New Yarn - I did it!!

Hi there - I'm excited to share my latest achievement - I can spin yarn!! I've had a persnickety antique spinning wheel for awhile, but I've given up hope of getting her up and running consistently. So I picked up my drop spindle with the aim of mastering this ancient art.

I've fiddled with it before, but nothing serious. I set a goal for myself to see how fine or skinny of a yarn I could knit. I was hoping for laceweight - because I love to knit lace! Originally, I hoped to enter it in a skein competition in September, but the deadline came and went before I finished my skein. Oh well, it's all about the learning, right? About 130 yards of laceweight yarn were the result! Isn't it pretty?

I forgot to take a pic of the spindle - it's a beautiful little lady created by butteflygirl designs, very similar to this one. It's very sturdy too - no damage from all the drops and falls it's taken while I mastered my technique. :)

Spinning

Spin in Public day is September 18, so I share with you some of the spinning I've been doing lately. I've been fighting with my great wheel lately (broken parts) and finally gave up. I had two cops nearly the same size so I decided to proceed with plying them together. Before you think I did something very rude to law enforcement officers, a "cop" is the conical shaped stash of spun wool that is on the spindle. The drop spindle full of red yarn above shows the cop on the spindle; to the far right you can see a cop of yarn that I slid over to a knitting needle. Plying simply means twisting two strands of spun wool together. It makes for a more sturdy and stable yarn.

There's a fluffy bit of the roving in the center, and the ball is just two strands of the singles wound up together. It will help me keep everything from becoming a tangled mess when I ply them on my drop spindle. I think I'll get a fine laceweight yarn when finished!

The doily in the photo was crocheted by my Grandmother.

Other randomness: my daughter turned nine last week. She decorated her own cake, fueled by her interest in mermaids. Fruit roll ups and skittles never looked so good!

Taking dominion of.... the wheel

This great wheel was in my parent's house for years, decorating their basement. I took it home, had some help replacing missing parts, and now it's up and running! It spins really well, once I got some tension issues out of the way. But like any 200 yr old object, it's gonna have some quirks to deal with.

The yarn is stretching from my hand to the spindle at the far left. You can see it's a bit bumpy and uneven. I'm still perfecting some techniques, so I'll call this batch of yarn "designer" yarn. :)