And we're back

Wow. I never meant to neglect the blog for so long. To all of you who are still checking in here, I am profoundly grateful. And many thanks to those who emailed me to make sure I am still among the living. Indeed I am still breathing...barely.

The move went reasonably well, but I'm still busy, busy, busy with the house. However, I do have a small backlog of finished objects to share, which is really shocking since I've hardly spun or knit in the last month. I'll save most of that for another post, though. It would be a shame to "spend it all" at once, wouldn't it?

Instead, I'm going to devote this post to a little bit of business. (Well, there's one FO from me at the end.) About a month ago (just before the dreaded move), I decided to sign up for the HHHH swap. It required me to spin 4 oz. of fiber for my partner. "No problem," thought I, "I can easily spin that in a month, move or no move." Heh.

I didn't even start spinning until after we had moved into the house (mid-July). On the upside, having a reason to spin gave me a great excuse to indulge in some stress relief. Nevertheless, I knew it was going to take some effort to finish on time.

Before I did finish spinning the yarn, I received an HHHH package from my upstream partner, Opal, the Akamai Knitter.

Yes, my friends, I received a package from paradise (Hawaii, to be exact). Opal spun some yummy fingering weight yarn out of some superwash merino/alpaca blend from one of my favorite fiber pushers. As if that weren't enough, she also sent me 8 oz. of fiber (instead of the required 4 oz.). That's 4 oz. each of a gorgeous alpaca/silk blend (the brown fiber) and some "Black Diamond" carbonized bamboo (the gray fiber). Opal also thoughtfully included some fun Hawaiian goodies, including not one, but two forms of chocolate covered macadamia nuts (kisses and clusters). Needless to say, I feel utterly spoiled by this level of generosity. Here's a gratuitous close-up of the yarn:

Thanks again, Opal! I couldn't have wished for a better swap partner.

At this point, I was really feeling the pressure to do right by my downstream partner. After probably too much contemplation, I chose to spin this fiber.


Which I turned into this:

Fiber: Crazy Monkey 100% superwash merino, "Like Autumn in April"
2 ply
440 yards
106 grams

Hmm, are you my partner?