That’s the sweetness. Here’s the plying:
I’m going to wind this off onto my niddy noddy and get it into a warm bath — and then, back to work.
sweetness and plying.
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Category Archives: spinning
beach day, skeined.
I have no words to describe how much I love this skein of yarn. I mean, I may have pulled back the covers on my bed in order to properly photograph it against a suitable backdrop. (Okay, and I cuddled with it a little. Don’t tell anyone.)
This is 160 yards of squishable 2-ply in what looks to be a worsted to heavy worsted range, from 4 oz. of FLUFF sw merino in Beach Day. This was my first FLUFF spin. Halfway through the second bobbin, I may have emailed to get on their fiber club waiting list…
And then I spun some more. See, I accidentally happened upon a Baktus-Along thread in the Snobby Spinners group. I wasn’t planning to find something else to spin for, but a headache that would just not go away changed my plans last night at the very last minute. (Do you ever have headaches that you think are just related to food/hydration that then refuse to go away after you feed them dinner and lots of water? That was me last night, and I would’ve just dealt with it if the plan hadn’t been to go hear some live music. Headache + loud = unhappy rooster. So I pouted a bit, and then sat down at my wheel.)
Right, Lacy Baktus. I dug through the handspun pile, and didn’t find anything that begged to become this pattern, so I overturned a bucket of fiber and fished out A King’s Ransom from the AVFKW Woolly Wonders Fiber Club: 1.5 oz of superfine merino and 1.5 oz of 80/20 merino/silk. Meanwhile, Boh did this:
This is the superfine merino, which is full of subtle color changes. I wrestled with this fiber a lot in sections, and I wonder if I should’ve tried to open it up a bit before spinning.
This is the merino/silk blend, and it spun like a dream. So fast, so smooth. Part of the way through my first cup of coffee this morning, I sat down to start plying:
Despite what it looks like (you know, that I spent the WHOLE day spinning), I actually wrote a few more pages yesterday, and did some good thinking about my project whilst spinning. I did not, however, begin tackling the pile of grading. (Yesterday, my headache was the excuse.) Today, I need to get on that.
the perfect combination.
Spinning and reading, the heft of a pile of hardcover books and the squish of handspun skeins, superwash merino and the late nineteenth century…
I was so excited about how this was looking that I stopped plying to grab the camera.
This is 170 yards of super squishy heavy worsted 2-ply from the second 4 oz. of Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino in the Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds colorway. LOVE. Love so much that I could set aside my writing and grading and cast on for mittens for me right now. But I’m not going to. Why? Because I don’t have to do what the yarn says all the time. Really.
Actually, I spun this with a particular as yet not fully formed human being in mind, but now that I see it all skeined up, all that pink might get in the way of my plans to knit a non-gender specific baby something. Thoughts? (Sorry guys, if you were hoping to be completely surprised. While I’m sort of banking on the fact that you’re too busy prepping for the big day and might not read this, I do need the advice of the internets.)
Which brings me back to my love affair with my wheel, and my decision last night to start spinning some FLUFF superwash merino in Beach Day.
(Artificial evening light above, natural morning light below.)
I think what I really need to do is swatch to see how the colors look all knitted up. And keep spinning this bee-yoo-ti-ful FLUFF fiber. Oh, and keep writing. Perhaps in the reverse order.
boh is concerned.
What’s the matter, big dog?
If you’re worried about the fact that I spent my first hour today doing this:
Don’t be. I’m not going to ply it with the first bobbin until I make sufficient progress on that other stuff. Really.
And don’t worry, we’re still going to take a nice W-A-L-K today.
Happy Friday, folks!
pretend productive.
Let me explain: I did spend a few hours on my writing yesterday, but in a “pretend productive” kind of way — you know, the kind of productive where you don’t actually increase the word count. Now, I would argue that one of the challenges in grad school — and really, academia more broadly — involves coming to terms with what it means to be productive. Sometimes, even when I don’t write anything down, I do some really important thinking that makes it possible for me to write something substantial when I return to the project. That’s not what I mean by “pretend productive.”
“Pretend productive” is when you read comments you’ve received on drafts, track down citations, request books that you know you should look at from the library, rearrange the piles or files you’re working from…and then (and this is key) derive a false sense of accomplishment from these tasks — and stop working.
I was “pretend productive” yesterday. I don’t really have pictures of what that looks like, but I think you get the idea. I do have pictures of fibery productivity, though.
First, my friend H (you may remember her as the recipient of the purple ishbel/springtime bandit brokeknits mash-up wedding shawl) came over to make applesauce and do some knitting. Boh assumed his supervisory role, and did a very good job of keeping our feet warm.
As you can see, this hat is way too big for me — which is a good thing! It should be perfect for my dad. (Apologies for the blurry photos.)
This is the largest size of the seaman’s cap, knitted even longer than the pattern called for, and made out of my handspun — Southern Cross Fibres polwarth, spun as a worsted weight 3-ply. (I still have about 80 yards left, so I may try to incorporate stripes into mittens or a manly cowl or something. We’ll see.)
