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The Hotel Zed has been busy lately. Yesterday, my friends from Kansas City, Kent and Allison, drove into Denver on their way to Crested Butte for a few days of mountain biking. I was excited to get to see them. Gina came down from Boulder, and we went to LoDo to do some shopping at the Denver REI flagship store. They happened to be having a big clearance sale, so we all found some good bargains. We went to dinner at an awesome little pizza shop then we took a walk to my favorite gelato shop, Gellazi. Delicious.



There was some excitement when we got back to my house because a fly got into the house. Poor Kent was almost a casualty when the fly landed on him. I have three mighty, but a bit inept, hunters living with me. This morning we took a walk to get breakfast, then they headed on to the mountains. I wish I could have joined them!

I started a new spinning project this week that I'm really enjoying. I picked up some really bright teal and purple superwash merino from Bonkers at the Estes Park Wool Market. This stuff is going to make a bright pair of socks! This is the second bobbin, so I should be able to ply sometime this week.



I also started a new sock project. Lately, I have been feeling like I was losing my sock mojo, so I thought maybe trying something new would help me get it back. This was the perfect project. I'm knitting my first toe up sock (note for non-sock knitters: there are two basic ways to knit socks...cuff down or toe up. All of my socks until now have been cuff down) using the skills I learned at Wendy's class at the Loopy Ewe Spring Fling. The benefit to knitting toe up is that if I divide my yarn into two equal balls, I can knit until I run out of yarn. No waste! I'm using my very own handspun yarn so I want to use all of it. I am mesmerized by the color changes in the yarn. It's all purples, blues and greens so far, but I'm getting close to a stretch of red and yellow...very exciting! I just started it this afternoon, and I'm almost halfway done with the foot so far.

A history of my sock:

This was the fiber I started with:



Plying fun:



Yarn!



And the beginning of a sock:



My handspun would go much further if my feet were a bit smaller...I'm hoping I have enough yarn to make a decent length cuff. I really don't want anklets.

In kitty news, my sweet Purl has lost all dignity. Not the most ladylike way to sleep.



She could learn something about dignity from Xena.