Tour de Fleece, Day the Last

Well, darling Readers, the day has come. The final day of the Tour de France, of which I have managed to watch not a single moment, and with it the final day of my third year participating in the Tour de Fleece.

You may recall that my goal was to spin every day of the Tour. It wasn’t a supremely difficult goal, and I didn’t have to stretch myself a huge amount to get it done. But I did have to get up out of bed a few times and plug myself into my iPod for half an hour at the wheel to be able to say I spun that day; if you know me and how much I love my bed, then you understand that this Tour wasn’t ALL fun and games. I didn’t really play along in any of the challenge days, and my two days of rest didn’t coincide with the Tour itself, but I did manage to spin every day save two, and I did manage to finish two of my three bobbins of CMF Be-Bop-a-Lula in addition to finishing the Whammy Kiss yarn:

Look upon my achievements and tremble!  I would have finished Bobbin #2 last night, but for the third time in his life Darcy decided he wanted to sit on my lap, and it quickly became clear that while some spinners are able to operate a wheel while their laps are full of cat, I am not one of them. Whether or not my inability to do so is related to the fact that my cat is Decidedly Not Small, I am uncertain. But since he was a kitten, Darcy hasn’t been much of a cuddler, so I’ll drop what I’m doing to encourage kitty lap time whenever it presents itself.

In the last 23 days, I’ve also done a great big whack of knitting. So much knitting, in fact, that I’m taking at least the morning and afternoon off today to let my wrist rest! It’s crackling in a you’d-better-stop way, but not a you’re-in-trouble way, so I suppose I’ll listen. I did block the Ishbel, though, so here it is!

Next Wednesday my dad arrives with my youngest brother (age 10). I’m not sure what effect their presence will have on my knitting, spinning, and reading time; but I’m fairly sure it won’t increase it by any great magnitude. My dad seems to think that knitting, while a pretty and ladylike activity, is akin to doing nothing - a sentiment that drives me batty every time we go head to head over it. I think it’s because I refuse to allow him to control what I knit and for whom, but that might just be my residual teenaged angst showing through.

I plan to spend this week plowing through the projects I want to finish before I leave Coal City. To that end, here they are listed in all their glory:

1) CMF Be-Bop-a-Lula yarn
2) Cheraphim
3) Knee high socks
4) Girasole

Three of those four things are within my immediate control, and if I can ever get THB on the phone to send me the final skein for the Cheraphim, I just might do it!