Recovery

Well, the Tour de France ended on July 23rd, and while Lance Armstrong didn't win a stage (he came close, though) and he didn't win the Tour - the heavens saw fit for me to attach my Tour dreams to someone new: Andy Schleck.  He did an excellent job on the Tour.   Not that it was so easy for me to switch my affections, you understand, and Lance will always be my cycling darling, but he's hung up his Tour bike for good, he says.

The Tour de Fleece also ended on July 23rd, and right before the end - I had to go for surgery for an umbilical hernia.  It would have been a small issue, and the pain pills did their job, but there was the swelling and the heat wave and the stitches ... it all put me out of commission.  So, I didn't win a stage or the Tour either.  Unlike Lance, I'll be back next year.

Let me just say this before I put all Tour talk on the back burner: Lance Armstrong, if you think a pair of hand knit socks would be just divine, just drop me a line and I'll whip you up a pair.  Nothing says 'retirement' like lounging around in a pair of hand knit socks!  OK, I feel better.

Moving along,  I do have a skein to give away.  It's some lovely alpaca/tussah yarn in what was a lovely chocolate brown with little white bits of silk, but is now (because the tussah is white) a heathered brown:

It is as soft as a baby's bottom, and felt like hair (not mine) before it was spun, soft and silky.  This yarn was purchased at Rhinebeck in October 2009 from The Sheep Shed.

Spinning during a heat wave was no fun, and while the package had 16 ounces of fiber, I only spun up about half of it.  It was just too darned hot.  What you can make with 82 yards (8 wpi) of Navajo plied yarn is a mystery to me, but it's so soft it would be a shame to let it sit around in my house for eternity.

So, the final result is a small skein of buttery soft yarn which would make a good trip on a hat (at least!).  It'll surely keep your ears (or neck) warm.

If you think you'd like this skein of yarn, even though the yardage is low, please leave a comment and I will check back on Thursday at 1p Eastern and announce the winner, who will be chosen by the random number generator.

 And while all of my spinning is done for the time being, I'm almost done with the Fountain Pen shawl which is shawl #6 for my 10 Shawls in 2010 - only one more chart (of 3) to go.  Yay!  I'm kind of all 'shawled' out, but I plan to keep going.  Any suggestions for shawl 7?  Anyone?