Thursday, September 11, 2008

Spinning around and around

If I take time to go get the camera, take pics, upload pics, etc, I'll never get a post done. Besides, it's night and too dark to photograph brown yarn...
So, anyway.
I finished spinning a third bobbin of alpaca singles, and got them plied. I was shooting for a heavier yarn - at least a sport-weight and hopefully something close to worsted. We'll see when I wash it to set the twist. I want to make some mittens, specifically some World's Warmest Mittens. My Wicked (Good) Stepmother, who gave me the alpaca fleeces, requested thrummed mittens like I made Madman last Christmas. (Please forgive the supreme crappiness of the pics in that post - new blogger, what can I say...) I would make W(G)S anything she asked for, even if she hadn't given me alpaca fleeces...
I'll try to document the process this time. As far as I know, I'm the only one combining thrums with colorwork - but then again, EZ said we all unvent things.
In the meantime, I finally worked out a way to ply right down to the end of the singles, even with unevenly loaded bobbins. When I hit the end of bobbin 1, I broke off the single from bobbin 2 just a few inches longer. Then I overlapped the ends and squdgled them together to form a loop. By pulling the sole-surviving single through this phony loop, I was off and running with a Navaho ply. When that one ran out, I spit-spliced the single I'd broken off earlier, and woohoo - good to the last drop.
Maybe everyone else already knew this, but hey, I'm self-taught here... I enjoy my little victories!
Pics tomorrow.

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