Over the summer I got into a spinning habit, honestly. It's im_just_lori's fault, I swear. She dragged me up to MDSW. Between the purchasing of wool, spindles, and silk supplies, I swear I couldn't stop!
That first one is a one oz sample of soysilk that came out to about 210 yards of two-ply laceweight. The second one is a one oz sample of yak that was about 90 yards (and never ask your husband what to do with 90 yards of laceweight yak, because he then replies with "don't ask me now honey, I'm eating dinner."). But the crowning achievement was the one oz sample of tussah silk that became over 600 yards of two-ply cobweb! Yes, you heard me, two ply cobweb! MMMM!!! I had almost a mile's worth of spun single!
That literally took me more than a month to spin, on a teeny weeny Bosworth spindle (also acquired at MDSW). And for my brother's wedding this fall, a portion of that spun silk turned into this:
Lemme tell ya, doing cobweb silk is not for the faint of heart, in either spinning or knitting. I accidentally pulled out a needle at one point around row 46, and it took six HOURS to recover! Honestly, not going to EVER knit that kind of laceweight ever again without having point protectors on everything!
I also spun about 400 yards of laceweight blue faced leicster in the last two months (no pix right now), I'm almost done with a two-ply alpaca silk blend (pictured below while still in singles) that is a part of the quarterly spinner's challenge on Ravelry (calm, soft fibers, and monochromatic yet varigated. I think I've got everything except varigated, it looks like a tweed), and I'm about to get started on the November spinners challenge, which is "Marine Life" as a theme. Considering I picked up a pound and a half of merino over the summer in oceanic colors like turquoise and sea green, I think I'll do fine, as long as I can get done with the current spinning!
The alpaca/silk blend, by the way:
Yes, I've got a thing for cobweb and laceweights, although the two-ply version of that blend is much thicker... since I spun it very gently and I am making sure it's balanced, it's *extremely* soft, but it's bulking up much more than I thought when I made the single ply that you see there. I'm calling it "Just Before the Dawn", because of the sepia tones... You know how just before the sun starts to rise everything has that sepia tone look to it? Yeah, that. I was originally hoping that with the cobweb weight, I would get something that looked very spiderwebby, and that would look like the morning dewdrops on it, but since the plying made it bulk out more than I thought, I'm guessing not. But it feels wonderful! And there's still a metric ton of the fluff left!
Okay, that's it for now. At some point I'll get pix of those socks from the RSC... In the meantime, I'll go back to spinning... :)
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