I got the blue silk wound off the spindle this week, and onto the tube. And yesterday, I went with the girls in the Girl Scout troop to the Susan B. Anthony house. We got a brief tour and lecture on Susan B.'s life and work. I found it extremely fascinating that different aspects of her life and time struck different girls harder than others. Some of them fastened onto the ideas about dress reform, some were concerned with the right to vote. A couple of girls were unhappy with the idea that if they had worked, their money wouldn't have been their own. One was harping on the concept that women didn't get paid as much as men for the same job. Whoops - guess we're not done with that one yet.

I did get some spinning done while we had the discussions. The girls were given a discussion assignment in small groups. They were all leaning forward, busy working; I was leaning back, busy spinning. The group leader came around, watched me for a moment, then grinned and said "you aren't going to do the work for them?" I just laughed and said that they were bright girls. They didn't need more than a nudge from me to get off and running.
The grape hyacinths are up and going, without even a nudge from me. They're just opening up, and from a distance (i.e. from the kitchen window) they're just a faint blue cloud.

This spring is obviously going to be just like a high school English paper: write a five paragraph paper contrasting and comparing... The purple crocuses were first off the mark and are a little past it now, but the yellow ones and the tulips are enjoying the sun. Giant crocus and miniature tulips...
Definitely a lift to the spirits.

And then there were two skeins of Beast...
I got a lot of spinning done yesterday.

The weather has been ... different. It's been snowing, but the ground has been too warmed up to really have it stick for long periods. It's been sleeting. It's been slushing. It's been doing a weird combination of snowing combined with rain (large fat flakes of snow drifting down between pelting rain drops). It's been raining snow - huge clumps of snow pelting down with the force of rain. That was all yesterday.

Today it's raining. Just rain, nothing bizarre. The forecast is rain for the next few days, then warming up, sunny and bright, just in time for Saturday. What's up with that? Doesn't the weather know the proper order - sunny and bright all week when few can get out to enjoy it, then rain all weekend?

The falconcam in Rochester is back up and running again, at a new address. There was a new female falcon spotted in Rochester this winter, but when Mariah showed up from wherever she winters over, she chased the new gal off. Mariah and Kaver have 4 eggs this year and brooding is happening. Kaver apparently didn't think much of the weather yesterday and was willing to ignore his mate's opinion of the weather and of him.

One thing I did get some work done on while entertaining guests was my spindle. This is tussah silk, dyed blue by someone in my spinning guild. I think of it as denim blue - it has that multitudes of blues one finds in blue jeans. I have three spindlefuls waiting for plying, and about that much more to spin. I did finish the fourth bobbinful of pale beast while we watched the new Pink Panther movie. I don't think of myself as a Steve Allen fan, but I have enjoyed several of his movies. This was one of them.

The garden was sending up crocuses - they popped out of the ground, opened up in a shy way, then the weather turned colder and snowed. Two inches of snow was enough to mash some of them down, but they are doing their best to open up and spread a little cheer.
The purple ones were quickest off the mark, so they suffered the most damage in being squished, but some of the others are still just fine.

I still have company (different company) but a little bit of spinning is happening. Looks just like the last spinning, but I swear it's different.
And I dug out a stitchery project that has been on hold long enough. This is Catch the Wind, a Butternut Road pattern (Told in a Garden). I started it before we left Oregon, 3 years ago in January. It got packed up and left in storage for a while, then didn't get gotten back to because I was in the middle of other things. I knew I hadn't had all the colors I needed for it. I finally went and bought the rest. This represents the colors I did have (29 colors). I had to buy 17 colors more. MLI always has been noted for her wonderfully shaded pieces.
Addendum: The lace pattern was one of the ones from Barbara Walker II - I'll get the exact name when I don't have company (particularly a 5 yo nephew full of bounce) to distract me...

A while back I posted some pictures of the lace I was sending my mother to complete a project she was working on. Herewith is the picture of the finished item, lace at the bottom.