You’ll have to excuse my lack of blogging recently.  I’ve been on vacation for the last week or so, burning through leave at my old job before I start my new job.  The Vernal Equinox was here a couple of days ago, and it really feels like I’m staring at tons of new beginnings, and lots of appropriately spring-y goings-on.  I’ll catch you up, visually. 

I’ve spent a lot of time reading, far too much time cleaning, a fair amount of time grocery shopping, cooking, and baking:

These are lemon berry muffins I’m working on . . . I think I have a really good new recipe in the works. 

I’ve spent some time knitting, though not as much as I wish:

These are some wool socks for my Mom, who is apparently overcoming her wool sensitivity.  These are the test.  They’re made of Wildfoote in the Elderberry colorway.  Chris gave me the yarn–thanks Chris!  I’ve got another pair of Trekking socks almost done, and I’ve made some headway on a cabled sweater I started a while back.

But mostly, I’ve been making some serious acquisition runs.

One acquisition run, which fell before I got the new job, let to many many stitch markers:

Bird and spiral bead variety (I had a serious weakness, here, and you’re seeing it.  Why would you need that many markers in one set?)

Glass cane flower bead variety.

Crackle-glass bead variety.

And agate leaf variety.  These are the only ones I’m likely to keep.  Sheesh.  See what happens when I abuse Joseph Campbell lectures on PBS?  I already had far more stitch markers than I really needed. 

Another acquisition run took me to the Scarlet Thread, a great local embroidery shop.  I found these:

Which are horn and antler floss cards and laying tools.  I bought every little bit of hubba-hubba goodness they had and begged them to order more.  There is a third laying tool, and it went to live with Olwyn and the girls. 

And then, of course, there is the mammal-acquisition project, which has led me to these guys. 

You can’t tell to look at it, but this bigger, older cutie above (who needs a new name) is playing with the same cord as this younger, much smaller cutie below (who needs a new name):


They should be moving in with us this weekend. 

Tuesday, my final planned excursion went awry.  My Mom and I forgot that most of the shops in Middleburg are closed on Tuesdays, so we had a great lunch and sighed over the locked doors to our favorite places.  I had to go back this morning to bring some donations to the Treasure Hound, which is the thrift shop owned by Friends of Homeless Animals.   I popped into Hunt Country Yarns first, of course, because I needed spinning fiber.  That wily Bob apparently hypnotized me into buying this haul:

of Tussah and Bombyx silk, gray carded Merino, Wensleydale, and a couple of skeins of Bearfoot.  Now, on a normal day, that would be a serious score, and I’d be done.  I mean, I have Wensleydale wool to match my Wensleydale cheese:


Who could ask for more?

But no.  See that black something in the top right corner in the upper picture?  That’s the first thing I saw when I went over to the thrift shop to make my donations.  If you’re not sitting . . . well . . . don’t fall down.  I almost did.  So sit. 

Are you sitting?

I now have a Singer Featherweight.  I bought it at the thrift store.  It doesn’t have a case or a manual or a box of accessories, but that’s all right with me.  I have a working Featherweight of my very own. 

And as if that weren’t enough, I went straight from the land of the Featherweight to collect my dog, take him for a trek at his favorite park,  and then bring him to the vet.  We had a scare this week after finding a strange new growth on our pup.  The Doc asperated the lump, and was pleased as punch to tell me that my Kayo doesn’t have cancer.  Knowing he’s healthy is even better than getting all sorts of great stuff.  I even let Kayo talk me into delaying his bath another day, since he’d been so great at the vet. 

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