I’d spun on one briefly before–MJ’s–and the lines of it stuck in my head. It’s light and pretty and spins purty durn good. When I got it home I started spinning up some of the 80s merino/tencel blend I’d painted, but I still need to ply it. Heather helped me out pulling the yarn off at the Whistlestop (it all fell off in a wad) to make a skein and I’ll eventually get to it.

Oh my gosh. I’m watching showtime and they just showed an ad for This American Life, premiering March 22nd. And they have a freaking series for Henry VIII. I am so mad that Mom is gone, she would have got such a kick out of those.

So I traveled for 21 days and this is all the knitting I have to show for it. My excuses:

So, by the end of our expected month long vacation, I expected to have a sweater to wear on the plane ride home. Instead, we came home early because the worst possible thing we never expected happened, although I wouldn’t have made the finished sweater goal anyway. For some reason, I couldn’t give much of a crap about that.
I still have the second sleeve on the needles and I knit on it when I just NEED something to knit, but I’ve been knitting on more fun, worsted weight and unphotographed things lately.

More spinning

Pin drafted pencil roving moorit merino and angora blend fiber, (unknown percentages) 4 oz. I bought this from Flying Colors Ranch (Robin Snyder) way back when the Cuyamaca Water Gardens had that very small fiber fest.

a more attractive picture of this fun fiber

I’ve been trying to spin with more twist so that when I ply I can have a greater angle of twist.

Usually my singles are really low twist and my plied yarns, while soft and lofty and squishy, aren’t tightly plied. But I’ve come to the conclusion that I live a high abrasion lifestyle, so more twist is needed. Plus, with this stuff being so fine, it turned out great. Of course it’s angora blend so it’ll poof out no matter what.

Crivvie Interlude

I hope Crivvie had half as much fun here when Mom was staying here with the dogs, Crivvie’s goofiness is happy-making.

More Spinning

I finally got around to busting out the scale, the lazy kate, and the ball winder and dividing the remaining 80s merino I’d dyed up so long ago.

My desk is such a mess. I’ll edit all these later with yarn measurements & so on; I’ve misplaced the original scraps of paper I wrote them down on.

I ended up with a fair amount of single leftover so I ran it through to add more twist, then plied it with itself with a lot of twist, then plied it again in the opposite direction to make a cabled yarn I feel pretty “meh” about.

There’s not much of it so it’ll be the stripe of something.

It’s a good exercise though for me with plying: to practice focus, and to be watchful of the effects. It’s pretty hard darn near impossible to make a good looking cabled yarn if the single isn’t consistently spun, but since I had spun this to be a three ply and I like a little variation in my singles (why spend time handspinning if it’s going to look machine spun?) my variations in thickness and twist weren’t a good base for a cabled yarn.

I like to practice anyway, by adapting the amount of twist in the plying process to each section–that’s where the focus comes in. In some parts you can see I got it all right, in others I needed more twist.

Here’s a favorite family photo:

It’s not the greatest scan, but in it you can see my Grandmother, my brother (two years old[?] at the time [he’s eleven years my senior]), my Aunt Dian, my Uncle Deke sporting the pimpin’est pair of trousers, my Mom, and my Dad, who was apparently anxious to return to his yachting cocktail party when this pic was snapped.

Is fashion sense (or lack therof) genetic?

Happy Wednesday, here’s an earworm for ya.