Osborn Fiber Studio

Every spring, as soon as the year gives up and stops sending us cold days, the entire east coast temporarily becomes a rainforest. The sky is continually grey, there are about three downpours daily, which sounds pretty miserable – but when you go outside, the birds are back, all singing their little heads off. And it’s never dry enough to mow the lawn, so everything is just lush.

This also means that there’s no good lighting for pictures. So today I have to give you some I’ve been saving.

Right around my birthday, the same day I made forsythia syrup (for forsythiatinis, of course):

Right around the time that my peas were at their peak:

I took pictures of my first Lenten handspun.

During my month and a half of not knitting, I did expect to get a lot of spinning done. I did not expect that the vast majority of that spinning would happen on my drop spindle. Turns out I really am addicted to portability…. I preferred to take twice as long and use a drop spindle to walking across the room to sit at my wheel.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that the fiber I had on my spindle was amazingly beautiful – a batt from gnomegarden that I had stashed away for just such an occasion. (Did I remember to take a picture of any of it before it was totally spun up? Of course not. Who do you think you’re talking to? But I bought another batt at sheep & wool, so you can expect this whole process to restart.)

Sparkles! It’s about 250 yards of 2-ply, which at 2 oz. makes it something like a light fingering. I purposefully went for something a little thick & thin, since I knew the sparkles would make it weird anyway, and I want to work myself up to spinning a little thicker. (I’m in that cobweb rut of early-intermediate spinners.) Something fun will happen with it; right now it’s just adorning my lace shelf like a little gem.

Squee!