I gave in and washed some of the Mendenhall merino fleece.  I thought the BFL was soft — the merino is like a dream!   The Unicorn Scour worked fabulously on it as well.  I’m pretty sold on coated fleeces….and I definitely want a colored fleece from Mendenhall.  (They put together several 3 ring binders with fleece samples and info including micron count of all the available fleeces so you can touch & compare them before ordering.  You just mail back the binder after you’ve chosen what fleeces you’d like.)

I’ve also played a bit with the yak, trying to dehair it. On Ravelry someone mentioned putting it the dryer in a very fine mesh bag on low/no heat, and the guard hairs should migrate to the outside.  I did similar with a pillow case (the guard hairs stick to the inside of the case and you can pull out the fluffy (mostly) down.  I’ve been tossing the guard hairs into our yard (adding to  the mulch;  I’m sure birds will find it and use it for nests, too).

I did run out of yarn on the Slinky Ribs sweater.  I did finish the sleeves, neckline and button band as was able to do a few more rows of the blue before running out.  I bought a ball of Frog Tree fingering weight alpaca in natural at Twist (the blues were way too different) to finish off the bottom and will do some duplicate stitching to mimic the rib pattern.  I have another inch or so of stockinette before the purl row before the last inch of stockinette….good for TV knitting but pretty damn boring.

Recycled Slinky Alpaca

Recycled Slinky Alpaca

On the house & garden front:

We’re still harvesting tomatoes, and of course lettuce from the salad box.  The peas and beans are doing quite well.

I received some  dried sourdough starter I’d sent off for — I’ll post how that works.