Random thoughts of a fiber enthusiast - mostly fiber related, sometimes coherent

Category: Spin Page 63 of 69

Wash Day

Wash Day

I’ve been spinning, but never seem to find the time nor the energy to set the twist of the finished skeins. As you can see, they’ve sort of reproduced. I didn’t realize that I had so many skeins spun up. I have no idea what I will be doing with them, except several skeins are designated sock yarn.

There’s a lovely blend of mohair/silk/wool dubbed Silk Barefoot from Paradise Fibers that I spun up as a 2 ply sock weight yarn. It was an absolute joy to spin. I can’t wait to see how it will knit up and wear. I’ve toyed with the idea of handpaint the skeins before I knit it up, but I think I will leave them white. (There’s a skein of lace weight chinchilla/silk/wool blend in there from Kate too. Luscious doesn’t begin to describe it.)

Then there is the beautiful wool/silk handpaint that I navajo plied into a sock weight yarn. I’ve been told that wool/silk blend is the ultimate sock yarn. We’ll see.

I was stuck in a non-spinning mode for a while. Why? I picked up a whole stack of Spin-Off back issues (ranging from late 80s through early 2000s). As I flipped through these back issues, many of them talked about how you shouldn’t spin without a final product in mind. Well, that did it. I nearly never have an idea of the final product before I start the spinning process. I spin because I enjoy it. And nearly 99% of the time, the project I had in mind when I started to spin the yarn is never the finished yarn wants to be.

Oh well. I got over it. I realized that I would never spin because I can’t plan that far in advance. After all, I don’t even clue of the final project when I buy yarn, why should I have an idea before I spin? So I’m back to spinning for the sheer enjoyment of the process. Finished product be damned. One of these days, I’ll figure out what to do with all that yarn.

What about you?

Mr. Tax Man

Finished the stack of forms and wrote big gi-normous checks to the IRS and State Tax Board on Wednesday. I just have something against writing that check any earlier than I have to. Of course, Martin would say that I have something against starting on the tax paperwork until at least April 10th, whether we owe money or not.

Spun Yarn

But this is what you really came for. I’ve been going a little bit of spinning. From left to right: chinchilla/merino/silk, alpaca, the rest are shetland.

The chinchilla is a from Paradise Fibers. Kate told me that she gets the chichilla wool from the woman from Kingsboro Chinchilla, who harvests the wool like one would with angora bunnies. The fiber was a dream to spin. Like a box of chocolates, once I started, I couldn’t stop. The singles you see here have be plied. I have about 450 yards of 2 ply yarn. Just enough for a neck scarf.

The alpaca is from Spin Alpaca. I have about 230 yards of 2 ply here. I purchased the roving at the Gig Harbor Retreat, and immediately started spinning it on a spindle and started to do a very large swatch of the flower basket shawl. What you see here is the remainder spun on a wheel. I think my sampling was a lot more that I thought, since there’s only 1 oz of the original 2 oz.

The rest are samples of shetland that I received from the shetland class with Judith. Wow! What a difference. I have always thought that shetlands were rough and scratchy, because my only exposure to them have been those little skeins of Jamieson and Smith shetland yarns. I didn’t know what all the hub bub was about. Well, now I know. I foresee a shetland sweater in my near future. As soon as I spin through my other hundred pound of wool or so. (No, it’s really not that bad, but there is a lot.)

Okay, now I’m off to deal with Mr. Sarbanes and Mr. Oxley. Another humongous pile of paperwork and time sink. Whatever happened to that little US government initiative called the paperwork reduction act? Thank you Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, et al., you will never be forgotten.

Yarn!

spring yarn

Page 63 of 69

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén