Oodles of spindles

I'll start with a quick kitty update, because they really have been my main focus since yesterday and any crafty activities have been slotted around them.  They need sympathy at the moment so if one of them climbs into my lap then my project gets put down right away.  Izzy is not a happy cat at all, she did a monumental upchuck just after she got home and again in the night and she just looks a bit sad.  We are hoping she'll perk up soon but we're keeping an eye on her.  Billie is like a new cat though, she's been my little shadow and is behaving herself beautifully, long may it continue!

Anyway, cats aside I've managed to get a little spinning done, mainly to try out my two new spindles.  Here's my little collection in a rather lovely painted jam jar that my friend Marion made me about 13 years ago.

The front two are the new ones, the one on the left was sold on eBay by someone who'd got it as part of a kit but hadn't taken to spinning and the second one was from this seller who makes them.  I tried to take a nice close up of this but it hasn't worked too well.  You can just make out the notch at the bottom which allows you to turn the whole thing over and use it as a bottom whorl instead.  I like it a lot, it has nice little details and it came with a small amount of fibre which meant I could check out how it spins without starting on any of my fibre.

 And, just quickly, because I mentioned it once and never took a picture, here is my plain boring sock I started at Christmas using yarn I dyed with Kool-Aid waaay back.  I've kind of ground to a halt because of other projects but here it is.

Spin, spin, spin

All advice I've read about learning to spin mentions spinning a bit every single day, so I have been.  I must say that this seems to be doing the trick and I really feel like I'm starting to get there.  The photo above probably doesn't look all that impressive, but I'm really rather proud of myself.  I was expecting my first yarn to come out really thick and thin, but this is mostly thin and a bit thinner.  It is by no means consistent yet but it is not as wildly varied as I thought it would be.  The plan for this is to spin until the bottle green runs out and then spin another strand out of a lighter green and then ply the two together and see what I end up with.

I've ordered a load more top in various different colours, as well as some to dye myself and hopefully if will arrive soon so that I can take some pictures.  Now obviously if I have all this tempting fibre on the way I'm going to need more spindles.  Much as I wish that I could be the type of person who is 'project monogamous' I'm just not, so I've been busy crafting my own spindles.

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They don't have hooks in yet so I have no idea how they spin, but they are only made from chopsticks and fimo so it won't break my heart if they turn out to be sucky.  I've also got a length of dowel to use so I can make some that are a bit meatier than these dainty little things.

Believe it or not I have actually also found some time for knitting.  The back of Stu's cardigan is done and I'm about 1/4 of the way up the right front..  I'd love to take a picture but every time I try there is magically a cat in the way.  Maybe I'll try again when they are eating or chasing the laser pointer or something.  So in lieu of a cardi pic here's a pic of the chief photo bomber herself.

Izzy cat