More yarny goodness

I have just been spinning like crazy lately and finished up my 3.5 ounces of Corriedale wool. The roving was kind of rough, but, while the yarn isn't the softest I've felt by any stretch, I am pleasantly surprised how much nicer feeling the yarn is than either the roving or the singles!

The 3.5 ounces ended up as 288 yards of two ply. The consistency wasn't great, but plying covered up a lot of sins. At the beginning of the singles I was falling into the trap of getting thinner and thinner, which resulted in overspinning and snapping off the single with my heavy Ashford spindle. The spindle goes flying and I continue to teach my kids how to swear creatively. Therefore, I made a conscious effort to thicken it up a bit as I kept going. I plied the first bobbin to the last bobbin, to make it quasi-end-to-end and that averaged out most of the thickness differences.

I was absolutely taken by the color of this yarn. The individual fibers range from bright white to almost black and together make such a nice heathery gray. The singles even had a kind of barber pole striping with all the shades of colors. Plying blended it and made the gray more uniform, though there is still a lot of subtlety if you embiggen.

In other news, I am apparently a complete menace to society when I enter the kitchen. First, the good news. The toaster is once again fully functional. For future reference and other complete klutzes, I let it dry, then plugged it in to see how bad it was (pretty bad smoke and smell), unplugged it, let it cool, and then went after it with a toothbrush and a cup of water. The test fry was actually useful as it darkened up the soup spots and made them easier to find. I let it dry over night and then repeated the process for the spots I missed. KittyDaddy made toast for breakfast before I could repeat again. He reported a little smoke, but not too bad.

Anyhoo, last night made the great soup debacle seem pretty tame. Since I had a fridge full of phyllo dough getting ready to dry up and crumble on my, I decided to try my hand a baklava. I found time late afternoon prior to preparing supper to put it all together. It was a bit futzy and picky, but not as painful as I thought it would be and once I put it in the over, the most obscenely marvelous smells started coming out. It came out looking just fabulous...just like the real thing and it sizzled and bubbled and smelled even better when I poured the honey mixture over the top. I set it on a cooling rack on the stovetop to let it cool while I worked on supper, which was a puffed pancake made in the oven. When I took the preheating skillet out of the oven, I didn't get the potholder straight and managed to burn my hand on the uncovered part of the skillet handle. I put the skillet down quickly to run water on my hand and the oven door slammed the rest of the way shut. Usually not a big deal at all, but apparently someone (who shall remain nameless, but is the only other member of the household who is tall enough) had put the *full* teapot on the top edge of the stove (above where the dial thingies are). It came crashing down right on top of the baklava, dumping most of the water in. I think the kids learned some new words. Actually, I think the whole neighborhood might have. Then for the grand finale, while dishing up the dinner, I managed to burn myself yet again (apparently, the handle of a skillet that has been in a 400°F oven for a half an hour manages to warm up a bit), twice (obviously, I am not a quick study).