But meanwhile, the spinning has been glorious! In those two half-days at DD's school, plus an evening and morning at home, I spun enough to have a total of 1.5 bobbins of dark Corriedale singles, and 1 full bobbin of white Lincoln singles, all fairly fine. Oh yeah, and in between those two school days I took the plunge and bought a spinning wheel!
It's a Lendrum double-treadle folding wheel, the same as the loaner wheel I had this week, and I love it. I bought the basic package -- what you see here, plus 3 more bobbins and a lazy kate. I'll probably add the plying head soon. Oh, and if you noticed the Scotch tension band hanging loose, don't worry -- I was just winding off the last of my plied yarn!
That's right -- today in class I finally got some good guidance on plying. I 3-plied some of the singles as two dark, one light. I haven't washed the yarn to set the twist yet, but it's promising in terms of balance. Here are some pictures:
If you're keeping track, this is my second finished handspun. I'm very pleased. I'm thinking mittens. For me, so there. :P
When I got home, I couldn't stop. I split up my remaining 0.5 bobbin of Corriedale and plied some more, same as the first skein (but only about 60 yards):
I had a few yards of Corrie singles left over. They're now wrapped around the center shaft of my niddy-noddy and happily being used as skein ties.
I still had half a bobbin of white Lincoln singles, and I didn't feel like trying to split it equally onto 3 bobbins, so I tried Navajo plying for the first time. (This isn't covered in my current spinning class, though it will be in Spinning II, so once again, no blame to my teacher for these -- though she gets credit for answering my, "I'm sorely tempted to try Navajo-plying my leftover Lincoln" with, "Go ahead and give it a try!") It took a little while to get the hang of it; I broke the singles twice and so have two big, snarly knots I'll have to cut out when I'm knitting. I also had a hard time keeping up with the wheel, even on the lowest drive ratio, so the yarn was quite clearly overplied when I skeined it. Fortunately, I'd gotten some advice on that in class today, so I ran it back through the wheel real quick-like, the other direction, to take out the extra twist, leaving a little to set with washing. Now I love it!
Sorry, I forgot the standard penny for scale. I'll get it into the post-washing pictures.
I'm hoping these two yarns will work together, maybe as mittens with a little colorwork or a few stripes. The white is a bit thinner. I'll have to see how much each yarn fluffs up with washing.
Oh, and that isn't even all! We also blended some colored merino rovings into batts on drum carders in class today, and I've spun up most of mine. Pictures of that will have to wait, though -- my good light is all gone. I don't think I'll have enough yarn to make anything human-scale, but it's hard to be sure yet. My daughter loves the colors (navy, periwinkle, and fuschia blend, chosen because they're her favorites) so much, I may need to buy more of those colors and have another go so I can make her something from it. After this fun experience with drum carding, I was thrilled to learn that joining my local handweaver's guild ($30/year) entitles me to rent a drum carder, the one I used today in fact, for $5. Per month. You can't beat that with a stick!
I'm thinking that the soaking times when I'm washing all this yarn will be a good time to catch up on the housework that's been neglected this week....
I need another knitting project. My hands get all fidgety when I'm waiting anywhere. More on that when I get one going. Happy fiber, everyone!
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