Romneyed out, neck coolers, and garden stuff

That, my friends, is 1167 yards of 2-ply, award winning silver Romney yarn- about 2lbs, which, along with the lovely charcoal lamb, and the Romney-ish white, is more than enough to make a traditional yoked sweater, which is what I intend to do with this yarn. It's unlikely, but if I run out of yarn, I have at least 2lbs of award winning white Romney roving (from Iron Water Ranch) and at least that much charcoal, nowhere near award winning but nice enough for all that, roving as well. I'm set for Romney.

I'm also tired of spinning solid color stuff. So I dug through the stash (I'm still stashbusting, don'tchaknow) and came up with this:

a Jelly Roll batt from Decadent Fibers. It's about 4' x 6', and 1lb of lovely hand-dyed wool (they use a blend, but I think it's primarily Corriedale). I love love love the deep jewel tones of this batt- Pat and Christine did a wonderful job! Of course, spinning from a batt is a different from spinning prepared pencil roving- it's not just a matter of finding an end and taking off. The layers have to be separated, and then each layer has to be pulled apart a bit more. I could run it all through my drum carder, but I don't want the colors blended even more, so I'm mostly just grabbing handfuls, stretching it some, and spinning

which results in a slightly thick-n-thin single, which combined with the random coloring, will make for a really lovely plied yarn. I hope. In any case, it's nice to be working with a bit of color again. This yarn will not only be softer than the Romney, it'll have a lot more bounce.

I've also been sewing up neck coolers as gifts- they go together quickly and 4ozs of the polymer crystals goes a loooong way (I've made 11 so far, and I have enough crystals for a few more).

Bee Girl bought a Sunflower kit in the Target Dollar Section (I love Target, and I especially love their dollar section- which in this case was 25 cents because it was late in the season so everything was on sale), and she carefully planted the 4 seeds on the south side of our house. I'd say she got a quarter's worth of beauty.

We planted 6 Big Boy tomato plants- they're now about 4' tall and have spread out about 6', and they've set hundreds of tomatoes. I see salsa in my future.

Letting Cooler Necks Prevail

I think I may have whined about... err... mentioned... that it was a little warm in Washington when we were there last week. Record Breaking Heat in Seattle kind of warm, in fact. And I might have said, in passing, that very few homes in the PNW are air conditioned (mostly because they only need it a couple of days a year, generally when The Taylors are visiting). At any rate, we wandered around Snohomish's Farmer's Market in the blazing  heat one afternoon and stumbled across a booth that was selling brightly colored, goofy looking, fabric neck coolers.

Now, I'd never heard of these things before, but they're simple closed cloth tubes with polymer crystals inside that work on a simple scientific principle: evaporation. The crystals absorb moisture and swell, and slowly release  moisture which cools you down. It sounds sort of silly, and they look sort of silly as well (like a damp, fabric covered sausage), but it was hot, so I bought one.

 I'll be dipped if the things don't actually work like a dream.

Though the neck coolers will dry out eventually (for winter storage), it takes more time than I had on the coast, and I didn't want to have to try to explain what it was to the TSA folks, so I left mine with my sister, but as soon as I got home, I ordered some of the polymer crystals so I could make more. (Note: you might be able to find these retail at a craft or garden store, but there were none to be found locally in my neck of the woods), and I found instructions for sewing the coolers online here. (my only adaptation was to use just 1 1/2 tsp of the crystals, which was plenty for the tube).

I wanted to see how much the crystals would actually expand before putting them in the fabric tube, so I started with 1 1/2 tsp (1/2 tbsp) and a little half-cup container.

I added water a tbsp at a time, and within 5 minutes, the crystals had out-expanded the container.

15 minutes later, they finally stopped growing. That's a good cup of mooshy stuff there, all from 1 1/2 tsp of crystals. The fabric tube is ready for the crystals (I didn't try to add the expanded ones- I used dry).

After 3 minutes in the sink, it had already starting to plump up.

And within 10 minutes, it was fully expanded and ready to wear (the ends get wet the first time, but they dry, and usually don't drip later on).

Voila!- instant temperature control!

When the cooler warms up and the fabric dries a bit, just wet it again, and you're good to go. Store it in the fridge (not the freezer) for a really cool experience. The coolers are supposed to last a couple of years, but they use so little fabric, and take so few crystals (my little packet will make at least 10 coolers), that even if they only last one season, they're still worth the time and money. I'm going to make a few for gifts.

P.S. Yes, it does look a goofy, but it feels so good that I don't care.