Sweater Update

Way back "when" we posted a picture of our pile of gray wool that we were amassing for a "His and Hers" sweater project. (Remember that?) Today I FINALLY finished weighing all the individual fibers for a total weight and started doing the math to figure out the blending ratios. After cleaning out the so-called sun room a few weeks ago and setting up a table our daughter salvaged from the library, I now have a place to work other than the dinning room table. We ended up with 6 different fiber sources going into this project and I gave myself a headache working the percentages of each to go into the blended batts. We now have the test bags weighed out (4.6, 5.7, 7.0, 8.3, 13.1, & 18.1 grams) and ready to put through the drum carder. The final fiber content is going to be a 50/50 blend of wool and alpaca....unless we see something in the blending, spinning, and swatch knitting process we don't like. If my calculations are correct, we will end up making 101 blended batts that Susie will then get to spin and ply before starting the knitting. And believe it or not, we actually have the pattern picked out already too!

Things here remain the same. The weather is calling for a freeze warning tonight so we went and picked the Muscadine grapes, the rest of the tomatoes and peppers and covered the Pima cotton in preparation. I am REALLY praying that the cotton manages to survive through this since as of now, we have managed an entire harvest of 4 whole bolls! The cotton on these 4 has been WONDERFUL and has a much longer staple length than the colored cotton we grew last year so we'd really like to get more than a Q tips worth. Other than the weather, work continues to be a "challenge" ...and I will leave it at that! Our granddaughter is doing very well after the ordeal with being Life Flighted but our son and his family were in an accident right after getting back from spending 10 days with Liberty in the hospital. This wreck put 4 of the 5 of them in the ER and totaled their car....so life continues to be interesting.