Friday, October 10, 2014

The next-to-last part of spinning

Folks, I finally finished plying all of July's spinning fest!  Well, maybe not all of it.  There was this one double braid I wasn't paying attention to and spun up into what appears to be fingering weight, which takes so. much. longer. to ply that I had to give up and save that batch for another month.  That decision freed me up to do this:


Yep, wind all the rest into skeins, so I could soak it in Soak.  See that plastic-bag-filled basket in the background there?  Guess what that's all full of.

Let's recap this whole process, while we're here.  First you divide the roving up for spinning, and then you spin the singles, and then you ply (or not, if the singles are what you were after), and then you skein and soak it (or not, if you are going to weave with it), and then you dry and cake it, and then - only then! do you get to knit with it.

Seriously, who would do this?  why not just buy yarn at the shop?  I must be crazy.  I never think that when I am falling in love with the next puffy cloud of colour, but I sure do when I am winding all the handspun into skeins.


And of course, there is so very much of it all.  To save time, I didn't make note of the weight of each ball or count how many yards were going on to the swift.  I just don't care at this point; most of what I spin is a pretty consistent weight these days, and I am pretty sure I can just eyeball each yarn to see what sort of gauge I can expect to have.


Also in the interest of time, I didn't check my watch at the start or finish of the whole extravaganza.  It seemed safer not to know.  Anyway, it all got skeined in the end.


From there, I took it down to the laundry room for its bath.  I learned the hard way that the yarn stays relatively untangled if you put it into little mesh bags before you put it into a washer full of Soak and water, by which I mean 'before you do the spin about twenty minutes after that.'


I sometimes think I will never have enough of these little mesh bags... I put my handknit socks into them when it's their turn for a bath, too.  Makes life much easier.

Now I have to wait for it all to dry and then I get to go back to the swift and ball winder.  Can't wait!

(oh, and guess what I found when I came back upstairs to wait through the soaking stage?  yep, three more balls of plied yarn I forgot I had.  GAH.)

This coming weekend is Thanksgiving here in Canada, and believe me, I have a lot to be thankful for.  Including you guys!  Let's all celebrate by getting in some really good crafting time.  I have really missed being able to sit down and make stuff, these last few weeks, and I am really looking forward to a nice long knit.  Hope you are too, and I'll see you back here on Monday.

No comments: