In Which the Pirate Levels Up.

Apologies for the posting delay. Life became very busy, very suddenly, and left me very little time to knit and spin. I had a short deadline on a graphic design project that I hadn’t expected to be doing, and then spent last weekend at my parents’ for Rosh Hashanah (no knitting). But now I am back with a firm determination to catch up in my fibery pursuits!

Because it’s really unlikely that the second half of the merino-silk blend is so much more well-behaved than the first, I’m going to guess that I went up a level in Spinning Skill between bobbins. I fought with the first half; the second half seems to draft more easily, has fewer nepps and sticky bits, and is generally spinning up much more smoothly. The finished yarn should be interesting, with a very slight thick and thin texture to it. I am considering making a pair of gloves, armwarmers or mittens from it. It probably won’t be smooth enough for socks, but I can’t totally rule that out.

I think I want to spin something lively, next. Perhaps the Finn/Mohair batts that I carded should make a floofy textured yarn. There’s eight ounces of the stuff (probably more like 6.5 after discarding all the short bits and dirt) and I’m thinking that a light worsted weight would be perfect to show off the character of the fiber. I have a bunch of batts which were sorted out by color and progress from this pinky-orange through to the greens. Perhaps I will tear each of them in half and spin a two-ply where the colors will mostly match up. Except for one failed attempt at the alpaca batts, I haven’t spun from batts before. I’ve certainly never spun anything so textured. It will be a fun challenge!

Yesterday I told a non-fibery friend that my eventual goal is to sell handspun yarns on Etsy. I think I’m almost good enough to get started with that; now my problem might be that I get so attached to the yarn I spin, I don’t want to let it go! Maybe I should start spinning in colors I don’t like, in yarn sizes that I won’t use? Ahh, a sunny yellow three-ply worsted weight would be easy to put up in the shop.