H. asked me to show her how my wheel works, and because I had emptied all of my bobbins, we had to decide what I would spin next. I decided on the second 4 oz. of Crown Mountain Farms Superwash Merino in Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, spun as a fatter 2-ply. I started it to show H., and found it so captivating that late last night, I made myself a cup of hot cocoa and kept going.
I am in love with this, and all I want to do right now is spin the second bobbin. Alas, today I MUST be “real” productive. I received some great advice last night about how to get work done when there is really fun knitting in the house: lock it in the car. I may have to banish the second bobbin’s worth of fiber to the backseat today…
Stay tuned for pictures of the buttons that perfectly answered yesterday’s personal ad, as well as (I hope) a triumphant report about my productivity…
FO: winter storage.
Boh really likes handspun. How about a few more?
You’re looking at what happens when a certain rooster decides to clear off ALL of her bobbins: lots of navajo ply practice wth leftovers of fibers past, and a squishy, 350 yard skein of mostly fingering weight 2-ply from some absolutely stunning Hello Yarn finn in the winter storage colorway.
This was my first adventure with the fast flyer for my Lendrum — first of many, I should say.
And this — this is how I can tell that he really is my dog. He just wants to sniff, paw at, and, let’s face it, roll in all of my yarn.
Happy Monday, folks!
boh battles the red vacuum cleaner.
(In place of Yoshimi and the pink robots, of course.)
Boh faces his opponent.
(This is a new development. Boh used to hide in his box whenever I would get out the vacuum cleaner. Now, he plays his own version of chicken with the machine: he runs towards it or waits for it to approach him, and then squeezes by it at the last possible moment.)
Boh dashing past the vacuum cleaner.
This is absolutely hilarious, and I wish I’d gotten better photos of the whole sequence. It is rather difficult to operate a vacuum cleaner with one hand and snap photos with the other.
Now, would you like to see some spinning?
Yesterday’s time out made it possible for me to sit down at the wheel and finish the second bobbin of this gorgeous Hello Yarn finn in the winter storage colorway.
This morning, I started plying the two bobbins together, and snapped a few photos part of the way through. This looks to me like it is going to be fingering weight rather than laceweight yarn when it is all plyed and soaked, and I’m thinking it might make a lovely shawl. (That will not be for me to decide, however, as this skein is intended as a gift for a knitter!)
It seems my time out has stretched well into Sunday. That’s the trouble with taking breaks: it is so hard to end the time out and jump back into the fray. Maybe after my afternoon yoga class…
pink/purple.
I uploaded photos from my camera this morning and noticed a theme.
From the top: an impromptu lunch of slaw tartare with red cabbage from the farm, safety pins to keep my favorite jeans modest enough to wear out of the house, and the very pink beginnings of the second bobbin of the Winter Storage colorway I’m working on (my first project with my wheel’s fast flyer).
This rooster needs another cup of coffee!
treats.
Several treats have arrived here at chez Rooster over the last few weeks, and I am overwhelmed. (I’ll have another to share once I’ve settled on the best way to display it!)
A dear friend found herself at the Common Ground Fair in Maine in September, and picked up six ounces of gorgeous wool/merino blend fiber dyed in lovely blues and greens from Friends’ Folly Farm. It arrived over the weekend, and I can’t wait to get this on the wheel.
Last night, Boh and I headed over to see our favorite greyhound and his people. Popcorn was popped, NPR was switched on, and I started my third seaman’s cap. This one is out of the dark green polwarth from Southern Cross Fibres that I spun a few weeks ago.
Yesterday morning I pulled on my stripes! sweater, thinking that maybe it was getting cold enough that I’d need the warmth as I sipped my coffee. I was too warm after only a few minutes…but soon!
yellow.
It was a quiet Friday, spent trying to catch up with the week: lots of list-making and stock-taking, but also a longer walk to the reservoir with Boh to clear my head and stretch his (okay, our) legs.
It was a proper eve of Halloween — the sky was grey, the wind, howling, and the familiar scent of leaves settling and decomposing whirled about us. The seasons are starting to turn again, but there are some leaves, branches, whole trees, even, that seem to resist. These solitary bursts of yellow made me smile, and I found myself looking for pockets of color in the muted beauty of these woods.
Everything always seems more manageable after a walk along this path.
The oven helps, too. A friend of mine from college has this gorgeous cupcake website that you should all check out, and yesterday she posted a recipe for savory cheddar and scallion cupcakes. Moments after reading this, I was in the kitchen melting butter and measuring out flour. Yum.
I also finished the first bobbin of Winter Storage, and I’m hoping to start the next one this afternoon — but only if I can get some writing done today.
I’ll leave you with a bit of Boh humor. I caught Boh admiring himself in the mirror yesterday. He was so engrossed in his own reflection that I was able to snap a few pictures before he starting looking at me in the mirror. Silly, silly dog.
barefoot rooster 