The year in pictures.

Because I've been under a rock, sucking my thumb and hating life. (Seriously, the medical shit is still stupid.)

My hair has continued to turn white. I'm sure asshole doctors and constant pain have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!

The Goobie turned ten.

And started swimming with a friend for fun.

And went to holiday parties.

And discovered an app on my phone that allows doodling on photos. Then she sneaks my phone and leaves pictures in it that I KNOW I had nothing to do with.

And continues to be awesome and just generally a fun person. This is her spending a book store gift certificate after the solstice. Because books!

Honu discovered the joys of sleeping on wool, which I really didn't need.

Yes, that's a hand spun, hand knit scarf, from Into the Whirled (color Puesta del Sol) fiber that was a gift. She also likes to help me spin.

Evil fucker. She was caught hanging off my living room curtains, five feet off the floor, just this morning.

The Goobie helped me with the holiday baking, and together we are quite the cookie decorating team.

She put eyes on some of them and told people they were monster snowflakes. She also wants me to make more, ice them in green, and tell everyone they're cold viruses. We just might. I like to reward geeky behavior.

And then, fiber!

Last summer I decided to do a 'proof of concept' knit. I've done doilies for years, as we know, and I thought you should be able to take a round doily, knit half of it, and get a shawl. I took this,

it's one of the crazy German charted doilies. I figured with all the stockinette and the symmetry that it'd be an easier choice than some of the others. I was kind of right, in that I'm sure there are other patterns that are harder, but the knit was kind of crazy.

I ran out of yarn and had to take out a row of the leaves at the outer edge, but since it was six feet wide as knit, it all turned out okay. (The yarn is Laci merino in color "Violet's Blues" by Blue Moon Fiber Arts. REALLY nice yarn. I think it's size three needles. Something like that.)

At the end of the summer, was the county fair. I'd actually planned ahead and marked the calendar and all that good stuff, so I had entries. On a whim I entered the purple shawl, but other than that I only entered spinning because that's what I was really doing this year.

I seem to have won. Um. All of the yarn categories.

And the shawl?

Completely unexpected. The lady who came in right behind me had entered a mosaic-knit sweater that was really nice. I wouldn't have minded losing to a nice sweater. It's not a fun fur purse. (No, I will never stop bitching about that.)  Yay! Go me! I can knit!

On my birthday, I got all kinds of goodies, including an eight-legged wasp sniffing weasel from Girl Genius.

Other than that, I supervised homework and occasionally taught spinning and knitting, and muddled on through. Right now I'm knitting a Fish Hat for my nephew, and spinning this:

It's "Catamaran" color pencil roving from Fiber Optic. I have 3/4 of a pound (three bumps) and I'm trying to get enough yardage for it to be the contrast color in another go at the Russian Prime. It is taking forever because it's so fine, but I'm almost to the end of the first bump. I'm gonna go now and try to work around the cat on my lap and finish it.