pixeldiva wrote in July 2008

I’ve been spinning. A lot. Almost every day (except the weekend, which got busy with other life type things).

My goal for the Tour de Fleece is to spin enough laceweight Merino Tencel to be able to make something reasonably substantial out of it. Possibly a Clapotis (because apparently, I didn’t get it out of my system the first six I made).

Other than that, I’ve been spinning on a new spindle and I took a bit of a non-laceweight break on Friday night to spin some Yarn Yard Shetland into DK/Aran weight singles, because my hands were cramping up with the fine stuff and I just needed a break.

I’m going to try and get as much spinning in as I can today and tomorrow, because in the wee hours of Wednesday morning my wee sister arrives along with her husband and my 22 month old niece, and I suspect that spinning might well be off the menu once they arrive. I haven’t seen them in more than six months, and my niece is, by all accounts, very much her mother’s daughter, so will, I imagine, be into everything.

It started innocently enough. A little puff of fibre on my desk, which I rolled between my fingers into a ball.

A thought, a splash of water, more rolling, tiny felt pebble. Hmm.

Before I could stop myself, I’d grabbed a bowl of warm soapy water, some roving from the stash and I was making felted beads (some more successfully than others).

I was originally going to just make a bracelet’s worth, but I couldn’t stop at just those and kept going for a while longer.

Which is when I realised that my palms were feeling distinctly bruised and painful.

They’re still a bit tender and even a bit swollen today.

Note to self: enthusiasm is great, but tone it down when felting.

I’ve had a stressful couple of weeks, and in times of high stress I turn to spinning, as the one thing that I can do that seems to work off my excess nervous energy.

It’s not really a time for fine spinning, so first of all, I took the Yarn Yard June Club fibre – Wensleydale (I love Wensleydale!) – and turned it into fairly even DK/Aran weight singles. It went really quickly too, an hour and a half for 200g!

I’m really pleased how it came out.

That wasn’t quite enough for me though, so I took some of the sparkly batts I bought from FeltStudioUK and they become bulky singles, spun fast and loose, without stopping to worry about lumps and bumps.

I’m not sure the finished yarn does any justice to how lovely the batts were before they were spun up, but it was interesting to spin without worrying about bumps – something I’m usually quite pedantic about – it was quite liberating, not to mention a lot speedier.

Speedy being a word I can’t really apply to my current project. I’m participating in the Tour de Fleece this year and spinning the limited edition Yarn Yard TdeF fibre, which is a base fibre of Merino Tencel in a gorgeous neutral in shades from silver to hematite via pewter and with sherberty bright contrasting fibre alongside.

The neutral is well on it’s way to becoming laceweight yarn, which is my goal for the TdeF. I want it to be more even and fine than I’ve ever managed before, and I’ve managed to keep it up for five days so far.

I love how it looks on the bobbin, and I’m really pleased with how fine and even it is, but I can’t help but think that the plying is going to be a total BITCH. Time will tell.