Things finally cooled off a bit yesterday, assuming that it's really reasonable to consider "about 90F" to be "cool," which I suppose it is, in context. Clearly, all you Australians would find that quite pleasant in summer, hrmmm? That's around 33C. Personally, I find 27-28C to be about the perfect temperature.

Well, anyway, I did manage to get a few batts churned out, and those are now listed for First Dibs (right sidebar, you guys remember the drill, right?) And I've been working on specific blending goals with a local theme, lately. Here's one I'm rather pleased with, in fact.

2006 was our first summer here. Sometime in July, we started seeing signs go up at all the produce places reading "INDIANA MELON." Now, you have to realize -- I spent the formative years of my adulthood living in Chicago. This meant Indiana could be described in the following ways:

• Source of cigarettes without Cook County tax stamp
• Where people sneakily register their cars to avoid having to get a city sticker
• Home of the ubiquitous-advertising Tom Raper RVs
• Gary
• Sells fireworks.
• "There's more than cooooorn.... in Indiaaana..." (the song from an ad for Indiana Beach)

And, despite the first few years that I lived in Chicago being spent on the road with a blues band, driving to gigs all over the place, I don't think we once did a gig in Indiana. No, so far as we could tell, Indiana was a strange space in between Illinois and Ohio (maybe neither state wanted it?) where even time didn't obey the same rules as everywhere else (they didn't observe daylight savings time). We'd cross Indiana to get to Ohio or Kentucky; and in the summer, the drive would seem endless, like almost as long as the drive lengthwise across Nebraska, only with corn instead of cattle. After about the first 15 years of the drive, invariably, someone would start cackling in a slightly mad way, and then sing, "There's more than coooorn... in Indiaaana..." only to be rewarded with heaping insults as the advertising jingle got stuck in everyone's head. Another 15 years would then go by, and someone else would do the same thing. Really.

Only 100 more miles to Tom Raper RVs!

Well, anyway. So I looked at these Indiana Melons that seemed to be a big deal, and thought to myself, "Looks like a giant canteloupe. Okay."

Then my in-laws fed us some.

Now, I'm not about to head for my old southside stomping grounds, walk into a dive bar, and pick a fight on Indiana's behalf. I am, you see, far too old and washed-up for that sort of behaviour. But Indiana Melon, available for a short time every year and only if you're close to Indiana, is possibly a good enough reason to do so.

If you're in range of produce stands with signs that say INDIANA MELON, and you have not eaten one of them, then stop reading this, right now, and go buy yourself an Indiana Melon, before it's too late and you can't do it again till next year. Throw something on the grill, boil up some sweet corn, chop up an Indiana Melon, and feast.

Anyway, so that's what I was going for with these batts.

And now that I've evangelized at least one thing about one of my fine neighbour states, it's time to briefly touch on something that comes from another. We've had a drought this summer, you may recall, and a big heat wave. And you know what's done well in our yard?

The Kentucky Bluegrass.

The batts are merino/tussah silk/camel down and a hint of tencel to make the dewy sheen a little different. And just like the actual grass, it's not exactly blue, but if you see it from the right angle, and enough of it, it sure leaps out from the other grasses near it.

Well, other than the local inspiration, I did decide I was going to try to make a blend that would look good with some seed pearl beads that I got. Mother-of-pearl, I figured. And I came close. My first try... well, it yielded... mist.

So then I tried again, and got... Princess.

Third time's the charm, right? We'll see; those batts are ready for their final pass now.

Oh! And there's a tweed. A merino/silk/cashmere tweed. Mmmmm.

These are all up for first dibs.

In other productivity, I have chosen 14 colourways for wools, and 9 colourways for silk, to be my new production lines -- and they're available for you to preorder now. Just check the Shop Abby's Yarns link at the top of the page, or go here. Now you can get those matched dye lot larger batches, and get discounts on them too!

Whew. Now I think I'll go have a weekend (which for the self-employed, tends to mean "do all those chores I blew off this week.")

So here we go.

Let's kick it off with some storm eye candy! We needed the rain, because...

My poor lilacs. Do you think they're dead? I'm afraid so, despite the evidence you see there -- a hose, a watering can -- that we tried. So this morning's storm was welcome, and I hope we get more.

Of course, it did make photo day a little tricky. Almost none of my orange and pink silks would come out right no matter what -- those really need good sunlight. And that's a shame, too, because I have a slew of really delightful laceweight tussah silk singles, like this one.

375 yards / 1 ounce, 28 wpi.

And a few chain-plied multicoloured silks, like this:

200 yards, 1 ounce, 25 wpi.

At least Peacock here came out allright...

Superwash, tussah silk, alpaca, and firestar nylon -- the return of the sock blends! I pilfered an oversized 3 ounce batt from this batch, for myself. I'm not sure what for, ultimately, but definitely to spin it (though at the moment, I have more laceweight tussah singles, and a really beautiful CVM/tussah in emerald green, on the bobbins).

Who was it who was asking me about pond scum colours? I did two, after looking at pondscum around the area over the past month or so. First, a silk...

and second, a set of batts... but those pictures didn't come out so well, alas. However, these Sargasso Tweed batts are really cool:

Falkland wool, which poofs impressively due, I understand, to the fact that Falkland sheep are actually Polwarth/Corriedale crosses.

My Blaze tussah came out looking good too. This is Edward's favourite of my colours.

...but just look what horrors happen trying to get this Geranium-coloured silk to photograph!

If you think that's bad, you oughta see the Mai Tai yarn.

Lastly for now, the blended-wishfully "The Grass Is Always Greener" here...

...is Merino, tussah silk, and alpaca. And really springy, if not as springy as the Sargasso Tweed.

I'm totally disappointed about my laceweight tussah photos, too. There's over 3500 yards of that stuff that I've spun this week, and won't be able to show you until there's better light. O, cruel fate, finally bringing rain just in time for picture day!

When weather's sunny again, I'll have to put these next to the geraniums. They really do look the same.

So what does it seem I've gotten done this week? A bit over 2 pounds of tussah silk dyed in 1-ounce hanks, 2.25kg or about 5 pounds of luxury batts, 3500 yards of silk singles, 600 yards of a wool single tester, one full bobbin of that aforementioned CVM/tussah (no you can't have it! Mine! You wish you could have it!) done fairly fine, and I'm approaching the end of the improvised shawl I'm knitting with the Pagoda, and realizing that to finish my grandiose plan, I'm going to need more yarn. ARGH! I've got fiber to match it... that isn't dyed. Maybe I can force Pippi to do more of that delicious Pagoda. Otherwise, I'll just try to match the yellow, I suppose, and use that for the end.

So, are you all annoyed with me for how I haven't taken a single picture of that shawl in progress? I'm sorry; it's just that it's simply a large sac-like object hanging onto some size 3 circular needles, and looks... like nothing. I refuse to show it in its present state.

So far, incidentally, it seems nobody likes those morning shows. C'mon, somebody has to like them, right? Can the large radio conglomerates which own the airwaves now really be so far off base? Like some of you who've commented, I also listen to public radio in the morning. That kind of talking I can enjoy -- but the "morning zoo" kind of thing, not so much.