like a record, baby
A few months ago, I bought a learn to spin kit complete with drop spindle, booklet and a bit of indigo-dyed wool. I tried it at the time, got discouraged and put it in the black hole that my craft room has become lately. Well, I came across it again a few weeks backs and somehow...well, it just clicked this time.

And so my first bit of handspun yarn...


Granted, it looks very primitive, but the whole process became very addicting. So I headed out to the local fiber shop for more. Cottage Fiber is a cute little shop. Unfortunately, her landlord it selling the building and she's closing the shop on February 28th. She will still be selling stuff and teaching classes until she finds another suitable brick and mortar...but until then she's hibernating the business.

Anyway, she told me a bunch of helpful information on plying and fibers and all sorts of groovy stuff. I bought some alpaca and merino. I absolutely loved the alpaca so much that I went back a few days later to buy more of the same colorway.


Here's the alpaca...


This time, it's more consistent and I had much better luck at plying.

I haven't plied the merino yet, but the singles seem to be looking pretty good too.


It varies between something close to laceweight and fingering weight but I'll probably make socks out of it once it's plied.



This picture doesn't really show the yarn all that well, but it's such a cool shot that I had to post it. Can you tell I had fun taking the photos?

I had also bought some silk to spin but didn't like that so much. Probably because it snagged like crazy on my dry hands. It turned out well enough but I forgot to take pictures of that.

So, lots of spinning lately, not so much knitting. I never imagined I would have enjoyed spinning so much. It's incredibly soothing and meditative.

ETA: loved it so much, it's a userpic now!