January doldrums

Somehow my holidays came and went without me paying attention and then school started back up (5 classes plus working does not leave much time for... well, anything really). I haven't blogged in awhile, not because I haven't had anything to talk about, because I haven't been able to get my brain, my camera and my knitting to all coincide in the same location for more than 30 seconds.

I sort of still haven't since all the pictures I managed to take yesterday were of spinning, but oh well. I'll talk about spinning stuff now and save my knitting accomplishments (rather unimpressive anyway those) for another post.

So I took my wheel down to Texas with me over the break and managed to finish the 2 oz of baby camel I've been messing with while there.

That's 270yds of slightly thick-thin 2 ply laceweight. I probably could have gotten another 30 but instead of winding the left over into a center pull and plying it back on itself I saved it for some experimenting and cable plied it with some organic cotton.

The camel was interesting to spin - it seemed to respond pretty well to a hybrid long draw, sort of a semi double draw I guess. It was hard to get a really consistent single from it, but I'll have to try more of it at some point to see if I can't improve on my technique. Possibly on a Charkha since I did run into some problems with getting a reasonable speed even on the fastest setting of the Sonata's faster flyer. (18-1 I believe). Alternately, I did pick up 4 oz of baby camel and silk roving to try out so perhaps I can get away with spinning that slightly less fine (and thus needing less twist) and have it still hold together.

I abused the hell out of this yarn in finishing. Camel does not appear to felt, no matter what you do to it, which is rather too bad since it goes back to that needing excessive twist to hold together thing. Still, all the whacking did soften it back up.

I spent most of the rest of my wheel time over the break working on my skein swap yarn. One of the groups on ravelry is doing a handspun swap of yarn and so I dyed and then spun up about 4.5oz of superwash wool (think its merino, but I'm not positive of that). My swap partner said she liked green and rich vibrant colors so I hope its to her liking. I used a combination of spruce, emerald and kelly green on the roving with a few splashes of a gold/orange tone thrown in for variation.

The finished yarn is something like 430yds of 3ply light fingering weight. I forgot to write down the yardage before I sent it off, but it was A LOT. Its also the most consisten 3ply I've spun to date. I was sort of sad to see it go, but I'm sure it will have a good home ;)

Although I am currently somewhat sick of green now, I really loved the way that roving in particular spun up and when I got back from break I pulled out another 6 oz of it and dyed it up for me.

Saying the resulting colors are a little psychedelic is something of an understatement. On a normal day I would never spin anything that edged so closely into the realm of pink either. But I need something bright right now and this is nothing if not bright. I'm about 2/3rds done with the singles and thinking the finished yarn with be 4ply (I'd like a heavy fingering-light sport ideally). its going to be interesting to see how the colors end up after its plied. I'm a little worried of loosing some of the intensity, but if it starts looking bad when I get to that point I suppose I can back off and just chain ply instead.

I also came back from Austin with a really unreasonable number of donut beads. Don't ask me why. I intended to come back with like... 2 and I think the final count was more like 10 or 12. I'm slowly putting them together as drop spindles. Some of which I'll keep and some of which I'll probably trade or give to spinning friends.

<- tiger's eye 30mm whorl on ebony chopstick with a hand bent brass hook.



Red Jasper whorl 45mm on chopstick. This is the last one I'm using the eyehooks on I think. Impressively its the best spinner I've made yet ->

<- Some kind of jasper on a lightwood inlayed chopstick. This one stays with me. Its just lovely and a great spinner. I haven't put a hook or carved a notch into it and may just keep it as it is. The chopstick I used is on the grippy side and it doesn't seem to need a hitch notch.

I'm not sure what this stone is, but its very bright and shiny. This one will recieve a hook once I get around to making a hole. The wood I used for the shaft is too hard to just use a screw like I've been doing ->





Other than the stone spindles I also came home with a new Jenkin's Turkish for some reason. Probably because one of my favorite shops has them and they were there and pretty.

Its 2.2oz and made of Kingwood.

Really, how could I say no to that wood grain?

I haven't done more than play with it so far, but its probably going to be my new plying spindle. If I ever actually finish that superwash merino I've got on my beeswing nara delight this is what's going to be finishing it up ;)