winged orange

I was up late last night. Way late. Later than I’ve been up since I graduated college. I was working on something, and I really wanted to have it finished last night so I have a prayer of using it on Sunday. I was finishing up the spinning on Moonwalker. When I bought it in October, it looked like this:

And after only five days of spinning this week, it now looks like this:

If I were any more in love with this stuff, it would probably be criminal. The fiber in the batt is Corriedale, dyed by Grafton Fibers (colorway 502, striped batt, if anyone wants one ;). I spun it up to a heavy laceweight/light fingering weight singles yarn. I haven’t checked the wpi yet because it’s still drying, but there’s about 400 yards there.

This was a learning experience for me. First of all, I love Corriedale wool, which shouldn’t surprise me, because Corriedale is half of cormo (the other half is merino), and cormo is one of my favorite fibers. I don’t like dyed black wool; those parts were such a bitch to spin because the dye just bleaches all the softness right out of the fiber. The rest of it, though, the purples and the blues, were wonderful! They spun themselves, I swear. This was my first project spinning just for singles, rather than splitting the fiber in half or more to ply. I also used my high-speed whorl for the first time, which was different, but nice. I loved not having to kill myself treadling to get enough twist in the yarn, but I definitely went overboard and overspun parts of it. When I took the skein off the niddy noddy, it twisted up on its own from the excess twist. I ran it through the wheel again in the opposite direction (to mimic the plying I’m not doing) to take some of the twist out. I also wasn’t very nice to the yarn when I finished it. I wanted to full it a little, to both soften and strengthen it, so I did two shock cycles: quick dunk in boiling water, then a quick dunk in ice water. Then back in the boil, back in the ice. After that, I squeezed the excess water out, took it outside, and beat the daylights out of it. I estimated 40 thwacks, but really, it was probably closer to 80. My neighbors were probably wondering why I was outside in my pajamas beating something around at 9:30 in the morning on a 24-degree day. Worth it, though – all that roughhousing, and the skein drying in my bathroom only twists about a quarter-turn at the very, very bottom. And it’s so soft. I win! At least, I win the spinning round. After my last hot mess, I will not get cocky.

I’m going to use it to make a Rivolo scarf, so I actually have more than it says I need, but for the sake of the color sequence, I’m going to knit until I run out of yarn. I’m going to buy the pattern tonight, and since I was productive and stayed up late last night finishing the spinning and removing twist, the yarn can have all day today to dry so I can start my scarf tomorrow!

In other news, I was cruising some of the forums on Ravelry, and one person is planning on making four of these cute beaded clutch purses for herself and her three bridesmaids for her wedding in June. I can’t see things like that, because then I start getting ideas. I’m trying not get too excited about any wedding-related activities yet because we aren’t officially engaged (within the next six months, I hope, but not yet), but…I love these purses. I know we’re all getting fedoras – the boys are all going to get black ones, and the girls are all going to get white ones with silver ribbons (except mine; mine will have a blue ribbon), but how cute would it be for all of us to have purses, too? The girls’ could be white with blue beads and mine could be blue with white beads. Only problem is, we’re planning on seven attendants on each side (I know, I know. We have a lot of good friends, and Scott has two sisters), so that’d be eight clutches I’d have to make and I might lose my mind.

I need to think that one over, especially since I can’t sew. But…man. How pretty would that be?! I feel a grand plan coming on. This is not good.

Tags: batt, fiber, Knitting, moonwalker, Photos, Spinning   Posted General, Knitting, Photos, Spinning |