07 July 2008

SPINNING!!

I've got the spinning bug big time! This weekend I created yarn, isn't that just the most amazing thing ever!!!

First some details on my holiday weekend. Friday we had some friends and their 2 yo over for a bbq. Then we went to this mini carnival thing in town. (There was a lady there with a llama and she told me where to go in town for fiber!) Of course I forgot to bring my camera.

Saturday was going to be yardwork day for my sweetie, but the lawnmower broke. The lawnmower that we bought the end of April broke! We were both pretty pissed off and I now have to drive the thing to a town an hour away to get it repaired. Well, my sweetie was really really pissed off so I looked online for things to do to get his mind off of it and found a canal boat ride about 40 minutes from the house. It was pretty cool. The boat ride is all of 2.5 miles and lasts about 40 minutes. But the boat is pulled by Percheron horses that walk next to the canal, that's the cool part! I liked just watching the horses, my sweetie was much more into listening to the history of canals in Ohio. And the 40 minute drive each way was a nice, relaxing, country drive. Lots of baby cows and horses in the pastures and lots of Amish clothes hanging out to dry. Again, I really wish I had my camera, it's staying in my purse from now on.

Sunday was a wash of a day. We weren't planning on doing much and good thing we weren't cause I got caught up in Wimbledon fever! I started watching the men's final and it went on all day long. While I was watching, I plied some yarn and did some knitting.

So, onto the spinning. First up we have my first official handspun:
My mom had given me some small amounts of fiber one time. I have no idea what kind of wool it is so I figured it's good practice yarn. Since there was so little fiber I decided to ply 2 of the colors together. I'm thinking I just may knit some squares and felt them into coasters or something. I want my first handspun to go to good use. I've got about 50 yards and it's DK weight.

The next handspun was from the same batch of fiber, but I managed to spin this quite a bit thinner and there was more of it, so I plied it with itself. Here it is just after spinning as a single:
And plied:
It's fingering weight and I've got about 100 yards of it. No idea what it will become. But both mini skeins are going to sit on my coffee table until I knit them up because I don't want to lose them to the stash.

I ordered some dyed roving the other day from Meghan of the Stitch It! Podcast. I'm not going to spin that yet though cause it's too nice to be another practice yarn. I've got this other stuff though that I got years ago at a quilt festival. It's horrendous and some unknown wool content, so it will make a good practice yarn. I've got 8 oz of it so I can try lots of stuff with it. I'm calling it the Green Monster!
Pretty ugly huh? And I think with all the moving at what not since I got it, it seems to have felted a bit so I don't know how well it will actually spin. I'll give it a shot though.

OK, I'm off to enter the Barn n Knit contest. You should too!

2 comments:

Angie said...

All your yarn looks yummy! I am so afraid of learning how to spin. I just know I'm going to become obsessed with it and if I bring one more yarn related thing into the house, I fear I will be banished!

Anonymous said...

Wow!!! I'm really impressed. That fingering weight stuff looks quite professional, to be honest. If you're interested in some more fiber, I may have some coming my way soon... more than I'll know what to do with. Llama or alpaca. I'll be in touch!