June is for spinning

So far this month I have:

1. Spun 4 oz of Falkland

2. Won a speed spinning contest

3. Broken my CPW

(this bearing went boom)

4. Fixed my CPW

(this bearing is shiny and new - also the front maiden now turns again - also having handy friends is awesome)

5. Spun 4 oz of Wensleydale

(2.9oz / 400yds of singles & 1.2oz / 145yds of 2ply - I am thinking maybe an Ishbel with the singles.)

And its only the 17th.

For my next trick (and sticking with the longwools while I'm feeling confident) I am going to spin these leicester longwool locks:

CHAMPION!

Today I won a spinning contest. I spun 68 yards of Alpaca singles in 15 minutes (alternately that would be 272 yds an hour or 4.5 yds a minute. I am not sure if that is uber-fast in the extended world of speed spinning but I am plenty proud of it).

Go me =D

Also I got to play with a sock knitting machine, which - AWESOME (Even though I messed up the heel and had to tear out a sock).

If I was capable of forethought there might have been some pictures of these two things to show off. I don''t though, so you'll just have to imagine how cool my day was.

To Bead or not to Bead....

I have been futzing a lot with the circular shawl, trying to work out how to fit the heptagram design into a lace pattern that still looks like a lace shawl and not just some random mess of lines but that's still obviously a heptagram. I've been trying beading on the outline of the main design elements:

I'm working again with the red Arucania Lonco. I'm still not sure that this is the best yarn choice but it has the advantage of frogging well and being fairly WYSIWYG while I sort out the layout of the interior motif. I'm pretty happy with the pattern of the star and the inner heptagram but still on the fence with the beads. I'm concerned about the weight they add (I've used about half a 20g tube just on the inner design and the outer is likely to take something like 10x that) and also the way they shift the weight due to only using them on certain design elements.

I think it would actually be OK if I stuck with the fingering weight yarn, but if I redo the design in laceweight I'm just not seeing it hold up. I might see if I can try smaller beads (these are size 8 cubes - rounds would be lighter and if I can get a hook into a 10 that would make a world of difference but I just don't have the beading experience to know if that's workable.

I'm also not 100% sure it really needs it.

Still, I am persisting.

I am also spinning:

522yds / 4.3 oz of softspun Falkland singles. Its an average of a sport weight, with some thick and thin sections. I haven't the foggiest what I might do with it, but I feel pleased that I managed it since singles aren't really my favorite to spin and also I didn't really love the falkland. It was pretty sticky and required a lot of predrafting. The upside is it held together with very little twist, but it was still a lot more prep time then I like to put into commercial top.

I did some moderate fulling on finishing (hot/cold rinses and moderate agitation) but wasn't super agressive since I was worried about felting it to itself.

End result is light and lofty. Will have to try again with some merino.