Spinning again

corriedale2

We’re babysitting our inlaw “pup” since Thursday night, a 1 yo ADHD lab called Balto. Our cats are terrified, Arthur, perhaps needing medical attention to a war wound, won’t come in at all, but I was hoping that keeping the house divided in half would at least prevent any mad chasing. This also means I’ll have to stay in the room with the dog most of the time or he’d bark everyone’s heads off (even more than he does in my face). Morning, noon and in the middle of the night. When he’s not attempting to sleep on my feet. The three younger cats never met Max, they only knew an elderly and very sedate Molly.

trust a lab to be a stick connoiseur
trust a lab to be a stick connoiseur

I’d already planned to do something about my storage situation aka too much old spinning wool with no set purpose, so I got out my box of comb blended corriedale tops and decided to use it all up for learning to spin deliberately thick n thin. And for some reason the spinning wheel seems to calm the boy down for reasonable periods of time, so it’s not all that bad. Incidentally a 3 day storm, rain and temps meant for November means we won’t be all that active in the garden to feed our restlessness.

juli15

I haven’t spun much in ages apart from my ornery back yard fleeces, which are just being turned into a skinny 2-ply woolen, slubby, neppy boring yarn. So hoping the corriedale was suitably long fibered to not fall apart (I have a tendency to underspin my singles when I get into the flow of drafting and just pedal away), I got out the large whorl, looping the yarn over both flyer arms to reduce takeup = make up for lack of twist from the low ratio, and set to it nice and slow. It’s going pretty well although it’s more like a slim n medium…

corriedale1

Originally I thought I’d just spin fat singles to keep some of the subtle colours visible, I like heathered yarn a lot. But I’ve done that before, and I think I’m too much of a beginner to fall back on 2-3 house types of yarn, I need to keep investigating and pushing so that I can learn and stay creative.

Then I changed my mind to a 2-ply of one thicknthin + one thin, but since the difference won’t be very pronounced I think I’ll just be spinning everything the same, or as differently as they become as I practice, then ply. Unless the singles fall apart in the process. Perhaps I’ll even change my mind every time I change colour, although I’m planning to use them all for the same project after realizing each bundle was only 50g, not 100 as I thought I remembered. Perhaps ply with a common thread? Hmm, not feeling very creative after all! I guess I’ll just spin away and see if something happens. Proper thick n thin for instance. Not even sure that I like it. But it’s good to have that level of control, which makes it a worthy project in itself.

corriedale3

Spinning much more worstedy than usual, I’m breezing through this and basically think I could be done with the 750 g in a week. (Except that never happens of course, spinning 2-3 braids every day.) Great method for liberating shelves, and will hopefully give me a sweater that’s a bit tougher that the two sweaters I knit last year with softly spun commercial yarn. Pilling, felting… Not worth the effort to knit and knit and knit and then your garment looks fuzzy and shabby after one week of wear, honestly, no matter how beautiful the yarn was. Then remains to be seen how many meters I get from spinning more densely! It’s been a long time since I did that, I simply can’t be bothered with all the pinching and never understood the fuss about not getting twist in your fiber supply. TBC…

baltosnork
rare moment

3 thoughts on “Spinning again

    1. I’m hoping it’s just first days’ anxiety of being in a new place. Today it’s warm and he’s been able to be outside, so a bit calmer – although being tied to the flagpole while I practiced archery wasn’t popular. Great focus training for me…. (ARFARFARFARFFF)

      I suspect he’s a bit of a handful at home too, as it was jokingly mentioned that I was welcome to work on some training. General obedience stuff bores me like walking a snail, but we’re looking into the issue of floor vs. furniture as well as letting him search for his food 3x a day, making little trails on the lawn, slowly upping the challenge. No chase, tug or fetch, as this type of dog is unable to wind himself down after.

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