Some progress.

There was, in fact, some progress Saturday, as planned.

• I went to Home Depot and after waiting over 20 minutes for someone to come help me cut the PVC, was assisted by a very nice and terribly helpful man who was officially off the clock but knew that someone hadn't come in which had left the plumbing area short-staffed and he wasn't sure if anyone who knew how to use the PVC saw thing was there, but what did I need? When I explained that I just needed to cut some 1/2 inch PVC (actually, I got Pex in the end because I didn't need 10 feet and the Pex came in 5 foot sections), he showed me a nifty little ratcheting cutting tool that was all of $10.99. I figured it was likely that we might at some point in the future (like when we redo the upstairs bathroom) want a handy little PVC cutting tool, so I got it and my Pex and some joints and couplers and left.
• When I got home, I cut the Pex into two approximately 9-inch pieces for the center pipe and four approximately 6-inch pieces for the arms. The reason the center pipe is in two pieces is so I can take out one piece and make sampler skeins (which is what I did with the cochineal singles at Artisans Row and is likely what I'd opt to do with any very thin yarn in the future). I decided that the smaller center pipe also wanted smaller arms and since I had some Pex left over, I cut four 3-inch pieces for an additional set of arms.

• I tested out the longer center pipe with the shorter arms (which is likely how I'll end up using it most of the time - the Pex is just enough more flexible than PVC to make the longer arms a little too bendy) on some of the singles from the lovely roving mamacate sent me as my last Secret Pal package last summer.
  

• I then started up the kettle - because the whole reason for going with PVC is because Pixel told me I could steam the yarn to set the twist while it was still on the niddy noddy with a PVC one, but not with a wood one - even though it was pushing 100 degrees. The result was beautifully set yarn that I can't wait to knit with. Now I just need to spin the rest up and see how much I have to figure out what I can make. *bounce*

• While I was setting twist, I also soaked and hung the cochineal merino singles and am rather pleased with the result. The merino fuzzed a bit, but really just to bloom a little (not to felt), so I think it will be quite lovely and warm when knitted up.

• While I was waiting for the singles to dry, I started spinning the other ball of cochineal roving from Carol. It's still spinning at near lace weight, though the humidity made the yarn "sticky" and I had to stop before I wanted to because it was annoying me.
• I also managed to get some stuff like squash (I've been craving spaghetti squash for some time now, but Jack doesn't eat veggies, so I tend not to get it often; he's out of town this weekend, though, so I took advantage of not having to make a "real dinner" to get me some squash) and some other lunch-type stuff made up and put in the freezer.
  

What I did not manage to accomplish was driving the motorcycle & classic car rally route we planned Thursday. I tried, though. I got through the first 30 miles before I hit road construction that has *completely* closed one of the roads we had planned on using, with no detour sign in sight. I took a stab at improvising a detour, but the "replacement" road stops being paved after about 2 miles and gravel and lots of motorcycles does not a happy rally ride make. Since roads are sort of few and far between in that part of the countyo rather than try to clock the rest of the route, I came home to try to find an alternate that would just require changing that part of the route, but I think we're going to end up changing at least half the route to re-route around the construction. At least we have a month and change to figure this out still.

Sunday has so far also been productive, but while I've continued to work on spinning, I've also been making some progress on stripping the woodwork in the dining room. The door into the kitchen is finished from the dining room side (the kitchen side has lots of layers of paint that we'll use a heat gun on) and the arch into the living room has been started. The arch is pr'bly the best place to see the difference between the stripped and unstripped wood: