This week, something has flipped in my head like a switch. Suddenly, my knitting attracts me not at all, and all I want to do is spin.
I started out by plying some singles that have been waiting for attention for months.
The plying took quite a lot of time. Probably 5 or 6 hours. I should start tracking this sort of thing.
I had some leftover Cathedral singles. Casting about, I found some leftover natural bi-color BFL singles. So I plied them with that. Three cheers for using up random singles from my stash.
All that plying was so much fun. I just couldn’t stop. But I’d run out of things to ply (or so I thought.)
So I dug into my fiber stash and came out with three bundles of fiber crying for attention:
- Dragonfly from Fiber Fanatic: A sparkly green bat of wool, mohair, silk and sparkles.
- A braid o 50/50 wool and llama, which the shop owner assured me was pure pleasure to spin.
- The remains of a rather large ball of silver Romney/Perendale. I love this stuff. It just wants to be yarn. It spins itself.
I decided to experiment with my long-draw technique, which I’ve been neglecting. It took longer than I would have thought to remind my body how to do it. How to feel the yarn grabbing and hooking into itself. How to pull at the right moment. I’ve only ever seen this in videos, so I have no real idea if I’m doing this right. Here’s are some addition fruits-of -the-wheel from the last week:
With all this spinning I’ve been doing, I’m very glad that I asked for a bobbin winder for Christmas.
*Pant, pant, pant*
After plying that lovely blue-green BFL last night, I just didn’t want to be done. So I went upstairs and plucked a ball of Polwarth top from my stash. After spinning two bobbins full of long-draw singles, I felt ready to try spinning worsted again. This fiber seems to want to be spun tight and smooth.
This should take me a while.
Related articles
- Saturday Morning Spinning (timesunion.com)
- spin, spin, spun :: Hello Yarn, all the time (earthchicknits.wordpress.com)
All She Wants To Do Is Knit 
You go, girl!!
That’s some mighty fine spinning and plying. I’ve plied up a few “sample” skeins using left-over singles, and it’s fun to experiment with blending different fibers and seeing what happens.
Wow so many pretty things! My wheel has been collecting dust the last few weeks I need to get back to it!
Wow, so much fiber goodness. It all looks amazing! I sometimes get on spinning kicks which is a nice break from knitting, and once I’m ready to knit again I have a whole new crop of yarn to try. Keep up the amazing work.
I find the more I spin, the more I want to neglect my knitting to spin. Similarly, the more I knit, the more I want to neglect my spinning to knit. I am easily swayed, I suppose.
Ha ha!! I have this inside joke about my blog name now. I only get to knit on the weekends now because I spend all week spinning one yarn, lol! I bounce back and forth though. Love to knit with what I spin when I can. It’s just the most amazing feeling when I knit to know I produced the yarn. I just look at it and am like, “I made that.” There’s always that feeling of WOW that comes after it.
This is ALL scrumptious!! I say, wherever your energy is at the moment, go with it! It could be worse. You could be doing (gasp) nothing at all!
I don’t think I can conceive of a day without fiber anymore.
Beautiful spinning!!! Love it all and have to echo … you go girl 🙂
Aw thanks.
Your yarn is gorgeous!
Thanks. I love the moment when I finally have a finished yarn it front of me. I just love the beauty of inconsistency.
Wow, you’re on a roll! It looks great!
Thanks. I really should try to motivate myself to do something else, like dishes.
Nah. Stick to knitting and spinning. The dishes can wait.
I have no clue about spinning, but whatever you are doing looks awesome and the COLOURS are stunning 🙂
Thanks. The colors are one of my favorite parts too. That juicy orange made me so happy the entire time I was spinning it.
Now that’s a lot of spinning and plying! It’s all gorgeous too. I’m kind of in a spinning streak too but you’ve got me beat.
I don’t know what my issue is right now. I guess I need the meditation. That could be it, actually…
[…] I’ve Been Spinning Like Mad (all-she-wants-to-do-is-knit.com) […]
You really make me want to learn to spin! Lovely blog!
love your spinning so beautiful !!
Thanks. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m drawn to it right now because I need extended meditation time. But I don’t do we’ll at holding still.
Gosh, how in the world did you get 1200 yards from 8 oz! I have tried and tried and the most I ever get is around half of that. The only thing I can figure is that my grist is too high, because I am spinning is finely enough to make a decent fingering weight yarn. Perhaps spinning woolen as opposed to worsted would help that? Back to the spinning wheel I go! Oh, and well done you 🙂 It is beautiful!!
As a fairly new spinner I don’t really Know what I’m doing half the time. All I can tell you is that I tried to spin very tight and smooth. It’s also possible that I plied a little less tightly than you would have ? Dunno.
[…] I’ve Been Spinning Like Mad (all-she-wants-to-do-is-knit.com) […]