My life has otherwise been proceeding as it has been, so I don't have anything ground breaking to report to you all. Ho hum.
I thought I'd offer you all some noes on my knitting/fiber art progress.
I finished the green shawl. I did end up needing a bit more of the Zephyr, but I think it worked out just fine, and frankly you can't really see it. I still have to block the shawl, but it's really nifty.
In the mean time I'm working on a shawl using a very royal blue tencel yarn. It has the dental floss look at the moment, but I think it'll be quite nice. I'm embarking on a very nifty lace pattern, supposedly Japanese in origin, but I'm not really aware of Japanese knitting traditions, so I think it's just inspired and all. From Nancy Oberly's Folk Shawls book.
I finished spinning the merino roving. this was a massive project... two pounds of yarn. I'll probably hand dye it all and get something really cool. I foresee a sweater. It's a little thick and thin, but I think if I knit it tightly the texture will be really interesting. and blocking can do wonderful things, and I have a lot of it.
As a shorter interim spinning project, I've begun work on a small amount of silk and wool roving, that I hope to spin into heavy lace lace or some sort of fingering weight yarn. Single ply, if I can set the twist enough so that it it'll be knit-able in as singles. If not I'll roll a center pull ball and two-ply it.
After that, I'm either going to start spinning from my stash of really pretty corriedale, or from some brown alpaca. I have some soy silk at home, but I think that will make far better winter spinning. My logic is that if spinning is a year round activity, you don't really need to spin yarn seasonally. That is that, you don't need to spin fine light cellulose fibers in the summer for summer knitting. In fact, if you're trying to make yarn to knit with, you'd be better off spinning winter yarns in the summer and summer yarns in the winter. But then I suppose it doesn't matter much.
Anyway.
There you have it. Cheers.