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Friday 22 March 2013

Handspun madness

When I had a look back at the last year and all of my projects I noticed that despite thinking I’d had very little time for making things I appear to have spun rather a lot.
Sparkly BFL from tops from FeltStudioUK
 Now I actually think about it’s clear to see how it happened.  Back when Cassie was a tiny tiny baby I didn’t knit much because I often had to attend to her at a moments notice, meaning that I kept losing my place and had no idea where I’d got to.  Spinning isn’t like that though and I found that even by spinning for a few minutes here and there I was achieving quite a lot. 
Self striping singles from batts from Nunoco
 Before too long Miss Cassie was perfectly happy to lie on the floor and amuse herself for short periods of time and she absolutely loved to watch the spinning wheel go round and round.  During that period I got loads done, but before long she was on the move, first rolling, then crawling and cruising and now walking and I had to move my wheel into the dining room where production slowed.  It was then I discovered spinning thick and thin singles and found I could spin 100g in an hour or two – hooray!
Thick and thin singles from batts from Yummy Yarns
 I don’t really want to spin all of my yarns this way, but it really can’t be beat for a bit of instant gratification.  At the moment my wheel is still tucked away out of Cassie’s reach, but the dining room is right next to the kitchen, so I can usually find a few minutes to spin while I cooking dinner or at the weekend while she has a bit of Daddy time.
 At the moment I am working on my biggest spinning project to date.  I won 300g of alpaca fleece on eBay and I’m now working my through it in 25g batches.  I’m hand carding it together with 10g mohair and a hint of sparkle and then spinning the resulting rolags longdraw (my first longdraw project).  At the moment I just have one bobbin full , but when I have 3 I’ll ply them together and then start again until it’s all gone.  So far I’m really enjoying it, I wonder how long it will take me to finish though.
Lovely rolags

1 comment:

Renee Anne said...

Admittedly, I haven't spent much time spinning since we moved to California in July. I haven't been knitting as much as I'd like, either. ::sigh::

When Little Man was little, I discovered that if I knit "boring" projects while he was awake, I did okay (dishcloths, plain hats, etc.). I saved the more complicated things for after he was in bed. I still do it that way, actually :)