After getting back from Virginia, my plans were to vote, then spend the remaining time this weekend cleaning the house, doing laundry, and dyeing up some roving and maybe some knitting/spinning/weaving. I got the voting part done yesterday (after spending an hour standing in line at Triangle Town Center!), but the rest has fallen by the wayside due to an unexpected illness in the kitty herd.

Miranda is the most vocal and social of my 4 cats, and she had been unusually quiet since my return. After I returned from voting, I tried tempting her with a treat, which she took from my hand, chewed on, and spit out while crying. Ditto with some canned food. I got worried, since I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her eat anything since I had gotten in on Thursday, so I called the vet and managed to get an appointment for the same afternoon.

It turns out she has a mouth infection, pretty common in FIV+ kitties. She got some sub-q fluids (mostly to make ME feel better, I think) and antibiotic and painkiller shots at the vet, and now I’ll be sneaking more antibiotics into wet food twice a day for the next 2 weeks. She’s eaten an entire can of the special super-palatable squooshy prescription food since yesterday afternoon (with great gusto!) so I think she’ll be doing much better in a few days once the antibiotics have really kicked in. She was feeling well enough to escape from her quarantine area in the downstairs bedroom last night, because I woke up this morning to find her curled up in bed beside me. At least I know she has no hard feelings about being stuffed into the carrier yesterday.

In the meantime, some fiber progress. Jag finished up his weaving project, so I promptly claimed the loom and worked on an experimental project with warp stripes. I used the only skein of Noro I’ve ever bought as weft, plus all but a few yards of a skein of Paton’s merino in purple and most of a skein of silver-gray Elann Highland wool for the warp. I was pretty tired and slapdash while working on this, so I’m more pleased with the colors than the technical execution, but I still love it. And I know now that I absolutely have to weave a wool blanket now. After washing and blocking, this is the softest, warmest table runner ever! I have big plans for buying a bag or 2 of closeout yarn at WEBS or Elann for the blanket.

My recent spinning has involved 2 more 2-ply yarns. The first is the “Biff Spilled Sangria in the Swimming Pool Again” BFL, which I spun into a fingering weight yarn that I planned to use as sock yarn. It’s actually too thin for my taste, as I prefer heavier sock yarns, so I may just knit lace with it.

Before and After:

I also dyed up some Louet Coopworth top recently. I was NOT happy with this fiber. It’s full of vegetable matter and it’s in super-thin, raggedy, flat sliver, which IMO is not combed enough and is full of snags and neps. I dyed up 8 oz in 2 colorways, but I just wasn’t going to be comfortable selling this stuff, so I’ve kept it for myself. The first one I dyed in various leftover purples that I squirted randomly over the wool. After spinning, plying, and finishing, I have to admit that it made a pretty nice yarn, softer than expected. It’s a DK-worsted that will make some nice sturdy mittens, I think, maybe with some Kristen Nicholas-style embroidery.

I’ve also finished up part of the Dad Secret Project. Everyone BUT Dad, click here to see .