It's Yarn: Nameology

Drumroll please...

I have finally finished Nameology, my Very First Handspun.

After the singles, (see previous posts) I plied.

I made my lazy kate into a tensioned lazy kate with the creative use of a paper clip and some gorilla glue. I put both singles onto separate bobbins and plied away.





(my house isn't really this messy, we've just been cleaning out both of our offices, post on that once our new office is presentable)



I ended up with a very full spindle of two ply.



Isn't it just gorgeous! This picture is probably the truest color.

Then I made use of our dining room chair, since I don't have a niddy noddy.



After a resting overnight, I gave it a quick bath in the morning. Then some good whacks against the tub (yarn's version of a shiatsu massage) and hang up to dry.



It's even balanced enough to hang in an open loop! The strands that are out of place here are because it wasn't hung properly.

The end result:



About 26 yards of a very bulky thick and thin yarn.

It won't grow up to be anything. Its sole purpose is to hang out in a vase in the living room, and be pretty.

Lazy Kate

Here is my lazy kate and bobbin.

Well, by bobbin I mean a dowel from a home improvement store, that has been cut into pieces, sanded, and rubbed with Paste Wax.



The lazy kate is a decorative shoebox bought from Joanne's.



Doesn't match this yarn, but oh well.

First Steps in Spinning

Not much today, just pictures.

On Monday, I took my predrafted fiber and turned it into a single ply.



It's pretty thick and thin.

Pre-Drafting...

Sunday evening, after getting home from the graduation, I finally let myself mess with the fiber. I'd had the roving and spindle since Wednesday, but I was too busy to sit down and start.

I got started with the help of Maggie Casey's Start Spinning and Megan LaCore's drafting video.

This is the roving before drafting



all spread out



This is the one step that I hadn't picked up on until the video



splitting the roving into strips. At first I was trying to draft the entire roving, and it was almost impossible. I got it all sorted out and made some pretty little birds nests.



Gorgeous!

Tomorrow: some actual spinning!

Gone to the Dark Side

Spinning!?!?

I can no longer resist the urge to spin.

Blame Meghan from the Stitch It Podcast and Brooklyn Tweed. After fighting this bug for a few months, it's no longer possible to resist.

So last week I ordered this



my very first drop spindle.

It's workable, but not great. The Etsy vendor isn't a spinner, and it isn't well balanced. The main benefit is that it can be either a top whorl or bottom whorl spindle.

I also went on a fiber binge. The first purchase to arrive was this little number from tehandehness on etsy.



This is "Grizzly", a domestic wool blend. It is very pretty, and the colors are so me. It's a soft muted pink, with not-too-bright teal and brown. And it's gonna become my first handspun EVAR.

I don't plan on using this yarn as anything but a decoration. It will be thick and thin and slubby, but when plied it will be very very pretty.

Over the next two weeks I want to try and post every day (hah!) with my progress.

Back Home
Last weekend I went back home for my little sister's graduation. I knit a grand total of 3 stitches (one row of a finger tip for my Dad's gloves). We were too busy doing stuff.

Like taking ATM-surveillance-quality photos of ourselves in the fish-eye lens of the side view mirror of an AT&T truck



and watching my youngest sis lead the pledge at her graduation.



What would they have done if she didn't show? Find someone else who knows the pledge? I jest. We're proud of her, there were a lot of people there, and she did great.