Bananas And Blending

When last you left your intrepid Sheepie Fiber Arteeest, she was blue-handed and awaiting the drying of her lovely sapphire tussah silk. While she used a variety of strategies to get her hands back to a normal human kind of color, the silk did its thing in the sophisticated drying system:

That would be a net suspended on two tension rods in the bedroom window.

Meanwhile, the hour became late and The Sheep needed The Sleep. She tucked herself in for the evening and let her mind take a break from pondering fiber blends. Or did she?

She awoke the following morning with a start. There was but one thought in her mind. One overpowering impulse that could not be denied cried out for her attention.

"Alpaca!" she cried.

And, as luck would have it, there was Alpaca to be had. Many moons ago, she had traded for some recycled sari silk that didn't exactly "work out" and had received some of the desired fiber. And thus, the final element was in place for The Blend:

Lovely, no?

Now, if this story were to progress to its logical conclusion, I would have blended the fibers and be gloating over it by now. But for a variety of reasons, some logical, some not, this has yet to happen. What you see in the above picture is where I be with this fiber adventure at the moment. First, I decided to see if I couldn't get a bit further on the lamb/silk blend that has been slowly inching towards the finish line lo these many months. And I did actually make a bit more progress on that. I even hold out hope that there may be four bobbins of finished singles before I go to bed tonight. That's a pretty logical thing to have done, right? Finish one thing before you start another...good move.

The other problem is that I am fully in the throes of my End Of The World Is Nigh Shopping and I can't seem to stop. As I mentioned earlier, I have this "thing" about being prepared for catastrophe. Should my furry roommates and I be stranded in the condo for any length of time, I like to think that we have enough canned corn and kibble to see us through. I go through phases. Sometimes, they are reasonable phases which anyone might view as responsible behavior for an adult in these uncertain times where a conspicuous zit could keep a girl housebound for a while.

Other times I dry fruit.

What can I say? It makes sense when I'm loading up the dehydrator. I don't really care for fruits or vegetables. I'm not one of those people who gets all giddy during the summer growing months because there is so much of the garden-grown bounty to be had. I'm really more of the type who gets excited by a cookie. Thus, when I do buy fruit, I tend to eat less of it than my good intentions indicated at time of purchase. I have to preserve it or I'm suddenly doing battle with aggressive mold in the fridge. This could lead to a real End Of Days scenario and I don't want to be held responsible for that. Freezing works. But drying concentrates the sugars and I can almost call that, "candy." Almost...

Plus, I am now older and have little tolerance for any beings that are all dewy and youthful. I want to be surrounded by things that are as withered and crusty as I. I demand that my foodstuffs conform to my need to be the most most moisturized thing in the house.

So, in preparation for any sort of approaching apocalypse, I took some barely drinking aged bananas and strawberries and got them looking like they were ready for Social Security benefits:

The bananas didn't quite dry enough to conform to my rigid standards of wrinkly, but I kind of wanted to eat some so I declared them, "done."

So, to all and sundry who were checking their aggregators frantically and losing sleep as they awaited the unveiling of The Blend, I offer my heartfelt apologies. But a blend must be done right. It deserves my total and undivided attention. I can't be checking my bananas and attending to The Blend. This will not go well. We must, instead, patiently wait for my End Of The World Is Nigh phase to pass so that I can focus fully on the task at hand. Which might be something of a problem.

I keep eating the bananas.

SA