On Meeting -- and Exceeding -- My Goal

I wasn't too worried, if I'm honest, but I'm happy to report that I did indeed meet my Stash Dash goal by finishing up that skein of Finnsheep yarn. Here it is after washing and drying:

It made for an interesting spin. The fiber was in roving form and very minimally processed, so there was still quite a bit of lanolin still in the wool and a fair amount of VM that I pulled out or that fell out as I was spinning (I had to make liberal use of my lint roller after each spinning session). Although it was roving, a carded preparation, I decided to spin it short forward draw, which I typically do with combed top, mainly because I wanted it to be a little more consistent and I knew I'd be faster spinning with my default style. It's still a bit lumpy bumpy because the fiber was a mix of different colors, and it's not uncommon for different colors of fleece -- even on the same animal -- to have different textures. I wasn't aiming for perfection, so I'm quite happy with the more rustic finished look. I did give it a good long soak in hot water with some dish soap to get out the lanolin, and it puffed up very nicely.

The finished yarn is, I'd say, in the range of fingering to sport weight and approximately 350.8 yards/320.8 meters. With the way handspun is counted for Stash Dash, it contributed 962.4 meters toward my total, more than enough to get me over my 15K finish line. In fact, my final total was more than 15,800 meters! Even though I did all the work on the projects that got me there, I'm still a bit surprised at how high my total was! More than a third of it was due to my Rambouillet fleece spin, and that's probably what I'm most proud of among my finished projects this summer.

I have since started in on the second bobbin of purple Rambouillet singles, but I haven't gotten very far on it because I've done almost no spinning this weekend. Since late yesterday, I've been feeling strangely under the weather -- no COVID-like symptoms, thank goodness, but I've been tired and my leg joints have all been achy. Last night I didn't sleep very well, and this morning I had a little incident (I'm pretty sure related to an IBS issue; I'll spare you the details) where I actually passed out very briefly in the bathroom. Thankfully I didn't fall this time, but it was scary for a bit there. I spent all today resting in bed, curled up with a cozy blanket and my knitting. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'm back to normal tomorrow; I can tell it's nothing serious because I was able to knit for most of the day (I have learned from past experience that if I don't feel like knitting, something is really wrong!). Thankfully even if I need another day of lounging, I don't have to worry about it because I am taking this week off from work! Rainbow and I have a list of things we'd like to do, but mostly the goal is to spend some time together before she goes back to school on September 1. And I am very lucky that she has been used to me knitting all the time for her whole life, so she thinks nothing of it if my hands are busy while we're talking or playing a game. I may not get as much reading time in this week, but you can be sure we'll be doing a lot of crafting.