This poor blog has been neglected. I have been knitting, but instead of posting about my knitting, I have been more interested in actually knitting these days. But I do want to keep a record of my work and so I'm going to try to be a little more consistent with the blog.
But the blog was nowhere near as dusty as my spinning wheel. The last time I used either wheel was shortly before Luke was born. Since I didn't think I would have much time to spin after he was born, I wanted to try to get stuff spun before he arrived. His 3-week early arrival meant that my planned spinning was cut short. Luke turned 10 months old yesterday. 10 months without spinning!
So today, I promised myself spinning time. Way back during the holiday season in 2010, I got a beautiful bit of alpaca to spin from my secret pal through our holiday exchange at my LYS. Beautiful and so soft. So very very soft (the picture doesn't do the softness justice).
I admit that I was nervous to spin it. What if I somehow ruined this lovely fiber. Besides, it felt so nice just to touch it. But I finally decided that I really wanted to see what kind of yarn it turned into. And I had a project in mind that I wanted to use it for (to knit a little stuffed alpaca!). So I spun the two singles a couple of weeks before Luke was born.
And there the yarn has sat for a little over 10 months. So today I plied the two singles together. It felt so glorious to be using my wheel again. And although I was just plied and not spinning from fiber (which I enjoy much more), I found it to be like riding a bike. My hands just remembered exactly what to do. Moving the pedals with my feet felt natural. Oh how I have missed this. The wheel will not be spending another 10 months unused and unloved. No way.
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| Plied together |
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| On the niddy noddy: 89 times around which makes a bit over 130 yards |
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| Taking its first bath. |
The alpaca yarn is currently drying. I did overtwist it a bit but I'm hoping that I was able to get some of that out during the bathing (and whacking) process. I'm looking forward to it being dry to see how it feels. I'm sure it won't be as soft as it was as fiber, but I'm hoping that it will be a lovely yarn to use to knit my little stuffed alpaca.
In knitting news, I dusted off a project I had started just after Luke was born -- a scarf of my own design. I changed a couple of parts of the design, ripped out the couple of inches I had already done and started over with the updated design. I then wrote up the pattern (with a chart even!) and it is currently being test knitted by a group of fantastic volunteers on Ravelry. I'll post pictures and more details when I finish my own version and the pattern test knit has been completed.
I have quite a few other projects on the needles, but I haven't had a chance to take pictures of them yet, so I'll write more about them when I have pictures to accompany the post. For now, I feel good about doing some dusting today and am rewarding myself with some knitting time this evening. I have to finish that scarf--I can't let one of my test knitters finish theirs before me!
