When Day is Done: A Fine End to Tour de Fleece 2014

The house is a mess.  The dust bunnies are once again overtaking the place; mercifully, they're kept in check by the piles of dyed fleece and yarn drying all over the house, waiting to be packed up, labelled and spun, some day.  I've taken over the barbeque; it not only services my more pungent dyepots, its lid makes a fine drying rack-there's a batch of Rambouillet locks drying on it now.  It's the final day of Tour de Fleece 2014 and it's been a productive cycle.

I've spun approximately 2000 metres, 2 kilometres of yarn.  That's slightly less than the distance covered by cyclists in the Tour de France, but, trust me, a fair bit of wheel spinning has gone on here. 1600 plus metres of that made this yarn, intended for a shawl:

The other 400 or so metres is still on the bobbin, organic cotton singles which may be a 3 ply yarn for a sweater, should I ever finish spinning the bags and bags of cotton sliver I have left to spin.  At least the bobbin is a little fuller, several spinning days after I posted this photo:

I love it all, but what gave me most joy was discovering the colours in my natural dyes.  The Corriedale and wool skeins kindly posed for a group shot:

The photograph doesn't do the wool or the colours justice.  Every bit of wool, even the stuff dyed with more subdued colours, in the iron pot, is vibrant, rich, soft and alive. Working with the wool inspires me, feeds my soul and makes me happy.

If only I could say the same thing about housecleaning.  I've set aside the day for scrubbing and scouring; this time my attention will be centered on the mess left behind when I'm busy doing what I love, instead of what I should.  It's high time to return to daily duties. I've scared myself coming around the corner into the living room and mistaking a dog/cat shed pile for an actual animal.  I've run out of clothes (not that anyone would notice) and Mr. DD has taken to reading outside on the deck in order to avoid disappearing under a cloud of Corriedale.  I'll try to bring the mindfulness I give to my favourite pursuits into shovelling out the house.  (Yes, David McM., I said, "try.")  We'll see how it goes.

Now, if I can just find my housecleaning shovel. . ..

Namaste.