Spinning Wheel

Yes, this is still a song title, just a particularly appropriate one. Today I decided to spin. I haven't in months, but I was in the mood today. It's amazing how much it's like riding a bike. My fingers still remembered what to do, and I was still able to spin as if I had not taken a break. (With the exception that my fingers are tired and will likely be tomorrow as well.)

I choose a merino hand blended batt that I bought from Sugar Bee Studios on Etsy. It was a four oz batt called "Politically Incorrect One Night Stand Fiber Batts" in color way Valentino. It was a nice easy spin and and it was a nice choice to start back into spinning, as there was only enough for one skein. I did a light worsted weight yarn. I'm thinking about making fingerless mitts out of it.

The first picture is the batt before I started spinning. The next pictures are the bobbin as I filled them up with single ply yarn













The last pictures are: the skein after I've plied it together (twisting two singles together to make a 2 ply yarn) having wound it off onto a niddy noddy; the skein after being taken off the niddy noddy; and the skein twisted into a hank.














The one bad thing is that the connector to one of my treadles broke. I was able to fix it, but I'm going to need to research getting a repair kit for the Lendrum.

During guild today, I managed to get to the toe on the sock I'm working on. I'm going to have to think about my next big project. I'm still close enough to the end of the shawl that I don't want something too crazily masochistic, but I do want a bigger project that uses a lot of stash yarn.

Yesterday was our second writing group meeting. I thought it went very well, and I am very much enjoying it. The women in the group are so interesting and talented. It's been very interesting to discuss our writing processes with each other.

Helene made a comment on my last blog about how I was pacing myself with the writing. Because I have so many things I want to do or that I have to do, it really hasn't been an issue yet. I don't have hours and hours to get carried away in. So mostly what I've been doing is scheduling a two hour block here, a half an hour there, or so on. The most I've actually written at one time was four hours, but that's because I was "making up" a two hour block I skipped. And even though it's fun, there's a lot of thinking involved, and I seem to need breaks to process. I've been having flashes about the story and plot at odd times like in the shower in the morning. I make a note and then I think about it some more to decide if that's really where I want to go. Or I'm trying out scenes in my head driving in or home from work. But I don't seem to have any problem getting up to go do something else when my scheduled time is up.

And speaking of which, I'm out of time on this blog post broadcast. Join us next time at our regularly scheduled time.