Holidays are for handspinning

After Christmas - even before Christmas - crafty people who are at all free with their e-mail addresses receive a positive barrage of e-mails from every imaginable yarn company pitching Boxing Day Sales.  As a gift knitter with a freshly depleted yarn supply, I can be pretty vulnerable to these pitches, but this is also the time I'm thinking about pruning and grooming what's left of the yarn supply.

All of which is to say that for a short time last week I considered treating myself to some belated Christmas presents, and then I realized the perfect present from me to me was time to spin up some of the gorgeous roving that's built up in my stash.  It's a great way to make space, and it's an even better way to restock with very special, very soft, bulky yarns for future fast gift knits.

My goal for Saturday, after I'd finally cleared off my wheel from the endless reign of mohair sock singles, was to plow through two or maybe even three braids of roving, so that I could ply on Sunday.  Faster delivery even than an express courier!  And I knocked off my first two choices in about three hours.

Both of them are single braids from Twisted Fiber Art clubs, destined I suppose to be (more) cowls as that seems to make the best use of them.  On the left, we have Posies:

And on the right, Juliet:

It wasn't even lunchtime once these were done, so I prepped another Twisted roving called Hijinx.

Which I also spun up into singles after determining my drafting hand wasn't sore yet.

Lesson learned: bulky yarn is not just faster to knit, it's faster to make.  And a good thing too, because this is just the tip of the iceberg and I've just joined another Twisted roving club.  Wish me luck (and drop back in later for the post-plying pictures, heh.)