I noticed I'm coming up on 700 posts here.  That's a lot of verbage.

In November, Emily and Jim gave me a LOTR yarn club membership for 3 months.  My first month's yarn came yesterday and it's gorgeous.

It's called Weathertop and the colors are muted and lovely.  There are blues and greys and browns and beige and a bit of light yellow. 

Included in the package were stitch markers.  Made of unachite and lava stone, the unachite represents "truth" for the members of the Fellowship and the black lava stone represents Mordor. 

This is my copy of  The Lord of the Rings (illustrated by Alan Lee).  I have read this book more times than I can count. 

When I was in 8th grade, our reading/English teacher would separate the class into 'reading groups'.  Each group got to choose a book based on reading level.  My group chose the Hobbit.  I fell in love. 

That year I was hospitalized and had my appendix out.  Today, I'd be in and out in a few hours but in the 1970's, you were in the hospital for a week.  My English teacher came to the hospital and brought me the series to read so I wouldn't get bored.  I read them all that week and then read them to tatters over the years.  One year for Mother's Day, my girls gave me this book with the illustrations.  It's beautiful and I read it every year or so.  The movies are good but the beauty of Tolkien's words should be appreciated in their original format.

When Kate was learning to read, we read the Fellowship books to each other.  I always believed kids learned better if their abilities were stretched just a bit and so all of my girls read books just a bit out of their reach.   Of course, we read Harriet the Spy and The Borrowers and other classics but I wanted them to love Tolkien as much as I did.  And they do. 

This is my first attempt at navajo plying.  You can see the bumpy, uneven bits but there are spots where it's even and looks like yarn.
 

What I like about it is that the colors stay true.  Since you're making a three ply yarn from one bobbin, the colors don't mix.  This was so much fun to spin.  The tencel makes the merino so shiny.  I'm hoping that once it's washed and whacked, it will look a bit more even. If it doesn't, it'll make some nice, textured yarn for something.  I just need to practice some more.  What a hardship that will be

The temps here are more normal today.  It's hovering just around freezing (32 F) and it feels actually warm after all the freezing cold we've had.  We're in for more ugly weather tomorrow and then again on Saturday.  I think I'm tired of this itty bitty storm stuff.  If it's going to snow,  I want it to SNOW. 

I finished the Giant Grey Sweater(tm) but when Pk tried it on, he thought the sleeves were a tad too short.  At that point, I wanted to suggest we make his arms a tad shorter but I smiled and said of course I could lengthen them.  I have unravelled the end of one and it's just about done and the other will follow so he can wear it tomorrow.  And then I can knit something that is not grey.

 

My house smells like sauerkraut.  Pk loves kielbasa and kraut and pierogies so that's what we're having for dinner.  I don't mind the smell of the kraut but I'll pass on eating it or the kielbasa. I love me some pierogies, so that's what I'll be eating.

 

The sun is so beautiful today.  I realized I can't wait until we can go outside without layers of coats.  I want to sit outside.  Actually, I want to sit on a beach and put my toes in the sand and have a cabana boy bring me a pina colada with a tiny umbrella in it. 

 

Not terribly likely today but I can dream.