Yarn and more yarn and strawberries

My yarn for the level 6 dye day is finished.  I hadn't realized how grey the grey yarn actually is.  When on it's own, it looks quite pale and silvery.  However, when side by side with the very white Merino, it looks quite grey and dark.  I'm a little ticked off at myself because a few bits of the grey are under plied.   The full skeins hung straight, but when divided into 20 yard skeins, a couple have a slight twist.   I'm trying to ignore it as running a 20 yard skein through the wheel to add a tiny bit of twist, is just a total pain.  We'll see if I can actually ignore it and use a not as perfect as I can get it product to take with me.   I'm not sure I'd bet on my accomplishing it though as it took me 3 tries to get 200 yards of yarn I was truly happy with.

The white yarn is a 3 ply Merino/nylon blend.  I had planned to use it for socks but it's just a tad thicker than I'd wanted.  I'm used to using Blue Faced Leicester for sock yarn, and had totally neglected to take the sproing factor of Merino fibre into account.

 I've figured out how I'm going to transport my wheel to Olds.  I will need to purchase a new suitcase, which kind of sucks, as it's really not going to be used for much else.  I'll have to also be dinged for oversized luggage, sigh.   One of the reasons that the Kromski Sonata is a good all purpose wheel, not just a travel wheel, is that it has a 19 in.  drive wheel.   This makes the finished wheel 19.5 in wide, which means I need a 20 in. internal measurement in a suitcase.  My current suitcase is only 19 in inside.   So, a new, hardsided suitcase will have to be purchased.

While I was taking a break from the garden, I looked at the Sonata and realized that I'd not spun cotton on it, like ever!  That is definitely something that we'll be asked to produce, is a cotton yarn.  So I dragged out the ginned cotton fluff and carded up some punis.   It turns out that it really isn't any different to spin cotton on the Sonata as it is on the Minstrel.  The ratios are different on the Sonata though and that makes me have to think twice about some of the math.

The strawberry patch is about 4' x 8' this year.   I got the bird netting on before they started eating the fruit!  Being able to walk really does allow one to accomplish things :).   Anyway, I harvested the first strawberry yesterday.  It was small but very sweet.   I know this because after showing it off, I ate it.  I mean, you can't really share a strawberry which is smaller than a quarter, right?

My sweetie has been having fun with a rototiller.   Both gardens were tilled up.  The 1st one is half planted with beans.  We'll plant a second crop in a few weeks.   The newer garden has the strawberries and garlic, salad greens, onions, beets, asian radishes which I'm hoping are like a daikon, cucumbers, zucchini.  I also found some old woad seed and some Dyer's Knotweed from a couple of years ago.  I've planted the seed which will hopefully be viable.    When I wouldn't let my sweetie till up the flower bed, you know the one with all the daffodil and hyacinths in it, he moved up the the sunny side yard and put in a whole new garden bed.  He then informed me that we needed to go out to get corn seed.  With a 20' x 20', a 20' x 30', a 10' x 20' garden beds and a 4'x4' raised bed, I think my entire summer will be spent weeding!