of my WIPs. I then thought I'd post on Friday, but I was busy with a big work project all day and it slipped my mind. So I'm trying to get back on track. Rest assured everything here is fine -- I've just been having to double check what day it is!

Because it's Sunday, I'm getting back to the normal schedule by talking about spinning today. I am still working on the first bobbin of my current sweater spin, the purple Rambouillet. The aforementioned big work project got in the way of some progress on it, but that happens. I'm really enjoying the spin and am not trying to rush it too much.

I am noticing some very definite color changes in my singles as I'm spinning, so when it comes time to split up the next bag of fiber, I'll be dividing it up into much smaller, shorter segments. I really want all the shades of purple to blend together and give an overall semisolid look when plied, so I want to ensure that there aren't long stretches of the different shades in all of the bobbins.

If I need some motivation to finish this spin, I can find it in the most recent club shipment, which finally arrived on Friday after taking quite a journey to get to me. Obviously shipping is slowed down worldwide due to the pandemic, and shipping from Australia is now coming by boat (rather than airmail) through San Francisco instead of New York. It now seems to take longer to go through customs, and this time it took an extra trip back and forth between the regional distribution center and my local post office. It was well worth the wait, though. I mean, look at it!

As if the colors weren't amazing enough, this month's fiber is Polwarth, which is my absolute favorite fiber to spin. I'm thinking that this is just begging to be a barber-poling two ply.

I would have been happy to spend yesterday afternoon spinning, once I finished up all the cleaning and laundry that are my usual Saturday chores, but Rainbow asked if we could do a little sewing together, and who am I to turn down a request like that? She wanted to make another drawstring project bag, so we gathered some scraps together and got stitching (well, I mostly did the stitching -- she lost interest about 10 minutes in but at least sat in the same room to watch me finish).

I've turned up the bottom here so you can see that while the llamas' heads got cut off at the top of the bag (we were working from a scrap of fabric and had to cut out the pieces where we had room, so there wasn't much flexibility to think about pattern placement), they are popping up unexpectedly on the bottom!

This attempt went much better than our first. For one thing, I'm much more comfortable using the sewing machine now, and I also have a better understanding of how the bag is constructed. I also brought down and used the iron while sewing this time to press open seams, press the bias tape, and so on for a much more professional finish. The inside of the bag isn't much to look at -- it's just white with some pale colored triangles printed on it -- so I didn't bother taking a photo. It's clear, though, that using some better quality fabric made a bit difference, so I expect Rainbow and I will be doing some online fabric shopping soon for some additional options.

(Side note: I have no idea why, but Blogger is not letting me center my photos today. It's also doing weird things with spacing. Just in case you were wondering why this post doesn't look like my typical ones!)