Waiting for Poppies

I'd really hoped to have a finished skein of handspun to share today. For some strange reason I thought that I'd manage to finish spinning my last bobbin of singles yesterday in the midst of my Passover cooking. Those of you laughing at me right now are totally justified -- I had all of about 20 minutes to sit down yesterday afternoon! But the meal turned out well, the company was lovely, and I can unreservedly recommend those flourless chocolate cookies now (just know that they do not keep well and you'll want to eat them quickly after you make them, but they're so light that you really don't feel bad about eating a few in a sitting).

As of this evening, I have three finished bobbins of Flanders Fields Rambouillet singles:

I think I just might start plying tonight, especially as I am hoping that there's a good amount of yardage in there, which would translate to a longer plying time. When this skein is finally done, I have a new tool to skein it, because my birthday present finally arrived on Friday afternoon!

This is an Akerworks Super Skeiner, my runner-up choice of present after the puppy I requested first didn't materialize. As with all the Akerworks products I own, it's a bit of engineering genius. It folds flat and gets stored in what looks to be a laptop case. In a couple of minutes (assuming you're a little smarter about reading the directions than I was), you can have it put together to skein up your latest handspun. It's able to be expanded to hold a larger skein, and it has a counter that you attach that takes the hardest part of skeining for me (because my mind is always wandering while I'm trying to count or someone comes in and starts talking to me).

I apparently got an upgrade on the original counter; if you look at the product page on the Akerworks site, you'll see that the counter looks like the clicker style of row counter. The one that came with mine is fully digital and runs on a single AA battery. The skein that's on the Super Skeiner is the Shetland I finished earlier in the month. I ran it back through the wheel to remove some of the excess plying twist, and it was conveniently waiting to be reskeined when this new toy arrived. It works brilliantly (provided it's set up correctly, of course; there was some user error on my first attempt).

I hope you've had as nice a weekend as possible. We had gorgeous weather yesterday for our seder, so we were able to sit outdoors, and today was gross and rainy but the highlight was that my parents got back this afternoon and stopped by on their way to their house to surprise Rainbow. She said she thought she was going to cry because she was so happy to see them! That, my friends, is a reminder of what's important.