Spinning My Wheels

 It was a migraine type of day. So needless to say it was a green tea type of day too.  To relax I decide to do some spinning. I had a 4 ounce package of red Merino and fire star which I spun on my Lendrum DT. Next I plied it with some white Merino for a Barber Pole effect on my Louet Victoria.  I will skein the yarn tomorrow and then do the hot bath.  

It’s time to call it an early night. So TTFN.  

Day 2 Spin Together 2021

 As you can tell from the picture below I am super into Spin Together 2021.  On the right side is my Louet Victoria I am currently spinning a white single to ply with my art yarn.  I will also doing my plying on this wheel. I have never noticed before that undyed arm is smoother and easier on the hands than dyed yarn to spin. It must be something in the dyes that effects the fiber and how it feels.  Now I now why so many spinners spin the raw fiber and dye it later.  

In the middle is my Cubii2  so that I remember to get my exercise in.   On the left is my LendrumDT for do my first spins.   I might even do some art yarn singles on it.  On the fireplace are my 2 baskets of warp and weft for weaving.  Since all my Spin Together 2021 yarn will be for charity work I had better get my loom running too   

I currently have 4 bobbins that need to be plyed.  I have also found that 1 1/2 hours seems to be my maximum amount of time that I can sit and spin without hurting. So I am sad to say that I won’t be adding much yardage to my team’s total.  

It’s time to get some rest so that I can try to have a productive day tomorrow.  

Going Batty

 This afternoon I carded over a dozen batts form bits and pieces of fiber. Some were just the leftovers from other spinning projects. Some were samples of various fibers. The only things that they will now have in common are they are one of a kind batts and once they are spun up they will be going into handwoven scarfs for the children’s clothing bank in the Flowing Wells School District here in Tucson.  

I am very thankful that Vicky from Grandma’s Spinning Wheel in Tucson was able to get me new drive bands for my Louet Victoria even though they were not in the catalog.  Vicky is simply amazing.  My Victoria is 2 years old and this will be the first drive band replacement.  Just remember when your drive band starts to get loose it’s time to replace them.  

Here is a very small sample of the mini batts. I think that this is box 2 or 3.  I used my Ashford Art Drum Carder.  Vicky carries those too and can ship to your house.   Another few days of carding and I will move on to spinning these.  The bits and pieces that are not relevant to any color way will go into a box to be carded later.  I will empty the last of 3 laundry baskets tomorrow. By the way a laundry basket can hold a lot of fiber.  This is a very small part of my deep cleaning projects. Make it useful or dump it.  

What to Do With Lace Weight Yarn

For those of you who know me well, you know that after 20 years of knitting I still don’t have time to knit lace or socks. This should read that I usually need mindless knitting.  So I decided to ply my lace and sock weights yarns into yarn for charity hats. 

An elegant solution to having too much lace weight yarn.  I took 2 skeins of lace weight yarn and did the 1st spin in an S ply. It was still to thin to knit hats with. So I wound the yarn into a cake and Z plied from both the inside and outside together. Tomorrow I will skein it and give it a hot bath to set the twist then track and hang dry. Below is a nicely balanced 4 ply yarn. The sock yarn will only need to be plied once. 

Normally I do my plying on my Louet S15, but in this case I used my Louet Victoria for the second round of plying because it was easier on my right leg.  The S15 is a single treadle Wheel, while the Victoria is a double treadle Wheel.