Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Spinning and fiber

Slowly but surely the spinning is coming along.

My beginning efforts were Shetland. It produced yarn only a mother could love.



I spun more of the Shetland and was still having a hard time avoiding the corkscrew effect of overspinning. Then I finished the Shetland and broke into my BFL. Something clicked at that point. I don't know if it was the fiber change or the learning curve, but needless to say it was a relief to be seeing some improvement and a decrease in the corkscrew effect.

Here's the Shetland and BFL plyed together.



Here's the BFL by itself. I think it's underplyed.





And of course that meant I needed to buy some more fiber. Below is TerraCotta from Tuscan Grove. It's Australian wool. I love the colors, not all that crazy about the fiber. It's a bit sticky. I need to pre-draft it a fair bit - which creates these beautiful, fluffy piles. I think this might be roving vs. top. The Shetland and BFL were both top (I think).



Then I heard about Iron John and his Etsy shop. So I bought some hand dyed Rambouillet top. I haven't done anything with it yet, but it sure is pretty.



And in spinning wheel news. I have purchased a spinning wheel - a Louet Julia. I bought her from the one and only Amy over at Spunky Eclectic. Amy rocks. She threw in a some of her amazing, hand dyed fiber. Black Cherry to be exact. It's an alpaca/corriedale blend.



You might be wondering about pictures of the wheel. Um, yeah. About that. She's still in the box. I know, it's a crime, it's a shame. So here's the story. DH and I have been saving up our own personal "stashes", money that goes to our own fun purchases. We split the proceeds of the garage sale, Dan puts his wire money in his, I put the proceeds of my stash sale and book sale into mine and
the occasional tip. Dan knows my stash money goes towards the wheel. His is going towards who knows what. I thought a new bow, but now that he's shooting really well with his current bow, who knows. My stash has been climbing pretty steadily. I was only $60 short. Until I went to Salt Lake City last week for a conference. Hopefully the books I have listed on Amazon will sell. Plus I have audio materials to put up. When those sell, I'm golden. Here's hoping. Then the unveiling of sweet Julia will occur. Oh and yeah, dh has no idea what's in the closet. Oh and the reason I purchased it "prematurely" was to take advantage of the intro special.

And a bit of progress on the knitting front. I'm finishing up the left strap for the 2nd side of the tank Amelie. I'm tired of this project and I still have the hem to do. Sigh.



Only 1 sleeve left on Eris, although she's been put on the back burner due to spinning and Amelie.



Maybe for my next update I'll have a picture of Julia! Actually, if all goes as planned on the IVF front I'll be leaving for Denver Sept. 2nd - decided to road trip it vs. mess around with coordinating flights with Dan and not knowing when we'd be returning. One of the other motivating factors for driving was being able to take my wheel with me. Julia will be the wheel traveling with me - so adequate stash money or not, she will be coming out of the closet by Sept. 2nd. Here's to speedy selling!

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