I spent most of Sunday night working on chores that needed to get done, punctuated by furious bouts of spinning. Which is why my knitting progress has eased off, but still….spinning! I’m now at the point where I’m plying from a hugely packed bobbin that contains almost 200 grams of fibre. I overflowed onto a second bobbin for about two repeats of my 4-colour spinning rotation (orange -> gold w/pink or blue -> red and blue -> pink, purple and gold). I decided to navajo/chain ply, so the colours will be kept somewhat intact.
Of course, doing muliple loads of laundry got me to thinking that I really ought to wash a few other things, so once the kitchen sink was cleared and rinsed out, I dug out that skein of darker grey yarn that was so hard on my hands and gave it a soak. Ditto for a couple of skeins of handspun – one of which I know I haven’t soaked & thwacked, another that I wasn’t too sure on. The following picture illustrates why you should double check your skeins to make sure they’re secure before you dunk them into water.
Yep. That hot mess over there on the left is what happens when you don’t secure your skein. Yarn all over the freakin’ place. The blue is also handspun. I’m thinking I can probably get a pair of socks or a shawlette out of it. The multicoloured mess has since been untangled and wound into a ball. I will likely reskein it tomorrow. I think I can get something like a Baby Surprise Jacket out of it…that’s what the yarn is kinda telling me it wants to be. It’s a sorta DK/Sport weight.
This is also why I have to stop Navajo/Chain plying, and start actually doing two-ply yarns. I’m finding the triple strands are a little too thick, particularly with my still-inconsistent spinning skills. Hopefully that will change as I get better. Heck, I changed a bobbin last night and came to the realization that I’m missing a part for my wheel! There’s supposed to be a nut the keeps the Mother-of-All in place (that’s the part that holds the bobbin for you non-spinning folks), and it turns out that this piece is missing. As a result, the new bobbin wouldn’t line up with the wheel, dislodging my drive band. So hopefully Shuttleworks will have a replacement part (or I’ll get in contact with the fine folks at Schacht Spindle). Until then, I’m keeping it shimmed into place with a small stack of post-its.
Before anyone asks, I don’t know where the part went to. I’m not even sure that I even had it to begin with. If I did, it’s either in my basement, under a piece of furniture that’s hard to look under. I really wish I knew what happened to it!
In the meantime, get a load of my brand-new skein winder. If it looks familiar, it’s possibly because you’ve sat on it at some point during a visit. It does a remarkably good job, and tucks away until later for convenience 😉
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