let's see if I remember how to do this...

Well, now that I've neglected the blog for over a month and completely lost any readers I might once have had, it seems a good time to reveal that I am now completely, devotedly, overwhelmingly obsessed with spinning.

I've learned a great thing about knitting in the last month or so: that its start-up costs are very low. Buy a couple of pairs of needles, a skein or two of yarn, download some simple beginner pattern from the internet, and poof! You're a knitter.

Not so with spinning. What follows is a sort of tour of my recent spinning acquisitions. Please be gracious and DO NOT add up everything I've spent on this stuff, and especially do not email that information to me or to anyone related to me. The good news here is that in addition to a new obsession, I also have a few new jobs, so it's all coming out more or less even.

Now then, here is my spinning wheel.
Yep, it's a Ladybug. I pretty much love it. I mostly love how cute it is, and how well-constructed, and how modernist it is in its construction and design. It spins well, too, although I am still learning. I'd like a smoother and mellower take-up, but I think I'll adjust (and keep tinkering).

Here's Little, treadling away:
I'm spinning every day, but mostly not on the wheel. At some point in the last month or so, I ordered a few spindles from Carolina Homespun, and wow! I love spindling more than I love knitting! That big fancy spinning wheel up there is mostly being used for plying, because I am doing the vast majority of my spinning on spindles. They're portable, they're beautiful, they're impeccably made, and they are completely trouble-free. If you can spin, you can spin on a spindle. The wheel is relatively fussy: get it out of whack in some way and you're not spinning. There is nothing to go wrong with a spindle. And so, I have (ahem) more than a few.
In the vase is a Schacht Hi-Lo, a big one made by Jim at Susan's Spinning Bunny, and a Cascade Shuksan. The tiny ones are a Bosworth mini and a delightfully light and pretty one by True Creations. Here's a close-up:

The little True Creations spindle has some pygora on it, which comes from a goat (!) which would be my first ever non-sheep spinning. It is incredibly soft, and very slippery.

Here's a Cascade Mt. St. Helens with some merino and silk:
And a sweet small True Creations spindle, with some Ashland Bay merino on it:
And my very first favorite, bestest spindle, also by Jim at True Creations:
It's bigger than any of my other spindles, and it spins f o r e v e r. When I first started spinning on it, I kept looking down to see if I needed to give it another whirl, and it was just spinning. Still. Over and over, it just kept spinning. It's now got me completely spoiled.

in which we (attempt to) resume our previously scheduled life...

My identity theft problem is not over yet, but it feels contained. I still have plenty to do, but it has ceased to be an all-day-every-day crisis. I have thoughts about the whole process (advice! ruminations! wonderment!) but I'll save those for another day.

Today, it's all show and tell. Here is some yarn I spun:

Here is the yarn I'm currently spinning, along with the only spinning equipment I have at the moment:

I've sold my spinning wheel, to a friend who is delighted, and I've ordered a different wheel, which will delight me even more, with any luck. More on this later.

My spindle is sitting in an improvised lazy kate, otherwise known as a section of tree branch with a hole in it, carefully cut and drilled by Joe himself. It actually functions quite well. I use it to hold the spindle upright while I wind the single into a ball. I've been plying using the flowerpot method, in which each ply is in a ball with the end going through a hole in the bottom of a flowerpot. It works great, and doesn't require a tensioned lazy kate. The balls stop rolling around when you stop pulling on them. Low-tech, effective, love it.





Joe's also been working on this:
He's doing a way better job than he really has to be doing, but I can't complain. It's going to look great. I'm supposed to get out there and start painting, but I want all the sanding done first. Really, I'm so difficult, aren't I?

The garden blooms whether you notice it or not, this time of year:

first ever spinning FO

These are my new socks, finished while we were away at the beach, knit from handspun 3-ply blue-faced Leicester. The leg and instep are a simple k2 p2 rib. The yarn turned out much fatter than most sock yarn I use, so I knit these on 1s with 56 stitches around.

It was an interesting experience, knitting with my handspun. I fretted from time to time over the unevenness of the yarn, but it knitted up just fine. I didn't do any reinforcing with nylon or anything else, just tried to ply it relatively firmly, hoping that would lend some strength. It will be interesting to see how these hold up.

I'm not much of a pink person, but I have been consciously seeking out pinks I can tolerate over the last year or so. I think these will be quite wearable.

in which elsie spins

You may have noticed from Monday's post that I've acquired a spinning wheel. I've now had it for almost a week, and I think it's time for a proper introduction. Here she is. I may name her (actually, I may already have named her) but I'm embarrassed to admit that I seem to have become the kind of person who ascribes gender and then names an object, as charming as that object might be, so I'm not quite up to telling you that her name is Jennie. So just forget all that, will you?
Jennie has been moving all over the house. She's a Baynes, and she's small, so I can spin out on the front porch, upstairs in my nook, downstairs in the living room, even outside in the backyard.
I got her second hand, after I tested a Baynes wheel at Susan's Spinning Bunny last Friday. Susan didn't have any in stock, which was just as well, since the retail price on a Baynes was just slightly out of my price range. I would have had to wait another few months, if it weren't for craigslist. A nice lady with four kids who needed the money sold the wheel to me on Sunday. It may be the first time in my life I haven't dickered on the price of a second-hand object. The lady really needed the money.
She has an integral lazy kate, which seems like a nice feature, and it is, but I've been learning to ply from a Schacht lazy kate with tension, and this is not as easy. I have to be much more careful and pay more attention when I'm plying. I essentially have to apply the tension with my fingers.
I've been a little disappointed with my first efforts, but I'm chalking it up to experience and moving on. Here are my first skeins, taking a bath.

monday in pictures

something

I'm tired at looking at all these words, so here's a picture of the spinning wheel I've started saving up for. It's a Schacht Ladybug. I've been learning to spin on a friend's Schacht Matchless, every Tuesday while Big One has his French lesson. Little plays with Legos in the living room while I spin in her dining room and Big learns French down the hall.

So I crept up to my room today for a couple of hours, to start the fact-checking and editing project I've agreed to do this week. It's clearly going to take some time to figure out how to manage all these competing priorities. You'll never believe what I served for dinner tonight. Smoothies and chips. Really. And the house is a mess. And the dishes are unwashed. And the cats are out of food.

But I earned a little money for my family, and the kids certainly didn't suffer. We still read together, and talked about the news, and did some math reasoning in the car on the way to the library in the morning. Big practiced his recorder, and Little is learning to count his blessings.