When new spinners start out, the yarn they make is pretty thick. It’s a well-known fact that the better you get at spinning, the thinner you spin, until eventually most spinners have to relearn how to spin thicker again. I’m finding myself having this issue with my newest spinning experiment. It’s a Merino/Finn/baby alpaca blend from Countess Ablaze. Lovely stuff, and easy to spin fine. And I just learned last night how to long draw on a spindle, and to my amazement I can make a singles as thin as thread. Spinners jokingly refer to that thickness as “frog hair.” I did that for a bit, fascinated, but then realized that oh yeah, I would never knit with something that skinny. Even plied it would be tiny. So I’m forcing myself to make a thicker singles. It’s still thin enough that it’ll be fingering weight when plied, but that I can work with. I’m comfortable knitting or weaving with fingering weight. Frog hair, not so much.
It’s also delightful how lofty it is. I frequently get yardage envy with other spinners. On my wheel I usually get 150-175 yards out of 100 grams of wool. (Yes, many of us mix our measurements.) And then I see people saying “oh, I got 320 yards out of 100g” and I get jealous because I can’t do that. I know it’s silly, especially because I don’t like weaving/knitting with yarn that’s either really thin or else is really lofty, but it still feels like a gauntlet being thrown. Maybe eventually I’ll make something like that just to earn the cheevo, but in the meantime I want to make yarn that I like/want to use. So I will continue with this batch of yarn to fight the urge to make frog hair, even though it’s cool that I can do that now.
I’m also continuing to make my purple MIRLA Bitty Batts into yarn.
Five spindles’ worth done, another 3-ish to go. Getting very bored with this yarn. I may let it hibernate for a bit after I finish the current spindle’s worth. Or maybe I’ll ply some. Dunno yet.
And yesterday at the doctors’ offices I got some more done on my travel spindle (the one that lives in my messenger bag for when I go out).
So that’s my current spinning stuff. Haven’t been knitting, or using my wheel. Just spindling and weaving right now. Which is okay. I’m still having fun.
transknition 