Where Did June Go?

Hi, my name is Kat, and I'm a workaholic. 

WIP is around 50K now. I'm trying to a) not stress about daily wordcount and b) not write every single day. You know. Take breaks. I realized that since I started it April, I'd been either working on it, or on The Day Job, 7 days a week. I am trying to persuade myself that in summer, I can work on it 4-5 days a week, and that's fine because I'm not under contract or deadline. 

I should be writing now, but it's been A Day and also blogs count as writing. Because I said.

As proof that I Did Things other than write in June, I present:

"His Golden Lair", done in Miss Babs' "Biker Chick" colorway in her Killington wool/silk (which one cannot buy at the moment? Alas). The pattern is inspired by Smaug, and I think was intended to be done monochrome to show off the stitches. It's all cables and lacework and then some serious blocking. 

I don't mind cables. I do not like lacework, and I hate fussy blocking. But it's for dragon wings, so. 

It's big, y'all. Like, 62" tip to tip. About 18" down the spine. The lower image is from its blocking phase, when I had it pinned to the wall (under a LOTR print, as it happens). You can see the lace scales a little more clearly here. I confess I'd hoped for a more intense color from the Miss Babs--punch your face orange, rather than smouldering--but I like the effect. (My intent had been to use some homespun orange wool-silk-blend, but I ran out...10 rows from the end. 10 long rows, but still. I might've said some swears.) Now I have a bunch of the Biker Chick and 350 yds of fiery homespun that match fairly closely in color and texture and what will they become. 

And now that May Grey has become June Gloom has given way to July and we're seeing the sun... I've gotten back to dyeing. 

I actually mixed the dyes back in February, because the more humid and wet and even rainy it is outside when I do this, the less powder gets all over. Anyway. The dye is called "Ruby" and I was imagining a red. Maybe a dark, jewel-tone red. You know. From the name. But just in case, I made a 2% solution and I aimed for a dark dye job. And I got...

Pink. Rabid peony. Now, I do love me some hot pink, but that is a lot. It's on Knit Picks Bare Hawthorne, so it's destined to be socks, but it was supposed to be red socks. Jury's out on whether I'm going to overdye with purple or the other red I've got made up (called "Flame". I anticipate orange rather than pink) or just leave it alone. 

And finally we have TinyCat, who has nothing to do with yarn or fiber arts whatsoever. According to the chart at the vet's she is now geriatric. She prefers the term senior, please and thank you.  She continues to shrink despite eating well, so perhaps there is a black hole of spite where her heart used to be.