Today's blog is brought to you by spinning. I had kind of left spinning behind since I moved to Exeter, letting the wheel gather dust in the spare room which also stored all the craft supplies. With the rent going up and our need to get a third person in the house, we have moved most everything out of the spare room now, so my wheel has taken pride of place next to the chest of drawers in my bedroom. That, and the fact that my bag of fibre was so full I was having trouble fitting it in the drawer which is now its new home, drew me back into the spinning which I had let lapse.
I started off by finishing off some plying that I had begun before I broke my arm. I was having trouble with getitng the wheel to "take up" the yarn, resulting in a lot of frustration and no plying happening. I decided to let it sit awhile and I would go back to it, and ended up letting it sit for over two months. I did get it sorted in the end though. The fibre I was plying was merino, part of a pack of six different colours I had purchased back when I started. They were very small (about 20 grams) worth, and I decided that I would spin the seperate colours, then ply them together. I think I did yellow and green, then a couple of purples with a blue, and then a different yellow with a different purple. Or something. Anyway, this particular one was the yellow and purple (which also happen to be the colours of the university I went to.) I plan to make some wristers or something with the yarn, since there's not much of it. It's really very pretty though, don't you think? Now I just need to work out how to use my niddy noddy, which has defied all my attempts at figuring out just which way to wrap the yarn. I fear this may mean taking it to someone who knows about these things, as youtube is just not hacking it.
My current spinning project is a little... bigger. At the same time I bought the merino tops that were spun above, I bought some Corriedale sliver. The colour is called Ice, and it's a lovely shade of grey-blue. I got 300 grams of it because I loved the colour so much! I'm really glad I did too, because Corriedale has fast become my new favourite fibre. While it's not quite as soft as merino, it spins up so easily that all I need to do is sit there and hold it. I'm sure that the fact that it's sliver, which is a thinner preperation of the wool than a top, may be helping, but I'm really loving spinning this stuff. It's also spinning really thinly really easily, meaning that I'm getting a consistent, thin yarn which will be perfect for a shawl. I'm really excited about this, as I didn't think I'd get such consistent shawlweight yarn for awhile longer. Even plied, I think it will be sock weight if not lighter; the singles are certainly laceweight. I may just knit the singles. I'll decide that once I've finished the spinning. You can see the very end of the spun bit hanging over the spindle in this picture. It's only half spun because it's on the end, so that will be tighter when it's done. I'm very pleased with this yarn.
My knitting project are coming along slowly. Very slowly. I'm considering what I want to do for
Ravelympics (link requires a Ravelry login) and being amused/horrified by all the to-do going on. If you are unfamiliar with it, there is a news article
here. Basically, the US Olympic Comittee insulted knitters (and crocheters) worldwide while trying to get them to change the name because of Trademark infringement. Last time I checked (media law and ethics class, 2002), trademark can only be affected if there is a profit involved, but I'm going to leave this to heads that actually remember things. Still, disgusted by how they refer to knitters. You'd think officals would have more sense when so many people are involved. It's become a trending event on twitter.And THAT is amusing.
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