I came home this week to find some silk singles on the bobbin in my spinning wheel. There’s a little ziploc bag with the rest of the silk. It’s Chasing Rainbow Valley Fog colorway. That, I could figure out because I kept the tag next to the bag.
What I couldn’t figure out was what I was doing with the silk.
Was I planning a 2 ply silk yarn? Did I plan to ply from a center pulled ball? I’m pretty sure that wasn’t it. Plying silk from a center pull ball is not a pretty picture. Did I plan to spin onto 2 separate bobbins? If so, did I split the roving in half lengthwise, or just in half at midpoint? Where was the repeat? Or did I plan to spin this as a single to ply with something else? Some mohair, perhaps? Nope, I don’t have any mohair in a compatible color. Another fiber? Nope, don’t have anything sitting out near the fiber to show that I visually planned anything. Did I plan to chain ply it?
Just what did I have in mind for this silk?
Could it be that I just had an urge to spin silk? That‘s been known to happen.
Hence, the title of this post. Yet another reason that you should keep a project notebook nearby to jot these things down. There is no guarantee that you’ll remember what you planned 6 weeks down the road (or tomorrow morning, for that matter!). I normally wrap a sample on a small card and scribble something on it: fiber content, fiber source, wpi of singles and finished yarn. Obviously, I didn’t do it this time around.
By the way. See that square whorled drop spindle there? Martin made it for me years ago with some Brazilian Rosewood he had in his wood stash. I always knew he was ahead of the times. Square whorled drop spindles are all the rage these days. (here for some samples)
(Yes, I collect fiber. Martin collected exotic wood scraps for his wood boat building. These days, I collect drop spindles in exotic woods.)