Christmas spinning

It was a quiet, snow/ice/slush-bound Christmas here. Friends with chains on their car picked me up on Christmas Eve and we went on a version of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride to another friend's house for dinner. Usually we would have gone to church afterward, but that was canceled since the parking lot was full of snow, slush, and ice. Instead, we had a nice dinner and conversation. It was a bit crazy getting there and back and would have been impossible without chains. Sure was nice to see four walls that weren't mine!

Christmas day, I spent the morning spinning some lovely merino/possum pencil roving my friend Margie brought back from New Zealand for me. It's not the kind of possum we have in North America at all. You can read more about it here. The fiber was hand-dyed in gorgeous shades of brown and rust. I spun up half the roving Christmas morning, then walked to Margie's for dinner and movies. Her oldest son had come over with chains on his car and they'd gone to the store and stocked up the day before. It was another very enjoyable evening.

When I came home, I couldn't resist and spun up the other half of the roving. This morning, I got up and plied the two bobbins into about 172 yards of laceweight yarn. It's drying now after a nice long soak, and it's lovely.

The fiber I spun up for the Christmas spin-a-long is partially knit into a Simple Yet Effective Shawl. I'm about halfway through the first skein of yarn. The second skein is drying now. All told, I ended up with about 564 yards, which should make for a fairly good-sized shawl. The bamboo gives it quite a bit of weight and drape. I think it will be a nice shawl for the spring -- not too warm, but enough to ward of the chill of a spring evening.

I pretty much took two days off from transcribing, which means I have a lot to get done now, so I'll be typing pretty steadily until Monday. I still haven't been able to take the car out. Last time I drove away from the house was on Friday, December 12th! Things are starting to melt now, so hopefully I'll be able to get to the shop tomorrow -- and the grocery store.

Oh, and Happy Boxing Day!