Last weekend, Bob was gone to Columbus to visit his parents, and I went to a spinning get-together. One of the spinners sent out an email to the group that she had a couple of wheels she was interested in selling, and, well, one thing led to another and...
This is Nancy, the lovely woman who sold it to me.
The wheel itself is a Kromski Mazurka, a wheel that's been on my short list for some time. I got a very good deal on it as well, and I think it'll keep me busy for a while. It's versatile enough, going from single to double drive, and has a wide range of ratios, making a variety of yarns possible. I'm not really interested in the super-chunky and novelty type yarns. I seem to be settling in pretty well to fingering weight to aran weight, three ply yarns as my most comfortable range. I'm keeping the Babe, of course, for travel spinning and plying, I'm not quite up to speed on plying with the Kromski yet.
It's a very pretty wheel, too. I like the walnut finish more than I expected I would.
So I've been pretty busy with the new wheel.
(that was just Saturday and Sunday last week!)
Then this fingering weight CVM that I had laying around...
I have a specific pair of socks in mind for Husbandman with this IF it will work. It might not. I'm going to have to try it and see.
Right now I'm spinning this gorgeous superwash merino in a colorway called "london fog" that I got from a destash on Ravelry. The colors are terrific, coming out more silver and slate than grey and black as they're spun.
The second bobbin of this is my first try at spinning with the double drive set up. I hope it doesn't end in disaster. It's a lot faster, for one thing. For another thing, it's a different feel to controlling the fiber. Hard to explain. Not precisely more difficult, just different and will take some getting used to it. I'm excited though, I love learning new things and this has me doing some serious Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning reading.
My mother came over yesterday to watch the Steeler game (which sucked) and eat dinner and learn to spin on a spindle. (which didn't suck) I made a fab pork roast in the crock pot and veggies and potatoes. I was quite surprised that my mother expressed an interest in spindling, as she isn't the most patient person in the world, but apparently she picked herself up a drop spindle at some point last week and couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure it out either, really, it had a half-hitch arrangement that we couldn't quite reason and I ended up giving her my annie may spindle to use. She took to that one pretty quickly. I also loaned her my "teach yourself visually" book. It was fun times.
In knitting, not a lot going on. I'm still crawling along on the Baby Surprise Jacket, and the Woodland Shawl, but most of my at-home craft time has been devoted to getting to know the new wheel. I did finish the Beaded Rib socks for #1 daughter and started a pair for #2 daughter.
I love the colors on that yarn. It's DK Technicolor Dream Toes.
This one is Trekking XXL but I don't know what colorway as I got it pre-caked in a destash a while ago. No ballband.
Heck, I don't actually even know if it's Trekking XXL. It might be something else altogether. It sure doesn't feel like the Trekking Handart I made the Hedera socks for myself from.
There's been a minor amount of blogging going on over at the Fritz Blitz. (see sidebar) I've decided to try to blog regularly there as well, probably focusing on the Penguins and the NHL but who knows what else might come up.
I'm starting to get a serious backlog of handspun yarns now. I might have to set up an etsy shop after all. I can't imagine knitting it all. I suppose I could do craft fairs or something like that but those are seldom lucrative. Maybe someone else who sells regularly could consign for me. I have a lot to think about in that department. All I know is my yarn stash keeps getting bigger.
Until next time.
1 comment:
Oooooh! Shiny colors!
Maybe you and I should do some kind of craft challenge to make ourselves use all the gorgeous materials we've collected.
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