forgetgutenberg

This needs to not happen again.

So. I pulled out the stockpot. I dumped all my skeins of newly spun yarn into it. I took it downstairs. I sorted skeins. I tried to remember not to stick my hand in the (very) hot water. I started with the burgundy, which is the oldest, and the beautifully balanced burgundy-green-brown (it’s much nicer than that sounds, trust me), and (hopefully) set the twist. I put it on a towel. Then it was the weird fibers’ turn, the milk and the soy. They needed vinegar. Oh, my, did they need vinegar. I should’ve taken a picture of the water the green skein cooked in. It was lovely. Ok. There’s a little cashmere, and some merino. Oh, hey, there’s that lavender tussah silk merino blend. Whoops, the tiny skein from an unidentified sheep. Huh. A tiny skein of red I don’t even remember plying. Is that it? No, there’s another skein of merino tencel stuff. Enough, already.

… needless to say, I spent quite a lot of the evening cooking yarn. And it is a very good thing that we’ve got a pink bathtub. Think about it for a second.

(And, despite my joking about cooking the really terrifying spaghetti, none of my housemates have tried to eat any of it. Even after I tell them that one of the yarns is a tofu-byproduct. Interpret that how you will.)

Also, I have a very good drying rack, but I might need to invest in a larger model…

The singles on my wheel are feeling sad and neglected. Having only one functional bobbin is a little bit of a problem. But they’re lovely proto-yarn, in my always humble opinion.

Ka-pow!

I am like unto a superhero of spinning. I seem to be falling down on that last step, though, in which one sets the twist so one can actually do something useful with the yarn. There is a paper bag of really lovely yarn – some fantastic red wool I spun on the wheel at Mind’s Eye, some blue merino I spun on the drop spindle, a couple of skeins of soy silk – which needs to be cooked, and in a couple of cases whacked against the side of a nice convenient bathtub. I don’t know what I’m going to do with any of it. I’ve contemplated selling it. I’m not convinced that it’s quite good enough to sell, at least the skeins I finished before I started to actually learn how to ply properly.

Not to mention the fact that I still only have the one bobbin for my wheel, and I am not Andean plying a whole bobbin worth of singles. That would not be a proper Andean plying bracelet – I believe we’re talking a couple of armwarmers, and possibly an anklet as well, which would be uncomfortable at the very least.

One suspects that one might need to work on learning how to weave, just to have something to do with the particularly … interesting … yarn that one has made. (I refer, in this case, to some wool I spun about two years ago when I was first learning. It’s so overspun that it didn’t relax at all after cooking and thwapping, and it’s a pretty chunky single, and … well, it’s also the sort of wool which is primarily scratchy and not so much pleasant to work with or wear. Which is absolutely related to the quality, or lack thereof, in its spinning.)

I managed to misplace the treadle to my sewing machine, which caused a rather lengthy hiatus in quiltmaking. Fortunately, it has been rather warmish, and I’ve retrieved it from its very safe concealment, so perhaps that will get back onto my active projects list. I’ve got most of a quilt top made, from my own scraps, and a large number of squares made by my great-grandmother (I think) which ought to be enough for another quilt top. I might manage to make it through this winter in fairly warm comfort, what with the comfy wool socks, if I manage to finish one of those and the coat. Yes, I also have a coat, in bright red wool (so bright and perky, so unlike me), with a nice fleecy lining, cut out but not sewn together. There’s plenty to be done, and now I have no excuse – the treadle is no longer missing, and I’ve got a desk which is nearly perfect for sewing on – except the usual procrastinatory impulse. If this winter doesn’t motivate me, maybe the next one will. I’m not fussed.

But the spinning is really interfering with my knitting.