Spinning Again

I know it hasn't been as long as it seems, but it feels like it's been forever since I've been spinning... at least a couple, three weeks. So I've set myself out to spin all week to get back into my zen spin groove, which I'm seriously needing.

I have a lovely 4oz of handdyed norwegian wool that I've set my sights on spinning into sock yarn. So, on Monday, I weighed and divided it out into even parcels, one for each sock. I had a little left over for a sample that I spun up immediately, into a 3-ply sock yarn size, about 22 yards. I used my Matchless with the 15:1 whorl and spun the singles into a fine, smaller than lace-weight singles and navaho plied it. And the resulting yarn is lovely. I mean, really lovely, with nice twist and a beautiful sheen.

But I'm a math gal, ... just drawn to figuring out the numbers...so I just had to do the computing to extrapolate the yards and ounces of my sample and figure out if I would have enough yards for my socks if I continued on with the plan. Turns out, if I spun up the 1.85 oz I'd divided for each sock, using the very same technique, I'd end up with less than 300 yds total for both socks. Not quite the weight of socks I had in mind.

So tonight, I changed my wheel whorl to the 17-1/2 ratio, high speed, and began spinning a finer yarn. It's fun because it's been a very long time since I've used my high-speed whorl and I can see how quickly the twist enters the fiber at the same treadling speed, allowing me to spin finer with virtually no extra effort!

I think I'll still do a navaho/chain-ply with this, and am really excited about how it's looking. Of course, it's so easy to amuse me with spinning!!

Once I get this done, I'm going to spin up the April fiber colorway. It is a fiber I think you will like and it's all about spring in central Texas. I love driving through central Texas in Spring... why?  it's all about wildflowers, no??

For you non-spinners, don't worry about all the spinning technicalities... there is spun yarn dyed and ready to go in the colorway of the month.

(psst... take a drive up TxHwy 21 between Bastrop and Paige and you will see the colors bursting!)