There has been lots of crafting going on around here lately, despite the time crunch from the commute (or perhaps because of it – being busy has a way of focusing my energy and getting a lot more done in less time).

The fall colors are starting to appear on the trees all around us. Just this week, the edges of the highway have gone from green to reds and yellows. The tree in front of our house is an explosion of gold and orange. I’m delighted to say that some of those colors are also showing up on my spinning wheel:

That’s the “reds” colorway for the fall colors sweater.  I think it’s going to work. Very excited.

Branden’s sweater has been growing by leaps and bounds, since rounds and rounds of endless stockinette is the perfect way to come off of a 2 hour traffic jam. I bound off the body last night, and have started the first sleeve. I love knitting Branden raglan sweaters; the construction means that the sleeves are already knit to the armpit by the time I split off onto holder needles, so finishing up the rest is much faster than knitting the whole thing in one go.

With that getting so close to done, I’m starting to scramble around for another project for the queue. I think I’m going to dye up that Falkland that I spun a few months ago.  I’ve been dithering about whether or not to order more fiber and spin some more, just to be sure I’ll have enough. But I do have 950 yards, and I know which lace I want to knit and what color, and I think I might have enough. (Plus, I’m itching to knit it, it’s half designed already, and I am not feeling patient. True confessions.)

I just finished setting the dye on some samples, and I’m pretty sure I have the colors I’m looking for when they’ve cooled enough to check. Fingers crossed that it comes out like I expect, and I’ll be dyeing the yarn tonight or tomorrow, and swatching soon thereafter.

I’ve also been slowly chipping away at teasing open the locks on the Gulf Coast fleece. This isn’t my favorite part of fleece processing, truth be told, so I have to do it in spurts here and there. But on Tuesday I finally washed everything one more time to (hopefully) get out the last of the lanolin, and I now have quite a pile of fluff in the basement.

That little bit in the box is all that I have left to tease open and rewash, and I’m hoping to do that today, since it means that I can go sit outside and enjoy this glorious weather we’ve been having. Once the washing is finished, I’ll move onto the combing/carding, which should be more fun, since it will get me that much closer to actually spinning the stuff!

I dropped Branden off at the airport this morning; he’s on his way to Austria for a week for work. That leaves me the whole weekend and most evenings to putter around on fiber things, so I’m hoping to finish up a few more loose ends. Or I may just sit and spin the rest of that fall fiber, as it is begging me to do. Doesn’t sound like a bad plan, really.

For now, I’m off to wash those samples and see what new colors await!